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)
5th Overall: Kris Letang (Montreal Canadiens)
6th Overall: Tuukka Rask (Columbus Blue Jackets)
7th Overall: Bobby Ryan (Chicago Blackhawks)
8th Overall: Marc-Edouard Vlasic (San Jose Sharks)
9th Overall: Ben Bishop (Ottawa Senators)
10th Overall: James Neal (Vancouver Canucks)
11th Overall: T.J. Oshie (Los Angeles Kings)
12th Overall: Keith Yandle (New York Rangers)
13th Overall: Paul Stastny (Buffalo Sabres)
14th Overall: Marc Staal (Washington Capitals)
15th Overall: Patric Hornqvist (New York Islanders)
16th Overall: Niklas Hjalmarsson (Atlanta Thrashers)
17th Overall: Anton Stralman (Phoenix Coyotes)
18th Overall: Jack Johnson (Nashville Predators)
19th Overall: Matt Niskanen (Detroit Red Wings)
20th Overall: Justin Abdelkader (Florida Panthers)
Now we move forward to the 21st pick, which was held by the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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, Toronto selected goaltender Tuukka Rask out of Ilves Tampere of the SM-liiga in Finland. His selection was one of the top picks in the trade as you may have noticed he went sixth overall in our redraft. Unfortunately for the Leafs, they never really got to reap the benefits of this selection. Just one year after picking him, Toronto dealt him to Boston in exchange for Andrew Raycroft, a goalie only two years removed from getting the Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year.
The Leafs were hoping that Raycroft would be their goalie of the present and future. It didn’t exactly work out that way as he spent just two years in Toronto, recording 39 wins in 91 games. He bounced around the NHL for a few more years with stops in Colorado, Vancouver, and Dallas, before heading overseas to play in Italy and Sweden before retiring following the 2013-14 season.
As for Rask, he has become one of the better goalies in the league with the Bruins. He has played in 343 games, going 176-105-43 with a career 2.21 GAA and a .925 SV%. He also won the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s best goalie in 2013-14. While Toronto may not want a mulligan on their selection back in 2005, they’d surely like a do-over on their decision to trade Rask before ever playing a game in their system.
With the 21st pick of the 2005 NHL Redraft, who should the Maple Leafs select? Cast your vote below!
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