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2007 NHL Draft Take Two: Sixth Overall Pick

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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 2007 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?

Here are the results of the redraft so far, with their original draft position in parentheses:

1st Overall: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks (1)
2nd Overall: Jamie Benn, Philadelphia Flyers (129)
3rd Overall: P.K. Subban, Phoenix Coyotes (43)
4th Overall: Logan Couture, Los Angeles Kings (9)
5th Overall: Max Pacioretty, Washington Capitals (22)

The Montreal Canadiens have now lost two players to the redraft top five, but amazingly neither of them were their first pick that year. Pacioretty was selected well ahead of Subban however, and he deserved it. Coming into the 2007 draft, the USHL star was already listed at over 6’1″ and weighed in at 203 pounds. He was a grown man already, ready to take on the next level of hockey at the University of Michigan. The goal-scoring forward ended up registering 39 points in 37 games as a freshman and won the CCHA Rookie of the Year award. He would also suit up for Team USA at the World Juniors, though he was held scoreless in the tournament.

Scoreless wasn’t something said to describe Pacioretty for long. Jumping to the AHL following just one year in college, he recorded 29 points in 37 games for the Hamilton Bulldogs and got into 34 contests with Montreal. After bouncing back and forth the next two years he broke out in his first full NHL season with 33 goals and 65 points in 2011-12, establishing himself as one of the premier goal-scoring wingers in the league. Though the next season was shortened by a lockout, Pacioretty would go on to record four more 30+ goal seasons between 2013-2017, taking on the Canadiens’ captaincy in the process.

Traded to the Vegas Golden Knights prior to last season, Pacioretty trails just Kane and Benn in goals from the 2007 draft class. His 488 points put him sixth in the group. In 45 career playoff games he has 15 goals and 30 points, and has routinely done most of his damage at even-strength. Though he may not have the high ceiling that players like Kane and Benn bring, Pacioretty has been a consistent top-six forward in the league for quite some time and is still an effective option. Not bad from a pick in the last third of the first round.

In hindsight, the Edmonton Oilers may have rather used the sixth pick on Pacioretty. Instead they decided to go with Sam Gagner, who was ranked sixth among all North American skaters after a simply incredible season for the London Knights of the OHL. Coming from the USHL himself, Gagner put up 118 points in 53 games centering a line with Kane and Sergei Kostitsyn. Unlike Kane however he also took home the gold medal as part of Team Canada at the World Junior, despite not even being drafted yet.

There was little doubt that Gagner was going to be an NHL talent. While some may have wondered if his offense would be good enough without Kane alongside him, he quickly put that thought to rest stepping directly into the NHL with the Oilers. Gagner put up 49 points in that 2008-09 season, finishing seventh in Calder Trophy voting. Unfortunately the 79 games he played that season would be the most he ever had in a single year with the Oilers as nagging injuries took away small chunks of playing time regularly throughout his career in Edmonton. Still he recorded at least 37 points in every season before bouncing around the league the last several years.

Gagner’s NHL career may be almost over at this point after spending the majority of the 2018-19 season in the minor leagues, but that doesn’t mean it has been a disappointment. In 802 career games the 30-year old has 446 points, which actually puts him eighth among all 2007 draftees. Sure, the Oilers may have had better options but Gagner was far from a bust. That doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily be the pick in our redraft though!

With the sixth pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Edmonton Oilers select? Cast your vote below!

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Poll: Who Are The Best Wingers In The NHL?

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Last week the NHL Network started their annual exercise rating the top players in the NHL by position, and gave us Connor McDavid as the best center in the world. The rest of the list created such debate that we polled the members of the PHR community and came up with our own ranking, which differed quite a bit. In fact, for the second year in a row our readers picked Sidney Crosby as the top center just barely ahead of McDavid. Nathan MacKinnon took up residence in spot three, while Auston Matthews managed to maintain his position ahead of Patrice Bergeron and the rest of the group.

Our PHR community-voted Top 20 Centers list currently looks like this:

  1. Sidney Crosby (838 votes)
  2. Connor McDavid (823 votes)
  3. Nathan MacKinnon (607 votes)
  4. Auston Matthews (509 votes)
  5. Patrice Bergeron (488 votes)
  6. John Tavares (445 votes)
  7. Steven Stamkos (350 votes)
  8. Evgeni Malkin (304 votes)
  9. Ryan O’Reilly (298 votes)
  10. Aleksander Barkov (283 votes)
  11. Jonathan Toews (264 votes)
  12. Mark Scheifele (242 votes)
  13. Brayden Point (209 votes)
  14. Jack Eichel (207 votes)
  15. Nicklas Backstrom (175 votes)
  16. Tyler Seguin (166 votes)
  17. Evgeny Kuznetsov (133 votes)
  18. Sebastian Aho (132 votes)
  19. Anze Kopitar (116 votes)
  20. Elias Pettersson (96 votes)

Now, the network has released their ranking of the best wingers in the NHL and the debate is even hotter. Nikita Kucherov took down the top spot once again following his 128-point MVP season. The Tampa Bay Lightning forward took home three individual awards after his incredible year but failed to help the team get out of the first round of the playoffs (or even win a single postseason game). Nevertheless, Kucherov is a rock solid choice at the top of the list and looks to be on a Hall of Fame path through the first six years of his career.

Behind him are a pair of players who will undoubtedly reach the Hall quickly after retirement. Patrick Kane and Alex Ovechkin continue to dominate the league in different ways, but have rarely found themselves out of the conversation of best wingers in the world. The rest of the top five is where the real debate happens however, as Atlantic Division rivals Brad Marchand and Mitch Marner round out the group. 2017-18 Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall dropped all the way to 15th, something the NHL Network fan vote corrected in their version of the list.

Just like our poll of centers, we want the PHR community to let us know who the best wingers in the world are. Unlike the last poll however, we’ll ask you to select 20 names because of the huge number of options.  Make sure to leave a comment below on who you think deserves to be recognized, or your thoughts on how the center poll ended. We’ve included many names that could be considered, but if you think we’ve missed someone important (which we undoubtedly have) make sure to leave his name down below.

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Poll: Which Team Has Improved The Most This Offseason?

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In two consecutive years a superstar offensive talent in his prime has changed teams in unrestricted free agency. Something that was previously almost unheard of went down in 2018 when John Tavares ditched the New York Islanders in favor of his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, and this summer featured a sequel. Artemi Panarin took the money and ran to the New York Rangers for a whopping seven-year, $81.5MM deal, leaving the Columbus Blue Jackets searching for an answer up front. That wasn’t the only thing the Rangers did. Jacob Trouba and Adam Fox have reshaped the right side of their defense, while they also just so happened to nab Kaapo Kakko with the second overall pick.

Does that make them the early winners of the offseason? New York wasn’t the only team making sweeping changes.

Just down the highway the New Jersey Devils weren’t going to be left behind. Adding Jack Hughes and P.K. Subban in a matter of days completely changed the face of the franchise, while Wayne Simmonds and Nikita Gusev came a little later to the party. If the big task for GM Ray Shero this summer was showing Taylor Hall the team was heading in a competitive direction, mission successful.

The Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres have all made meaningful additions through trade as well, acquiring names like Nazem Kadri, Andre Burakovsky, Erik Haula, Jimmy Vesey, Colin Miller and Henri Jokiharju. The latter came to Buffalo in a deal from the Chicago Blackhawks, who have certainly shaken things up over the last couple of months.

You can’t forget the Arizona Coyotes who finally have that star forward to build their offense around in Phil Kessel. The team has plenty of young talent and will happily welcome in the two-time Stanley Cup Champion, while also accepting a new owner into the fold.

Several teams around the league have taken drastic steps forward in their pursuit of playoff glory, but who had the best offseason of them all? Cast your vote below and make sure to explain yourself in the comments!

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2007 NHL Draft Take Two: Fifth Overall Pick

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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 2007 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?

Here are the results of the redraft so far, with their original draft position in parentheses:

1st Overall: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks (1)
2nd Overall: Jamie Benn, Philadelphia Flyers (129)
3rd Overall: P.K. Subban, Phoenix Coyotes (43)
4th Overall: Logan Couture, Los Angeles Kings (9)

After seeing the second and third picks going to players that weren’t even picked in the first round, Couture’s bump is only a small one from the ninth slot but it’s certainly a well-deserved one as he has emerged from one of the top scorers from this draft class.

Interestingly enough, Couture didn’t exactly get off to a great start.  His post-draft year was underwhelming as his production dipped by 20 points while he failed to show much progression in his development.  That took him off the radar of making the big club for the following year and it turned out that one more year in junior was great for him.  His production jumped back to a level where it should be for a top prospect in his second post-draft year and with his team being ousted from the playoffs early, he was able to get a head start on his pro career, joining AHL Worcester for their postseason.

That experience certainly made a difference as in 2009-10, his first full pro campaign, he averaged well over a point-per-game with the Baby Sharks and earned two stints with the big club.  The second came about a month before the playoffs and Couture was there to stay.

While his offensive numbers weren’t eye-popping in that first year, Couture made a big leap in his first full NHL season with 32 goals and 24 assists in 79 games.  Since then, he has been the model of consistency, ranging between 0.69 and 0.86 points per game in the eight seasons since then on his way to becoming the fourth-leading point-getter in this draft class.  The high mark actually came in 2018-19.  Even more impressive is that Couture has been more productive in the playoffs over the years relative to his regular season production which is something that can’t be said for a lot of players.  He’s entrenched as a core piece in San Jose and it’s hard to imagine they’re not anything but thrilled with how his selection turned out.

Let’s shift our attention to the next pick now which was held by the Washington Capitals.  A decade ago, stay-at-home defensemen were still in demand and Washington opted to go in that direction with the selection of Karl Alzner from Kelowna.  While he had shown some offensive upside in his draft year, his ceiling was viewed as a shutdown defender.

For the most part, he has lived up to that reputation as he logged an average of over 20 minutes a night over parts of nine seasons with the Capitals which isn’t necessarily a bad outcome from a first-round selection.

Things haven’t gone quite as well since he left to go to Montreal, however.  He has not adapted well to the requirements for a defender in the current NHL which prioritize mobility and puck-moving skills.  While the Canadiens played him in every game in 2017-18, he saw just nine games of NHL action last season and cleared waivers twice.  With three years left on his contract with a $4.625MM AAV, his contract is going to be an anchor on Montreal’s books for a while.  Needless to say, Alzner worked out a whole lot better for the Capitals than he has for the Canadiens and he currently sits tenth in games played from this draft class.

With the fifth pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Washington Capitals select?  Cast your vote below!

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*Tragically, 17th overall pick Alexei Cherepanov died at the age of 19 and would never get a chance to suit up in the NHL. He has not been included in this vote.

Poll: Which 35+ Free Agent Would You Rather Sign?

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Despite the lingering availability of Jake Gardiner on the market, most teams are just about done with their unrestricted free agent shopping. We saw Kevin Shattenkirk snapped up quickly as soon as he became available, but Michael Stone hasn’t had the same luck so far. Younger players like Ben Hutton may have to wait until the restricted free agent situations around the league are solved, just like some of the older names out there.

Like every year, August brings a lot of questions surrounding the future of long-time NHL skaters. Is it time to hang up their blades, or will there be a team offering a chance at one more kick at the can? In the NHL, multi-year contracts given out to players over the age of 35 come with some added risk. If that player decides to retire at any point, the full average annual value is still applied to his team’s salary cap and he becomes a burden on the books. That only really affects teams that give out expensive deals to aging players though, and one-year contracts for those veterans can actually be quite beneficial to both sides. One-year contracts signed by players over 35 are eligible to include performance bonuses, something that cannot be given to most other players during their NHL careers. We’ve seen plenty of these contracts handed out in the past, and they can be a perfect blend of low risk for the club and high reward for the player.

The group of 35+ skaters this year still without a contract is quite impressive. While last summer our community thought Scott Hartnell was the best “old guy” available late into free agency, this year has some names that could still provide quite an impact. Joe Thornton is one of those names that sticks out, though he is still expected to re-sign with the San Jose Sharks at some point. The (literal) graybeard has made it clear he wants to play again but only for the Sharks, though he’ll likely have to take a pay cut to do it.

Thornton doesn’t even lead the way in terms of 2018-19 production even though he had 51 points last season. Justin Williams takes the cake in that department after his impressive 23-goal, 53-point year with the Carolina Hurricanes. Williams is a respected leader and can still add some offense, but is still making his decision on whether to come back for another year.

Those two aren’t the only useful players in the group however, meaning there might be several 35+ deals handed out over the next month. If you could get one of them on a one-year deal for your team, who would it be? Cast your vote below and make sure to explain why in the comment section.

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2007 NHL Draft Take Two: Fourth Overall Pick

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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 2007 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?

Here are the results of the redraft so far, with their original draft position in parentheses:

1st Overall: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks (1)
2nd Overall: Jamie Benn, Philadelphia Flyers (129)
3rd Overall: P.K. Subban, Phoenix Coyotes (43)

Even though Kane held onto his top spot this redraft is already extremely different than how it actually went down. Two players from outside the first round have jumped up with Subban moving 40 spots. The Toronto native was a dynamic defenseman for the Belleville Bulls in 2007, coming off a 56-point campaign putting him fifth in team scoring among a group that included future NHL players like Shawn Matthias and Matt Beleskey. Subban’s puck-carrying nature was divisive even then, leading to a ranking of 102nd among North American skaters according to NHL Central Scouting.

You could conclude that the Canadiens reached to pick Subban in the second round given that ranking, but his infectious personality was immediately embraced by Montreal fans—especially because he had grown up one himself, despite being from Toronto. Subban would return to the Bulls in 2007-08 but made the World Junior team as the extra defenseman. In 2008-09 he would return to the tournament in a much bigger role and give everyone a glimpse of exactly what was coming. He led the tournament in points from a defenseman, was named to the tournament All-Star team and took home his second gold medal.

An NHL career followed soon after one year in the AHL, and Subban never looked back. An immediate presence on the Montreal blueline he would win a Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman in just his third season (though it was the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign). In 434 games for the Canadiens he registered 278 points, but would find himself traded on a day that lives in hockey infamy. On June 29th 2016 in the span of what felt like just a few minutes, Subban was traded for Shea Weber, Taylor Hall was traded for Adam Larsson and Steven Stamkos decided free agency wasn’t for him and re-signed with the Tampa Bay Lightning. In a new career chapter in Nashville, Subban would once again become a Norris finalist and help the team to the Stanley Cup Final. This spring everything changed once again however, with Subban shipped off to the New Jersey Devils in a cap-saving move.

The 30-year old Subban leads all defensemen from the 2007 draft with 408 points and has been a legitimate top-pairing player for years. He comes in at No. 3.

After Phoenix came the Los Angeles Kings back in 2007 and though they too went off the board to pick a defenseman, it unfortunately wasn’t Subban. Instead the Kings picked Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Thomas Hickey, who was coming off an impressive campaign in the WHL but was not nearly the highest-ranked blueliner on the board. Hickey was listed 26th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting behind other names like Karl Alzner and Ryan McDonagh, though there were several defensemen ahead of him on that list that barely scraped their way into the NHL at all.

That’s not the case for Hickey, who while not living up to his draft pedigree is still an effective enough player for the New York Islanders. The Islanders actually acquired Hickey off waivers from the Kings after he failed to crack the NHL lineup and was passed over on the depth chart by young defensemen like Jake Muzzin, Alec Martinez and Slava Voynov. He has ended up playing in 449 NHL games for New York, recording 115 points.

Those numbers aren’t exactly what you want from fourth overall, meaning Hickey clearly won’t be the choice here in our redraft. The Kings would certainly like another chance to pick someone from the rest of the group.

With the fourth pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Los Angeles Kings select? Cast your vote below!

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*Tragically, 17th overall pick Alexei Cherepanov died at the age of 19 and would never get a chance to suit up in the NHL. He has not been included in this vote.

Poll: Who Are The Best Centers In The NHL?

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NHL Network certainly knows how to throw the hockey world into a tizzy when it comes to ranking the best players in the league. Last night the network revealed their annual list of the Top-20 Centers in the NHL and once again Connor McDavid found himself edging out Sidney Crosby in the top two spots. Last season’s bronze recipient Evgeni Malkin fell all the way to #13 however, allowing Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon to jump a couple of spots up the list.

The Pittsburgh Penguins (Crosby, Malkin), Toronto Maple Leafs (John Tavares, Auston Matthews), Tampa Bay Lightning (Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point) and Washington Capitals (Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nicklas Backstrom) all have a pair of names on the list, giving the group a very Eastern Conference flavor. Despite Jonathan Toews’ resurgence in 2018-19 he was left off the list again along with potential snubs like Sean Couturier, Dylan Larkin and Mathew Barzal among many others.

Like last year, when our community actually crowned Crosby as top dog, we thought we’d do our own tally here at PHR. In the poll below we’ve listed many options and are asking you to vote for your top group by selecting 10 names. Do Stamkos and Tavares stay ahead of their younger teammates? Will Malkin get back into the top 10? Can Elias Pettersson climb even higher? Cast your votes below and make sure to leave a comment explaining your choices.

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Though Leon Draisaitl was included in the 2018 list, his absence suggests that the NHL Network considered him a winger this season. The same can be said about other part-time centers that haven’t been included in the poll above. The list is not exhaustive, and write-in votes are encouraged in the comment section.

2007 NHL Draft Take Two: Third Overall Pick

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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.

Starting this week, we’re looking back at the 2007 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?

Here are the results of the redraft so far, with their original draft position in parentheses:

1st Overall: Patrick Kane, Chicago Blackhawks (1)
2nd Overall: Jamie Benn, Philadelphia Flyers (129)

Already Benn has made one of the biggest jumps in any of the three years we’ve covered in this series. The Dallas Stars captain had only played a single year of junior hockey in the BCHL when he was picked in 2007, but immediately made the Stars look like geniuses thereafter. A dominating power forward for the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL the following two seasons, Benn would step right into the NHL in 2009 and never really look back. Scoring 22 goals and 41 points as a rookie he would finish seventh in Calder Trophy voting, actually four spots ahead of James van Riemsdyk who was the real second overall pick.

Benn has scored at least 22 goals in every season of his career save for the lockout-shortened 2012-13. He reached his peak on offense a few years ago when he recorded 41 goals and 89 points in 2015-16, establishing himself as a star in the league and earning an eight-year, $76MM extension to stay with Dallas for the majority of his career. Second among all 2007 draftees in goals and points, it’s easy to see why the voters took him ahead of the other available names.

Third overall in 2007 belonged to the Phoenix Coyotes, who must have seen Benn up close at some point but decided that Kyle Turris was the BCHL star they wanted. The British Columbia native had just put up 66 goals in 53 games for the Burnaby Express, leading the league by 15 (though he actually lost the overall scoring title to undrafted Tyler Bozak). Turris looked like a lock as a future first-line center, but unfortunately things didn’t go quite that smoothly in Arizona.

After a year at the University of Wisconsin, Turris decided to sign with the Coyotes but things wouldn’t last in the desert. After a few years bouncing back and forth from the minor leagues, Turris sat out the beginning of the 2011-12 season as a restricted free agent to try and force a trade but eventually would decide playing hockey was better for his career. After just six games with the Coyotes that season however, Turris was shipped to the Ottawa Senators. He would become an excellent player when given the minutes in Ottawa, but in 2017-18 he was flipped again when the Senators got a chance at Matt Duchene.

While Turris has been a fine player, he is coming off a terrible year with the Nashville Predators and ranks 11th in scoring from the 2007 draft. Certainly not a bust if you take his whole career into account, but you can bet the Coyotes would have liked a different player if they could do it all over again.

With the third pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Philadelphia Flyers select? Cast your vote below!

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*Tragically, 17th overall pick Alexei Cherepanov died at the age of 19 and would never get a chance to suit up in the NHL. He has not been included in this vote.

2007 NHL Draft Take Two: Second Overall Pick

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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.

Starting this week, we’re looking back at the 2007 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?

On Monday we asked the PHR community to weigh in on who should have been selected first overall in 2007 and after more than 2,100 votes (and probably even before that) the decision is clear. Though he didn’t get quite the 88% that Sidney Crosby came away with for the top honor from our 2005 redraft series, Patrick Kane was still the obvious choice to retain his top spot. Kane earned more than 85% of the votes with no other player earning even 4%. That certainly makes the decision for second a mystery, one that we’ll look at today.

Back in 2007, the Philadelphia Flyers held the second overall pick and decided to take a powerhouse winger from just a couple of hours up the road. Middleton, New Jersey native James van Riemsdyk had been a top prospect for years, though he had had gone a different route than fellow American-born winger Kane. While Kane decided to take his talents to the OHL in his draft year and play for the London Knights, van Riemsdyk stayed with the USNTDP and suited up with future NHL names like Colin Wilson, Jimmy Hayes and Kevin Shattenkirk. The young forward had been committed to the University of New Hampshire for years and wouldn’t join the Flyers organization for another two seasons.

When he did, it took him no time at all to make an impression. Jumping straight to the NHL in the 2009-10 season, van Riemsdyk recorded 15 goals and 35 points in his rookie campaign but finished 11th in Calder Trophy voting—the award went to Tyler Myers, who put up 48 points as a rookie defenseman for the Buffalo Sabres, a total he has never matched. van Riemsdyk was an obvious talent and would record his first 20-goal season the following year, but after a disappointing 43-game season in 2011-12 he found himself on the way to the Toronto Maple Leafs by way of trade. The Flyers would receive 2008 fifth-overall pick Luke Schenn, who had stepped directly into the NHL and was seen as a potential star shutdown defender.

Things didn’t quite work out that way for Schenn, but van Riemsdyk quickly morphed into a top goal-scoring threat for the Maple Leafs. In six years with Toronto the winger recorded 154 goals in 413 games, topping out with 36 in 2017-18. He found his way back to Philadelphia as a free agent last summer, and put up another 27-goal effort in just 66 games. In all, van Riemsdyk ranks sixth among 2007 draftees with 228 goals in his 675-game career and looks like he still has several years of top productivity left. While he hasn’t been the superstar that Kane turned into, he certainly wasn’t a bust with the second overall pick.

That doesn’t mean he was the best available pick though.

With the second pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Philadelphia Flyers select? Cast your vote below!

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*Tragically, 17th overall pick Alexei Cherepanov died at the age of 19 and would never get a chance to suit up in the NHL. He has not been included in this vote.

2007 NHL Draft Take Two: First Overall Pick

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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.

In the fall of 2016, PHR ran a series where fans were able to choose the order in which picks should have been selected during the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. While Sidney Crosby was still the obvious choice for first overall, there was huge turnover for the rest of the first round. Last summer we repeated the process for the 2006 draft, which moved Jonathan Toews up two spots to first overall and Erik Johnson all the way down to ninth among other changes.

This time around we’ll be looking at the 2007 draft which featured two American-born wingers headline an impressive offensive group. Five players from the first round never did make it to the NHL*, while four others would play fewer than 100 games. There was plenty of talent near the top of the 2007 class as well as a future captain who was passed over multiple times by the entire league. Now with the benefit of hindsight he’s surely going to be put up where he belongs.

Over the next month as we wait for training camp to begin, we’ll be going through the entire 2007 NHL Entry Draft to have the PHR community select who they would have picked knowing the result of the player’s career. We’ll include a list of players to vote for, and update the first round as it progresses. While 2006 actually had some discussion over who would be first overall, this year seems pretty cut and dry.

The Chicago Blackhawks had the first pick 12 years ago and didn’t make a mistake, choosing Patrick Kane after the undersized winger put up 176 points in 74 games for the London Knights of the OHL. Kane had some of the finest puck skills the league had ever seen, and was a lock to be an elite offensive producer at the next level. Now 30, the Blackhawks winger has been a superstar for more than a decade and will likely crack the 1,000 point mark during the 2019-20 campaign. He’s coming off a career-best 110 points and shows no sign of slowing down. The Blackhawks turned Toews and Kane into a Stanley Cup core and wouldn’t change a thing, but is he still the top choice looking back?

With the first pick of the 2007 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Chicago Blackhawks select? Cast your vote below!

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*Tragically, 17th overall pick Alexei Cherepanov died at the age of 19 and would never get a chance to suit up in the NHL. He has not been included in this vote.

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