Pro Hockey Rumors Originals

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)

Considering Philadelphia’s long-term struggles between the pipes, it’s only fitting that they wind up with Reimer, a goaltender, with this selection.  While he wouldn’t have come close to providing the value that Giroux (their original selection) did, he would have at least given them another NHL-caliber option between the pipes at a time where the Flyers had churned through a lot of different netminders.

Reimer gets quite a boost from his original selection as the Maple Leafs selected him with the 99th pick.  As is often the case with goaltenders, it took a while for him to make his mark as he didn’t make his NHL debut until 2010-11 after spending time at both the AHL and ECHL levels.

The 30-year-old has been remarkably consistent when it comes to his playing time.  In each of his eight NHL seasons (not including 2018-19), he has played between 32 and 44 games.  In other words, he has basically been a platoon player for most of his career but Reimer has still posted decent numbers, including a .914 SV%.  For comparison purposes, Philadelphia has only had a team save percentage above that mark in one of those years.

We now move on to the twenty-third pick which was held by the Washington Capitals.  The Caps used that pick on Semyon Varlamov, who they viewed as their goalie of the future (and our readers viewed as the top goalie of this draft class as he went thirteenth to Toronto).  It didn’t take too long for him to make an impact as he became a starter in the RSL (now the KHL) in his post-draft year and he was in North America for the 2008-09 season where he got into six games with the big club.  One year later, he was their full-time backup.

However, with Michal Neuvirth already in the fold and Braden Holtby close to being NHL-ready, Washington decided to deal him to Colorado for a 2011 first-round pick (used on Filip Forsberg) and a 2012 second-round pick (that they later dealt away).

In his time with the Avalanche, Varlamov has been their number one netminder (when he has been healthy, something that hasn’t always been the case).  In parts of eight years with the team, he has posted a quality .917 save percentage.  He led the league in wins in 2013-14 and is off to a fine start this season, leading the league with a .953 save percentage through his first seven starts.  Interestingly enough, his future in Colorado past this season is uncertain after history repeated itself in the summer with the Avs acquiring Phillip Grubauer from Washington with the idea that he will be their goalie of the future.

Although Washington’s original choice is no longer available, there are still some quality players to choose from.  Who should they take with the twenty-third selection?  Have your say by voting in the poll below.

Mobile users, click here to vote.

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)

While the Rangers were looking for a defenseman to pair with Marc Staal for the next decade, perhaps they should have been looking at a breakout winger in the OHL instead. During the 2005-06 season the Oshawa Generals gave feisty Cal Clutterbuck a chance to play a bigger role and he immediately paid dividends with 35 goals and 68 points in 66 games. The Generals were one of the worst teams in the league, but had a future superstar in 15-year old John Tavares who was already dominating the league.

Clutterbuck, a slightly older and much more physically mature winger, was given the job to skate alongside the Generals’ prized youngster and keep the other team from inflicting too much damage. He’d put up 139 penalty minutes that season but still came third in team scoring thanks to his talented centerman.

In the draft though, Clutterbuck wasn’t seen as a player who could drive a line himself and slipped all the way to the third round. The Minnesota Wild snatched him up with the 72nd pick, but by then all 30 teams had passed on him at least once. It was clear that people considered him a long shot even to make the league, let alone become the consistent bottom-six presence he is today. Clutterbuck made his NHL debut in the 2007-08 season, and then became a full-time player the next season. He’s never looked back, playing in 721 career games and scoring 207 points including a career-high 34 in 2010-11.

The Wild eventually traded Clutterbuck for Nino Niederreiter, squeezing even more value out of their third-round pick. It would turn out to be an incredible selection for them, and one the Rangers could have made late in the first round.

Now we’ll move on to the twenty-second overall pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, which was originally held by the Philadelphia Flyers.

There’s not much to say about the Flyers pick, other than it was arguably one of the best of the entire draft. Despite picking in the back third of the first round, Philadelphia picked their future captain and MVP candidate Claude Giroux, at the time an undersized forward out of the QMJHL.

Giroux had just scored more than 100 points as a CHL rookie for the Gatineau Olympiques, but was measured at just 169-lbs and ranked outside of the first round entirely by the NHL Central Scouting. In fact, Giroux was 38th among North American skaters in the final list and wouldn’t have been a surprise to see available in the second round.

The Flyers would have none of that though, and snatched up the extremely talented forward wit their first pick. He currently has 688 points through 747 career games, and was picked second overall in our redraft.

Philadelphia is maybe the biggest loser in this experiment, as they needed no hindsight to know Giroux was the right pick. If he wasn’t available though, they’d have to make a decision on one of the others. With the twenty-second pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Philadelphia Flyers select?

[Mobile users click here to vote!]

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 twenty 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)

There was a time when Michael Frolik would have gone much higher than twentieth in a redraft such as this, given that he started his NHL career with consecutive 21-goal seasons. At that point, Frolik had the look of an elite two-way winger for the Florida Panthers that could evolve into one of the best in the game. The high selection they used on him had paid off, until of course, it didn’t. Something changed in Frolik’s game and by the time he was finished his first full season with the Chicago Blackhawks he’d scored just eight goals and 24 points in 91 games for his second club.

Then the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season came and went with just 10 points, and Frolik looked like he might be finished as a top-six option, or even perhaps an NHL option at all. The 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs changed all that, as Frolik added another 10 points, was a crucial penalty killer and suddenly a Stanley Cup champion with the Blackhawks. That drummed up enough interest to get a few draft picks from the Winnipeg Jets as Chicago tried to deal with their cap issues, and Frolik’s career was reborn. Returning to the 40-point player he’d been previously, Frolik put up two solid seasons with the Jets before finding himself on the move once again to the Calgary Flames, where he plays to this day.

While that up and down career wouldn’t be exactly what Montreal wanted out of their first round pick, Frolik certainly would have benefited them more than David Fischer. Had he dropped this far in the real draft, the Canadiens would have certainly snapped up a talent like Frolik and plugged him into their top-six without hesitation. As it happens, they never even got a single NHL game out of the pick.

Now we’ll move on to the twenty-first overall pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, which was originally held by the New York Rangers.

The 2006 draft rankings were filled with big defensemen who could move the puck, and the Rangers weren’t going to let another one slip by them. Just a few years earlier they’d taken Hugh Jessiman just two picks before Brent Seabrook came off the board, and had watched him first hand that season score 32 points with the Blackhawks as a spectacular rookie. In 2005 they took Marc Staal, and why not select another talented OHL defenseman to pair with him for the next decade of Rangers hockey. With that in mind, they called on New Jersey-born Bobby Sanguinetti from the Owen Sound Attack and hoped he could be the next big goal-scoring defenseman in town.

Sanguinetti never did project as a great defender, despite his size and reach, but was one of the best in the whole draft at jumping into the rush or attacking with his powerful shot. He’d score 23 and 29 goals in his next two seasons of junior, confirming what the Rangers thought about him in 2006. When he entered professional hockey though, it was clear that his defensive lapses would be exposed too often, and he didn’t make his NHL debut until late 2009 when he was already almost 22 years old. That five game stint with the Rangers would be the last of him in New York, as he’d be shipped out that summer for a pair of draft picks.

In Carolina, Sanguinetti would get just a few more call-ups before he would eventually head to the KHL. A few more minor league seasons and he’d find himself back overseas in Switzerland, where he played last season. Impressively though, he would suit up for Team USA in the Olympics, a highlight of his career to be sure. Though those draft picks would net the Rangers Jesper Fast, there’s little doubt they would take someone else if given the chance today.

With the twenty-first pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, who should the New York Rangers select?

[Mobile users click here to vote]

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 eighteen 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)

You can’t find many more underrated hockey players over the last two decades than Mathieu Perreault. Except perhaps for being the second overall in the 2005 QMJHL Entry Draft, there haven’t been many expectations that he hasn’t shattered. In his draft year and first season in junior, Perreault was an immediate force for the Acadie-Bathurst Titan and led them deep into the playoffs with 21 points in 17 games. Despite that performance, he was passed on 176 times in the 2006 NHL draft before the Washington Capitals used a sixth-round pick on him. It proved to be one of the best picks of the draft, as Perreault went back to junior and proceeded to win a league MVP and then a scoring title in his final two years with the Titan.

After that, the undersized center went to the minor leagues where he was expected to just get by and continue to develop. Instead, he put up consecutive 50-point campaigns with the Hershey Bears and won back-to-back Calder Cup championships. Perhaps this kid had an NHL career ahead of him after all.

Perreault jumped into the NHL soon after and hasn’t looked back. He missed out on his fifth consecutive 40-point season in 2017-18 by just one point, despite missing time with various injuries every year of his career. There are few forwards with such versatility that are so consistent, but the Jets certainly know what they have. The Ducks, who selected Perreault in our experiment, could have desperately used that versatility over the years to help them contend for the Stanley Cup with their solid core. Even now they would likely love to have him on the roster to provide some more secondary scoring and fill in for their injured centers.

Now we’ll move on to the twentieth overall pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, which was originally held by the Montreal Canadiens.

One has to wonder how things would have turned out if the Ducks had picked someone other than Mark Mitera. Would the Canadiens have selected him with the next pick, given they were obviously impressed enough to trade for him just a few years later? Would they have been able to convince him to forego his senior season at Michigan, thus avoiding the major knee injury that altered his career trajectory? Instead, the Canadiens were left with David Fischer, another big-bodied American-born defenseman that was headed for the collegiate ranks.

Unfortunately, Fischer wasn’t the same kind of all-around talent that any of the other defensemen ahead of him were—even if only Erik Johnson really ended up panning out. The Canadiens pick was ranked 29th among North American skaters before the draft, and would end up failing to even live up to that ranking. Fischer would head to the University of Minnesota where he would fail to really stand out, before eventually turning down the Canadiens contract offer. Montreal would receive a compensatory draft pick, and Fischer would leave North American pro hockey in 2012.

Fischer is currently playing in Austria after spending a few seasons in the ECHL and DEL, but never even got close to a game in the NHL. He is one of only three players from the 2006 first round that can be said about, along with Mitera and Dennis Persson (who we’ll get to before long). If the Canadiens could do it again, it’s clear that they would pick someone other than the big defenseman from a Minnesota high school. But who would it be?

With the twentieth pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Montreal Canadiens select?

[Mobile users click here to vote!]

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 eighteen 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)

With a solid 23% of the vote, Bernier skips the first portion of his career with the Los Angeles Kings, Toronto Maple Leafs and Anaheim Ducks and goes right to the club that gave him a chance to earn his current multi-year deal. The Avalanche picked Chris Stewart in real life, but could have used a goaltender like Bernier to fill the pipes and help them avoid giving up assets for the rights of Semyon Varlamov. That trade ended up costing them the first-round pick that Washington used to select Filip Forsberg, who could have been an excellent addition to the center-heavy forward group they had in Colorado for several years.

Bernier in his own right could have benefited from being selected by Colorado instead of Los Angeles, as he wouldn’t have been stuck behind a young Jonathan Quick during their Stanley Cup runs. With the Avalanche, perhaps the small, reflexive Bernier could have grown into an even more talented netminder and established himself as a real elite option.

Now we’ll move on to the nineteenth overall pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, which was originally held by the Anaheim Ducks.

If you don’t remember the name Mark Mitera, you’re probably not alone. One of the forgotten first round picks from 2006, the Ducks certainly would like a do-over when it comes to their selection—though fans were ecstatic at the time. The big 6’3″ defenseman had already played one season at the University of Michigan and looked like a prototypical NHL defenseman at the time, capable of defending physically and making a quick pass when necessary. The Ducks were just about to enjoy the exploits of another big defenseman named Chris Pronger, and Mitera looked like the perfect player to complement some of their other offensive-minded weapons.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go exactly as planned. In his senior season at Michigan, Mitera, the newly-named team captain, tore the ACL in his left knee and missed all but eight games. The Wolverines would be knocked out of the NCAA tournament in the first round even after he rejoined them, pushing Mitera into the Ducks system and professional hockey. His first full season would be spent mostly in the ECHL, and his game never really rebounded. In 2011, just a few years after he entered Anaheim’s development system, they would trade him to Montreal. In 2013, he was out of hockey altogether.

Every team has first round misses like Mitera in their history, but for the Ducks it was a painful one. The team was right in the middle of an incredibly competitive window, and though they won the Stanley Cup in 2007, wouldn’t be able to climb the mountain again despite a tremendously talented core. Claude Giroux was taken just a few picks later, and several other stars later in the draft. If they’d been able to foresee Mitera’s injury and subsequent decline, there’s no doubt they would have picked someone else.

With the nineteenth pick of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Anaheim Ducks select?

[Mobile users click here to vote]