New York Rangers: A Sad History of First Round Draft Picks
By Steve Paulus
Two decades of futility
The Rangers have had five top 10 picks in the last 19 years and all of them were absolute busts. It all began in 1999 when Neil Smith swapped Niklas Sundstrom, goalie Dan Cloutier and first and third round picks in 2000 for the fourth overall pick and then selected Pavel Brendl. Smith called Brendl a “franchise” player. The future of the franchise played all of 78 games in the NHL, scoring 11 goals… none in a Ranger uniform.
That same year Smith swapped first round picks with Calgary in order to draft Jamie Lundmark #9 overall. The Rangers also gave up Marc Savard and acquired Jan Hlavac and a third round pick. The result? Lundmark scored 11 goals in two seasons for the Rangers and finished his career with 40 goals in about 300 games.
The acquired third round pick never played in the NHL. Hlavac had two solid seasons for New York before going to Philadelphia in the Eric Lindros deal. Meanwhile, Marc Savard went on to notch 706 points in 806 NHL games in a solid career shortened by concussions.
As it turns out, 1999 was the year you didn’t want top picks as that draft is notable as one of the weakest in NHL history. Apart from the Sedin twins (drafted second and third) only a handful of players made an impact, including Henrik Zetterberg, Radim Vrbata, Martin Havlat and Ryan Miller.
The next top 10 pick was in 2001 when goalie Dan Blackburn was selected #10 overall. He ended up playing 63 games for the Rangers before a shoulder injury forced early retirement. Instead of Blackburn, the Rangers could have picked goalie Mike Smith. Other players drafted after Blackburn include Patrick Sharp, Mike Cammalleri and Jason Pominville.
Next up was Al Montoya, drafted sixth overall in 2004. Montoya has had a useful career as a backup goalie, but he never played a game for New York. This one hurts. Goalies taken after Montoya include Devan Dubnyk, Cory Schneider and Pekka Rinne. Other notables taken after Montoya include Alexander Radulov, David Krejci, Mark Streit and Travis Zajac.