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2001 draft evaluation -- all 30 NHL teams

Written by: Holly Gunning on 06/17/2006 Subscribe to HF's RSS Feed

Team Five years is considered the appropriate time to look back and judge a draft class. Over the past several weeks, Hockey's Future has examined each NHL team's 2001 draft crop. The hyperlinks in the table below lead to the individual articles.

While there were fewer stars at the very top of the 2001 draft than in 2000, by at least one aggregate measure, the 2001 draft produced more NHL talent. The average number of games played per pick by team was 26 in 2001, compared to only 20 in 2000 (as of summer 2005), with both draft classes experiencing one year of lockout in the five-year interval.

Another year, another big Islander trade, and in 2001 it was their first rounder to Ottawa as part of the Alexei Yashin deal. The Atlanta Thrashers won the draft lottery, however, and leapfrogged from third to the No. 1 spot. The Thrashers and Senators top the charts for games played per pick in 2001, on the strength of Ilya Kovalchuk and Jason Spezza, but both teams found value in later rounds as well, most notably goaltender Pasi Nurminen.

Team Avg. NHL games played/pick No. of picks No. of picks to see NHL
Atlanta Thrashers 50 9 3
Ottawa Senators 48 12 7
Colorado Avalanche 47 10 4
Minnesota Wild 47 7 5
Florida Panthers 43 12 5
New York Rangers 39 12 6
Edmonton Oilers 35 11 5
Montreal Canadiens 35 8 4
San Jose Sharks 34 6 3
Nashville Predators 32 9 3
St. Louis Blues 32 8 2
Boston Bruins 31 8 4
Los Angeles Kings 31 11 5
Vancouver Canucks 31 6 4
Buffalo Sabres 31 8 4
Philadelphia Flyers 30 9 4
Anaheim Mighty Ducks 25 11 6
Phoenix Coyotes 24 9 2
Toronto Maple Leafs 21 10 7
Pittsburgh Penguins 20 9 3
Calgary Flames 15 11 1
Chicago Blackhawks 15 13 4
Tampa Bay Lightning 13 14 2
Columbus Blue Jackets 11 11 4
Dallas Stars 10 10 2
Detroit Red Wings 10 7 1
New Jersey Devils 8 11 2
Carolina Hurricanes 7 8 1
New York Islanders 1 8 1
Washington Capitals less than 1 10 2

Teams with the most opportunity lost include Tampa Bay, having selected Alexander Svitov third overall, and Anaheim, having selected Stanislav Chistov fifth overall. Svitov struggled to stick with the NHL club before being traded to Columbus during the 2003-04 season. Chistov played 135 games with Anaheim before returning to Russia to play. Three of the top five picks in 2001 were Russian, but only Kovalchuk played the 2005-06 season in the NHL.

A few players from the 2001 draft remain very promising and may yet live up to their potential, including goaltender Pascal Leclaire (CLB) taken eighth overall and defenseman Carlo Colaicovo (TOR) taken at No. 17.

Best value selections by round:

Round 2: Mike Cammalleri 49th overall to Los Angeles

Round 3: Patrick Sharp 95th overall to Philadelphia

Round 4: Christoph Erhoff 106th overall to San Jose

Round 5: Jussi Markkanen 133rd overall to Edmonton

Round 6: Pasi Nurminen 189th overall to Atlanta, Marek Zidlicky 176th overall to NY Rangers

Round 7: Cristobal Huet 214th overall to Los Angeles, Marek Svatos 227th overall to Colorado

Round 8: Martin Gerber 232nd overall to Anaheim, Petr Cajanek 253rd overall to St. Louis

Round 9: Ivan Majesky 267th overall to Florida

Copyright 2006 Hockey's Future. Do not reprint or otherwise duplicate without permission of the editorial staff.


Copyright 2006 Hockey’s Future. Do not reprint or otherwise duplicate without permission of the editorial staff.

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