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 2009 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: Victor Hedman, New York Islanders (2)
2nd Overall: John Tavares, Tampa Bay Lightning (1)
3rd Overall: Ryan O’Reilly, Colorado Avalanche (33)
4th Overall: Matt Duchene, Atlanta Thrashers (3)
5th Overall: Chris Kreider, Los Angeles Kings (19)
6th Overall: Nazem Kadri, Phoenix Coyotes (7)
Rather than have history repeat itself by selecting Oliver Ekman-Larsson with the sixth pick, PHR readers instead opted to give the Coyotes a center with nearly 30% of the votes cast coming in for Kadri.
It took some time for Kadri to find his footing in the NHL but a breakout performance in the lockout-shortened 2012-23 campaign saw him secure a full-time role. That year, he posted a 0.93 points per game average and it looked like Toronto had found a true impact center, a vacancy they had dealt with for several seasons by that time with the likes of Mikhail Grabovski, Tyler Bozak, and Matt Stajan playing big minutes in the previous seasons.
However, it took a while for Kadri to really take off as he wasn’t able to produce like a true top-line middleman with consistency. In fact, it wasn’t until Auston Matthews arrived in 2016-17 that Kadri was able to reach the 30-goal mark, a milestone he then reached in back-to-back years. Unfortunately for Toronto, discipline issues became too much of a concern and in the 2019 offseason, he was traded to Colorado with Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot as part of the package coming the other way. Barrie lasted one season in Toronto before signing with Edmonton while Kerfoot held a middle-six role for each of the last four years and signed with Arizona last month.
Meanwhile, with the Avs, Kadri started slow, recording just 30 goals in his first two seasons combined, spanning 107 games. But in 2021-22, he had a career year, exploding for 87 points; his previous career-high was only 61. He then followed that up with an impressive playoff performance, notching 15 points in 16 games while helping lead Colorado to the Stanley Cup.
That made Kadri one of the more sought-after players last summer and while it took a while for Calgary to create enough cap room to sign him, a seven-year, $49MM deal eventually got done. Year one didn’t go so well (as was the case for many Flames) as his production dipped to 56 points. That’s still the third-best single-season mark of his career but they were undoubtedly hoping for a bit more from him as Calgary ultimately missed the playoffs. With six years left on that contract, he should be a fixture in their lineup for a while.
While Ekman-Larsson was a franchise fixture in the desert for more than a decade, they spent a lot of that time also searching for a center and it certainly is interesting to wonder what might have been had Kadri been the pick for them.
In the meantime, we move on to Toronto with the seventh selection. Obviously, their original pick (Kadri) is off the board so they’ll be getting someone new here. Who should they take? Make your selection using the ballot below.
If you can’t access the poll above, click here to vote.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.