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.
Our look back at the 2006 NHL Entry Draft is now in full swing as we poll the PHR community to see who would have been selected in the first round and in what order knowing what we know now. Through the first 21 picks, we’ve already seen potential Hall of Fame players switch teams, and multiple captains move up and down the draft board.
Here are the results of the redraft so far:
1st Overall: Jonathan Toews (St. Louis Blues)
2nd Overall: Claude Giroux (Pittsburgh Penguins)
3rd Overall: Nicklas Backstrom (Chicago Blackhawks)
4th Overall: Brad Marchand (Washington Capitals)
5th Overall: Phil Kessel (Boston Bruins)
6th Overall: Jordan Staal (Columbus Blue Jackets)
7th Overall: Milan Lucic (New York Islanders)
8th Overall: Kyle Okposo (Phoenix Coyotes)
9th Overall: Erik Johnson (Minnesota Wild)
10th Overall: Derick Brassard (Florida Panthers)
11th Overall: Bryan Little (Los Angeles Kings)
12th Overall: Nick Foligno (Atlanta Thrashers)
13th Overall: Semyon Varlamov (Toronto Maple Leafs)
14th Overall: Artem Anisimov (Vancouver Canucks)
15th Overall: Michael Grabner (Tampa Bay Lightning)
16th Overall: Patrik Berglund (San Jose Sharks)
17th Overall: Jeff Petry (Los Angeles Kings)
18th Overall: Jonathan Bernier (Colorado Avalanche)
19th Overall: Mathieu Perreault (Anaheim Ducks)
20th Overall: Michael Frolik (Montreal Canadiens)
21st Overall: Cal Clutterbuck (New York Rangers)
22nd Overall: James Reimer (Philadelphia Flyers)
23rd Overall: Leo Komarov (Washington Capitals)
24th Overall: Steve Mason (Buffalo Sabres)
25th Overall: Michal Neuvirth (St. Louis Blues)
26th Overall: Chris Stewart (Calgary Flames)
27th Overall: Andrew MacDonald (Dallas Stars)
After taking Ivan Vishnevskiy with their actual pick. the Stars wind up with a better fit on the back end in MacDonald, who jumped up 133 spots from his actual selection.
It took until 2010-11 for MacDonald to make it to the NHL on a full-time basis with the Islanders where he showed some offensive upside early, recording 27 points in his rookie campaign. That remains his career-high to this date. He remained with the Isles until March of 2014 when he was flipped to the Flyers for a pair of draft picks, one of which was later flipped to Boston as part of the deal that brought them Johnny Boychuk.
At the time of the trade, MacDonald was logging over 25 minutes a night and his ice time stayed rather high after joining Philadelphia. As it looked like he was going to be a key shutdown defender for the foreseeable future, the Flyers inked him to a six-year, $30MM contract extension less than six weeks after the trade, a move that hasn’t worked out as well as they hoped.
He has spent considerable time as a healthy scratch in each of the last five seasons and even cleared waivers in the 2015-16 campaign which saw him suit up in his first minor league games since 2009-10. All in all, he has played in 251 games with the Flyers since the trade but has been more of a complementary player than a core one. Suffice it to say, the contract – which runs through next season – hasn’t worked out as well as they hoped for.
That said, MacDonald has still carved out a pretty good career for himself considering he was initially a sixth-round pick. It’s unlikely he’ll remain in Philadelphia when his contract expires and given that the league is trending away from stay-at-home players in favor of strong skaters, it will be interesting to see what type of market he has in the 2020 offseason.
We move to the twenty-eighth pick which was held by Ottawa. They made a very good pick with their original selection, landing wigner Nick Foligno who has played the sixth-most games of anyone in this draft class. He went twelfth overall in this redraft so the Senators will wind up with someone else this time around. Who should they take? Have your say by voting in the poll below.
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2003 would be a fun draft to re-vote