Here’s a sample of what you might be getting yourself into: twenty years of the fifth selection in the National Hockey League Entry Draft.
2007 – Karl Alzner, Washington. Dude hasn’t even played a pro game yet. Come on. Bust. (Seriously, he could be a Bear to face in ’08-09, if he’s not a Capital.)
2006 – Phil Kessel, Boston. Great name. Beat cancer. Second-most GP so far of any ’06er to date (No. 2 Jordan Staal). Brother may be a Sound Tiger someday. What’s not to like?
2005 – Carey Price, Montreal. A Calder Cup and a full-time job.
2004 – Blake Wheeler, Phoenix. And now a Bruin.
2003 – Thomas Vanek, Buffalo. He can play some. But Zach Parise still = ROTY ’05.
2002 – Ryan Whitney, WBS Pittsburgh. Two years later, left BU to beat Bridgeport.
2001 – Stanislav Chistov, Anaheim. Lotsa skill. Didn’t happen. Went home.
2000 – Rafael Torres, N.Y. Islanders. Three finals in five years; zero championships. Our hero at getting guys out of the weight room, though.
1999 – Tim Connolly, N.Y. Islanders. Had 40 points in 48 games this year. The other 34 were painful, poor kid.
1998 – Vitaly Vishnevsky, Anaheim. Anaheim trades him and wins the Cup. No causality, but…
1997 – Eric Brewer, N.Y. Islanders. Of course, he was traded, too.
1996 – Ric Jackman, Dallas. Not Tim. He won the Cup with Anaheim, though.
1995 – Daymond Langkow, Tampa Bay. Part of the fun Chris Gratton-compensation trade. Solid Calgary contributor.
1994 – Jeff O’Neill, Hartford. Drafted in Hartford. I was there. Right on.
1993 – Rob Niedermayer, Florida. Had to deal with it while brother won Cups. Then got to share one with him.
1992 – Darius Kasparaitis, N.Y. Islanders. Also traded (eventually), but not before awesome ESPN commercial.*
1991 – Aaron Ward, Winnipeg. Once traded with a pick that became John Jakopin**. He’s fashioned himself a solid career.
1990 – Jaromir Jagr, Pittsburgh***. Remember this draft? Nolan, Nedved, K. Primeau, Ricci, and that Czech kid? (Lucky Islanders: sixth in a five-“franchise-player” draft.)****
1989 – Bill Guerin, New Jersey. Drafted from the Springfield Pics. Said it since his early Devils days: I’d want him on any team I had. I’d want him on my softball team.
1988 – Daniel Dore, Quebec. Better off with Michel Bergeron. Wheeler and Alzner are the only other two on this list who’ve never played an NHL playoff game. He never played one as a pro, period*****.
*-Later traded for Rick Berry. It’s a tiny, tiny world.
**-See above, minus the Berry part.
***-Never traded for a southern-Connecticut player. Oh well.
****-If it wasn’t 1990 and there wasn’t still an uncertain steel curtain and Boris Yeltsin on a tank wasn’t a year away… how high would you take 20-year-old Sergei Zubov (5-85), 22-year-old Peter Bondra (8-156) and 26-year-old Sergei Nemchinov (12-244)?
*****-And if you guessed this post was a long-winded trip to 1988, well… Take a look at the ’88 draft, which more or less convinced me that the draft is a crapshoot. In that Times story linked above, Esposito says it didn’t matter if he picked fifth (Dore) or 21st (Jason Muzzatti). Maybe true. But look at 7-10: four thousand-gamers, three (one right away, two eventually) Cup champions and a guy who’s been larger than life, probably three Hall of Famers (heck, maybe four if the mood in the room is right). Then you go through some ups and downs until BANG: Recchi, Amonte and Rob Blake in four picks, then six picks to Keith Carney, then another five to Joe Juneau. And still some good ones to come. You see it happen in other years, but still: funky that they bunch up like that…