Poll: 2005 NHL Draft Take Two: Fifth Overall Pick

Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams – or players – intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.

We’re looking back at the 2005 NHL Draft, which kicked off the salary cap era and ushered in many of the current NHL superstars. The question we’re looking to answer is knowing now what we didn’t know then, how different would this draft look now with the benefit of hindsight?

Here are the results of our redraft so far:

1st Overall: Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)
2nd Overall: Carey Price (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim)
3rd Overall: Anze Kopitar (Carolina Hurricanes)
4th Overall: Jonathan Quick (Minnesota Wild)

Now we move forward to the fifth pick, which was held by the Montreal Canadiens.

To recap how this works:

• We will go through the 2005 NHL Draft and have our readers select, through a voting process, who they think should have been taken with the selection.
• The entire first round will be redrafted, spanning picks one through thirty. The new selection is chosen by the majority of votes.

Back in 2005, the Canadiens chose goaltender Carey Price.  The pick was a surprise to many and came under criticism since the team already had Jose Theodore between the pipes and Jaroslav Halak in their system.  Many figured they would have been better off with a forward like Gilbert Brule or a defenseman like Marc Staal.  Of course, the selection has turned out quite well for Montreal as Price has become their franchise player (while Theodore wound up being traded near the 2006 trade deadline).

With the fifth pick of the 2005 NHL Draft, who should the Montreal Canadiens select? Cast your vote below!