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 2008 NHL Entry Draft and asking how it would shake out knowing what we do now. Will the first round remain the same, or will some late-round picks jump up to the top of the board?
The results of our redraft so far are as follows with their original draft position in parentheses:
1st Overall: Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay Lightning (1)
2nd Overall: Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings (2)
3rd Overall: Roman Josi, Atlanta Thrashers (38)
4th Overall: Alex Pietrangelo, St. Louis Blues (4)
5th Overall: Erik Karlsson, Toronto Maple Leafs (15)
6th Overall: John Carlson, Columbus Blue Jackets (27)
Instead of the underwhelming Nikita Filatov, the Blue Jackets grab one of the best offensive defensemen of the last decade. Carlson has posted at least 70 points in three of the past four years and reached his career-high of 75 in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign, earning him a second-place finish in the Norris Trophy voting. He logged nearly 26 minutes a night in his 2018 Stanley Cup run and is on track to hit 600 career points early this season. It’s not often that a draft has five defensemen this capable that can dominate the early board but the Blue Jackets have followed the trend and picked their own franchise blueliner.
We now move on to the seventh selection and the first of two first-round selections by the Nashville Predators.
There was always a chance that the Predators could change the direction of their franchise with the 2008 draft, though few would expect it to come from the second round, when Josi was selected 38th. Instead, one would have thought it was either the seventh or 18th pick that would become the franchise-altering talent down the road.
With their first selection, general manager David Poile (who has been well connected to USA hockey for a very long time) decided to dip into the college ranks and take freshman standout, Colin Wilson, from Boston University. Wilson had absolutely dominated the U18s, scored six goals in six games at the World Juniors and had NHL pedigree. His father, Carey Wilson, had scored over 400 points at the NHL level and competed in the Olympics (for Canada), his uncle Geoff Wilson was a draft pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and his grandfather Jerry Wilson played three games for the Montreal Canadiens in 1956-57. In fact, Carey had been acquired by the Calgary Flames just months after Poile had left his role there as AGM, making the selection of Colin a kind of odd family circle.
This wasn’t some nepotistic pick, though. Wilson was a powerhouse for BU, scoring 12 goals and 35 points in 37 games as a freshman, making him the ninth-ranked North American skater by NHL Central Scouting and a sure bet to be an impact player at the professional level. When he won the Jim Johannson Award as the USA Hockey College Player of the Year the following season and led BU to a national championship, it was clear he was ready to make the jump. He played in the World Championship that spring against NHL talent (where Poile was AGM for the U.S. team) and then transitioned to professional hockey in 2009-10.
While he may not be the best player selected that year, Wilson had a solid career, scoring 113 goals and 286 points in 632 games. He was a versatile middle-six forward for many years with the Predators, reaching a career-high 20 goals and 42 points in 2014-15.
After announcing his retirement in early 2021, Wilson continued to have a positive impact in a very different way. He released an emotional piece in The Players’ Tribune that detailed his struggles with a diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder, his battle to keep a career on the rails, and his hopes that others facing similar difficulties would open up about them in the future.
I played in the NHL. I lived my dream. And I fought through hell to make a career for myself. My name might not be on the Stanley Cup, and that’s fine. Because I know there is an opportunity ahead of me to not just leave my mark on the game of hockey, but also on lives all across the world.
When Jimmy Hayes tragically died in the summer of 2021 because of an apparent drug overdose, Wilson took to the Tribune’s pages again, to go even deeper into his own history of drug abuse. It was an attempt to come clean with himself and perhaps shine a bit brighter spotlight on the growing overdose epidemic, and how it affects people with mental health disorders.
Unlike some of the other players that were picked in the first round, Wilson wasn’t a bust. He sits 18th in points among all players from the draft class. But With the advantage of hindsight, the Predators can pick a different talent, someone that would have had an even greater effect on the organization.
With the seventh overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft, who will the Nashville Predators select? Cast your vote below.
[Mobile users click here to vote!]
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
POV: Eberle, Atkinson, and Spurgeon split the vote and NSH picks a G.
No.
Can someone explain the Markstrom over Holtby debate. I get Markstrom has been amazing the last few seasons but are we forgetting Holtby has a cup, a Vézina, and 4 more all star appearances.
seems like this should be a clear Eberle vs Holtby debate
Recency bias. A lot of people are voting based on how these players did last year instead of taking their entire career into account. Holtby > Markstrom by a wide margin.
This vote is going towards a major recency bias. Markstrom is better now but it took him a long time to break out. Holtby has had a better career by far.
Holtby was on far better teams. He’s always been average at best.
Regardless, there’s no way the preds take a goalie in the first round in this draft. Eberle is the correct pick for me
I’m normally a believer that crowd sourcing typically produces the correct answer, but man…even with hindsight, the “crowd” is blowing this draft.
Crowds cant get it right… Like ever. Thats why they’re crowds
I’m surprised Spurgeon is only tied for fourth right now for this pick.
He was my pick. Surely Poile picks him in hindsight?
Surely not.
Poile is obsessed withe defensemen though.
Holtby
Okay, we’re drafting with 20:20 hindsight here. Fair enough.
But we should also be drafting with an eye towards what these teams are going to need, and Nashville did NOT need to have either Holtby or Markstrom warming the bench for their entire career. See, in the fall of 2008, the Predators decided to go with a fellow named Rinne in net. 13 seasons, 600+ games, 60 shutouts, a Vezina and a borderline Hall of Fame career under the belt, what they won’t need is another goalie.
Eberle’s still on the board. Atkinson’s still on the board. Heck, Brodie and Schultz are still on the board, although they do have six seasons to replace Josi as an impact defenseman, and it isn’t as if Shea Weber isn’t taking care of business for many years to come.
I thought lack of respect for spurgeon would end with this pick.Guess people do not see minnesota play very much. His career as whole is superior to holtby, markstorm,atkinson or eberle. Would take him today before any of these four also.
Atkinson has over 100 more points in less games played than Spurgeon and Eberle has more than 250 more points. I think it’s fair to say they have had superior careers to Spurgeon. Not saying Spurgeon is bad, but those 2 prolly deserve it more.
@wreckage, Spurgeon is also a defenseman not a forward.
Sure, but it would be years before Nashville needed to replace Josi in the lineup — it was four seasons before he played at all, and six before he was a top-pairing defenseman. Spurgeon was eating minutes relatively early on, but he wasn’t a serious impact guy before 2014, a point where Jordan Eberle had already had over 200 points and had been a Byng finalist.
In 2008, JP freaking Dumont was Nashville’s leading scorer. In 2009, Hornqvist was. The next season, Sergei Kostitsyn’s freak year was. In 2011 it was Martin Erat. It was SHEA WEBER in 2012 and 2013. That’s a six year stretch where only twice did anyone reach 60 points, and only three times did anyone get as many as 30 goals. This is a team that fielded guys like Weber, Ryan Suter, Ryan Ellis and Seth Jones; they weren’t in dire need of defensemen. They needed scoring, badly.