The NHL Draft is an exciting moment for fans, as they get to see their teams make plans to scoop up bright young players from around the world. Will the first-round picks become future legends? Will a late pick surprise everyone? The tension is palpable when the draft comes around. Here are the thirty best picks in the history of the NHL!
Paul Cotter
The Vegas Golden Knights took Paul Cotter in the fourth round of the 2018 draft. Cotter’s spot, 115th overall, makes some sense. He’s on the roster to add some depth and redundancy against injury. But he’s been quite the ace secret weapon for Vegas in his short time with the team.
Connor Hellebuyck
It’s weird to think that Hellebuyck was picked in the fifth round in 2012, because he’s one of the best goal tenders in the NHL at the moment. He’s been a finalist for the Vezina Trophy in three of the last six seasons, speaking to his dominance in his role.
Kirill Kaprizov
Kaprizov played for six seasons in the KHL before getting drafted in the fifth round of the 2015 NHL Draft. He came to the US as an relative unknown, but his late selection had as much to do with teams being hesitant to go for a Russian player. Notably, he’s also only 5-foot-9, which made some teams hesitate to pick him.
Joe Pavelski
It’s no wonder that there were strong players coming out of even the seventh round of the 2003 draft. That was one of the most stacked draft classes in the history of the NHL. Joe Pavelski was the 205th overall pick and was taken up by the San Jose Sharks. Many teams didn’t want to take a chance on the scrawny player, but he ended up proving himself across a long 1,000-point career.
Pekka Rinne
In the eighth round of the 2004 draft, the Nashville Predators picked up goalie Pekka Rinne. Rinne ended up being a wise choice, as he went on to win the Vezina Trophy and become the Predators’ career recordholder in every major goaltending category.
Jaccob Slavin
The Hurricanes got way more than they bargained for in the sixth round of the 2012 draft when they picked Jaccob Slavin. Many teams were concerned about Slavin’s role as a defender when compared to his size, but he became an outsized factor in the Hurricanes’ blueline as he came into his own.
Henrik Lundqvist
The Rangers took Lundqvist in the seventh round of the 2000 draft. It’s weird to think that anyone would choose the Hall of Famer 205th overall, but it took him time to develop into the superstar he’d later be known as.
Troy Terry
The Anaheim Ducks picked up Troy Terry in the fifth round (148 overall) in 2015 and it took him some time to come into his own. It didn’t help that he was on the smaller side when he was drafted, weighing only 160 pounds. In the 2021-22 season, however, Terry had a huge breakout and became a major factor in Anaheim’s roster.
Daniel Alfredsson
The Ottawa Senators got their finest player on something of an accident. Alfredsson was the 133rd overall pick in the sixth round in 1994. In his NHL rookie year, he was awarded the Calder accolade, and during his final season in Ottawa he crossed the 1,100 point threshold.
Tucker Robertson
In the fourth round of the 2022 NHL Draft the Seattle Kraken picked Tucker Robertson. Why was the OHL champion a day-two pick? Well, frankly, it’s due to the OHL’s schedule. Robertson’s first draft year in 2021 fell during a season the OHL didn’t play.
Valeri Kamensky
In the seventh round of the 1988 draft, the Avalanche were rewarded for their patience with Valeri Kamensky. Interestingly, he didn’t leave Russia until 1991, leaving his role with the team in limbo for years. His 1996 Stanley Cup win with Colorado shows how much their patience paid off, though.
Doug Gilmore
The five-foot-seven Doug Gilmour was taken in the seventh round of the 1982 draft. The St. Louis Blues picked him 134th overall, fearing he was too small to perform well in the NHL. As any fan knows, Gilmour played 20 years in the NHL and actually gained four inches during his tenure in the league.
Jamie Benn
Scouts missed Jamie Benn altogether when he was making his way to the league. With his role as the face of the Dallas Stars, it’s pretty difficult to imagine anyone overlooking him these days. He was taken in the fifth round in 2007, 129th overall.
Hal Gill
The Bruins got a huge bargain when they drafted Hal Gill in the eighth round in 1993. His game could be described as workmanlike, in a word, as he was an austere defenseman with an unmovable play pattern that made him impossible to get past.
Henrik Zetterberg
The Red Wings got a big boost by taking up Zetterberg in the seventh round in 1999. This call actually changed the way that NHL teams looked at European scouting in the early 2000s, reconfiguring the way teams thought about overseas players.
MacKenzie Weegar
During the 2013 draft, the Florida Panthers went in on defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in the seventh round. He was the 206th overall pick, but he ended up being an extremely successful defensive player and was later traded in part for Matthew Tkachuk.
Keith Yandle
The Coyotes scooped up Keith Yandle in the fourth round in 2005, seemingly overlooked due to a combination of factors. It’s quite bizarre he was the 105th picked player overall given that scouting put him at rank 55 among all North Americans, but that was a huge win for Arizona.
Connor McDavid
The Oilers scooped up McDavid with their number one draft pick in 2015, seeing his obvious talent on the ice as a clear indication that he could shore up the team’s weaknesses. He’s developed into one of the best players in the NHL in the intervening nine years.
Brett Hull
Weirdly, NHL scouts didn’t have high hopes for Brett Hull in the 1984 draft. He ended up making his sixth round, 117th overall draft pick from the Calgary Flames look downright ridiculous with his fifth-all-time career goals of 741 by the time he retired.
Jaromir Jagr
The Penguins took Jagr in the first round of the 1990 draft. Alongside Mario Lemieux, Jagr was a huge factor in the Penguins’ dominance in the early 90s and their two Stanley Cup victories. His 1,921 points are second only to Wayne Gretzky’s.
Sidney Crosby
The Penguins knew they needed something to change when they first-picked Crosby in the 2005 draft. The 2004-05 season was famously canceled, and Crosby took to the ice with huge expectations on his shoulders. His ability to take the Penguins to three Stanley Cups definitely met those expectations.
Mike Bossy
The Islanders took Bossy late in the first round of the 1977 draft. It was a good call, too, because the only other people to have nine 50-goal seasons are Alex Ovechkin and Wayne Gretzky. From 1980-1983, the Islanders just kept winning Stanley Cups, largely due to Bossy’s impressive play.
Mario Lemieux
The Penguins have had some really great scouting out of the draft, picking Mario Lemieux first overall in the 1984 draft. Lemieux himself was a serious force for Pittsburgh through the late 80s and won back-to-back Stanely Cups with them alongside then-newcomer Jagr in ’91 and ’92.
Jari Kurri
The Oilers picked up Kurri in the fourth round of the draft, and he’d go on to become a Hall of Famer like another ’80 Oilers pick, Paul Coffey. Kurri is the second highest-scoring Oiler of all time, behind (you guessed it) Wayne Gretzky. Kurri also played with them in five Stanley Cup championships. Â
Steve Yzerman
Yzerman joined the Red Wings after being picked by them in the first round of the 1983 draft. He got Detroit to the playoffs 20 times across his 22 years with the NHL, and helped them win the Cup in three of those seasons. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2009.
Dominik Hasek
The Blackhawks selected Hasek in the tenth round of the 1983 draft. Bizarrely, he wasn’t able to come to America until 1990, but when he did, Chicago felt his role was already filled by Ed Belfour. So, Hasek went to the Buffalo Sabres in 1992, becoming the only goalie to win back-to-back Hart Trophies. As a Red Wing, he won the Stanley Cup in 2002 and 2008.
Pavel Datsyuk
The Red Wings selected Datsyuk in the sixth round of the 1998 draft after having been completely passed over in ’96 and ’97. Red Wing scouts weren’t even initially looking into Datsyuk, having traveled to Russia to scout other players. Still, he quickly made a name for himself in the NHL and helped the Red Wings to Stanely Cup wins in 2002 and 2008.
Luc Robitaille
The LA Kings took Luc Robitaille in the ninth round in the 1984 draft. He was an iffy choice because he was somewhat sluggish on the ice, but he developed strongly over a 19-season career. He ended up with a total career points total of 1,394, putting him in the top 25 players of all time in scoring.
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Cam Atkinson
Cam Atkinson was, bizarrely enough, drafted in the sixth round by the Blue Jackets in 2008. The main factor that concerned teams was Atkinson’s injury at age 15: he broke his leg in a tournament and was told by doctors he’d never play again. His All-Star performance proved, of course, that was nonsense.
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Shawn Horcoff
In the fourth round of the 1998 draft, the Oilers took a gamble on a relatively unknown player: Shawn Horcoff. He was unceremoniously taken 99th overall, but he went on to play over 1000 games in the league and put up an incredible showing during the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2006.