Worst metro area draft picks
Draft time is when New York Rangers brass earn their salaries, but they don’t always score a bullseye, and sometimes they miss the target entirely.
The jury is still out as to how well the New York Rangers, Devils, and Islanders did with last season’s first-round draft picks, though the two marquee players had good (not bad, not great) and very comparable rookie campaigns.
Rangers right wing Kaapo Kakko showed flashes of brilliance as he got accustomed to North American play, but never truly broke out and was still feeling his way when play was suspended. In 66 games, the 19-year-old Finn tallied 10 goals and 13 assists (23 points), but had a plus/minus of -26.
Across the Hudson, Devils center Jack Hughes put up similar numbers. In 61 games, the 18-year-old had 7 goals and 14 assists (21 points), with a plus/minus of -26 in 61 games.
Hughes and Kakko garnered most of the headlines as the top two picks, while the Islanders drafted Swedish right winger Simon Holmstrom 23rd overall. He spent the season in the AHL, scoring just 15 points.
So none of those three first-rounders exactly tore up the league, but there is still plenty of time for them to find their sea legs. But other Metro Area high draft picks from bygone years haven’t fared so well. Here’s a look at the worst draft-time misfires, starting with the New York Islanders.
3rd worst Islanders draft pick
When an intelligent but not very handsome man marries a beautiful though not very bright woman, they probably hope their children have the best of their respective qualities. Similar wishful thinking applies when teams sign relatives of great players. But for every Brett Hull, Ken Griffey, Jr., and Peyton and/or Eli Manning, there is a longer list of players who were mere shadows of their more famous relatives. Like Brent Gretzky, Pete Rose, Jr., Tommie Aaron…and Brett Lindros.
Taken with the ninth overall pick in the 1994 draft, the six-foot-four right winger had size like older brother Eric Lindros. But not much else, other than a big head that just invited concussions.
Before being forced into retirement at the tender age of 20, the younger Lindros played in 51 games, with two goals and five assists for a total of seven points. Seven points versus the eight concussions he is believed to have suffered over his pro and junior hockey career.
2nd worst Islanders pick
Just how bad a decision was it for the Islanders to select Scott Scissons sixth overall in the first round of the 1990 draft?
There are virtually no photos to be found of him playing hockey. Even his page on NHL.com has a blank where his face should be. If you are desperate to catch a glimpse of Scissons, do an image search on Google, which will turn up a handful of his hockey cards.
His career stats: two games played (one each in two different seasons), zero goals, zero assists, zero points. One shot on goal.
The Isles could have chosen Martin Brodeur 14 spots later, and that’s absolutely something you should bring up the next time you’re chatting with an Islanders fan.
Though Scissons played for the Canadian national team in 1991-92, injuries eventually led to his retirement at the ripe old age of 22.
The worst Islanders pick
It’s an unwritten rule of hockey that you just don’t use a first-round pick on a goalie, much less a first overall. The Islanders ignored that maxim when they chose Rick DiPietro with the top pick of the 2000 draft. It made little sense even if you didn’t know they already had a young netminder, Roberto Luongo, who would finish his career third on the all-time wins list.
To make things worse, their trade of Luongo and Ollie Jokinen to the Panthers for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha ranks among the worst of all time.
They also could have chosen Dany Heatley or Marian Gaborik, who went in the next two picks, as DiPietro would more than likely have still been available in the second round. Let Rangers fans think about enduring a decade of an Islanders team that had Luongo in goal and a league-leading scoring threat like Gaborik on the ice.
Some would argue against DiPietro being listed this high as he did play over a decade for the Isles, including four consecutive solid seasons from 2003-04 to 2007-08. But that 2003-04 campaign convinced the Islanders to hand him a 15-year contract at a cost of $67 million despite a history of injuries. Whether he was on the ice or not, the team never won more than 42 games in a season during his career.
What came along with that contract was a prime membership in the Bobby Bonilla set-for-life club. A 2013 compliance buyout continues to pay DiPietro $1.5 million every year until 2029, though none of that counts against their salary cap
BTW, 2000 was the year a goalie was chosen by the Rangers with the 205th overall pick. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Henrik Lundqvist.
Just sayin’.
Honorable mention
Dave Chyzowski, picked second overall in 1989 after scoring 104 points in 68 games for the Kamloops Blazers, but only managed 31 points (15 goals – 16 assists) in 126 NHL games. And to get him, the Islanders passed on Bill Guerin, Adam Foote, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, and Pavel Bure.
3rd worst Devils pick
New Jersey doesn’t have a plethora of disastrous picks to choose from mostly because they hired Lou Lamoriello to run the club in 1987. So, I’m going to keep things even by reaching back to their previous incarnation. In 1980, the Colorado Rockies chose Joe Ward with the 22nd overall pick in the second round.
In four NHL games, Ward had no goals and no assists for no points, though he did rack up two penalty minutes, slightly less successful than his father, Don Ward, who played 34 games for the Blackhawks and Bruins in the Fifties.
Note: There is no relation to Cam Ward and no word on a third-generation Ward to keep alive the family tradition of… Hey, if a short stint in the major leagues is a ‘cup of coffee’, shouldn’t the same thing in the NHL be called a ‘mug of hot chocolate’?
2nd worst Devils pick
Before Brett Lindros came along, before the team had even settled on a new name (having just moved from Colorado), New Jersey tried their own ‘let’s get the kid brother of a star’ pick, when they selected Rocky Trottier, younger sibling of Long Island legend Bryan Trottier, eighth overall in 1982.
A majority of the other first round picks from that draft played more than 200 games in the NHL. But not Rocky. The highlight of his career might very well have been a 1984 game against Edmonton. Wayne Gretzky threw his stick to stop a breakaway and Trottier was awarded a penalty shot, the first in the Devils’ short history, and he scored.
That was pretty much it, though.
But even when the Devils screwed up in the draft, they found ways to mitigate the damage. New Jersey’s other first-round pick that year was Ken Daneyko, who put in twenty seasons for the Devils.
And the player picked immediately after Rocky Trottier? Though drafted by the Washington Capitals, Scott Stevens eventually found his way to New Jersey.
The worst Devils pick
In 1986, the Devils held the third overall pick. They could have taken Craig Janney, Vincent Damphousse, or even Brian Leetch. I’ll pause a moment, to allow Rangers fans to collectively shudder at that mental image, one even more terrifying than this:
Instead, based on an 81-point season for the Medicine Hat Tigers, New Jersey chose Neil Brady. And no, Neil doesn’t hold the distinction of being the father of Tom Brady. Or Wayne Brady. Or even Marcia Brady.
In 29 games, Brady scored six points in parts of three seasons. Throwing in the towel, New Jersey traded him to Ottawa, where he scored the first goal in the history of the current incarnation of the Senators. So, he’s got that going for him. Which is nice.
In the NHL, he only managed 31 points (nine goals, 22 assists) in 89 games, though he had a respectable 15-season career in the WHL, IHL, and AHL.
2018 – Al Montoya #35 of the Edmonton Oilers saves the puck a (Photo by Rocky W. Widner/NHL/Getty Images)
3rd Worst Rangers Draft Pick
Mike Richter, Igor Shesterkin, John Vanbiesbrouck, Eddie Giacomin. New York Rangers fans can be forgiven for thinking the team can do no wrong when looking for a goalie.Al Montoya proves them wrong.
In 2004, the Blueshirts used the sixth overall pick in selecting Montoya, the first Cuban-American to play in the NHL, but he never started a game for New York. He had a long career elsewhere, though, playing backup for the Coyotes, Islanders, Jets, Panthers, and Canadians.
In 168 games, Montoya has a record of 67-49-24 with a respectable 2.65 GAA and .908 SP. He last played in 2018-19 for the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, but couldn’t finish the season due to vertigo.
What makes the Rangers drafting of Montoya even odder is that they already had a goalie prospect tearing up the Swedish Hockey League. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Henrik Lundqvist.
Just sayin’.
The Rangers, as well as several other teams, probably don’t dwell on the fact that Pekka Rinne was chosen with the 258th overall pick the same year as Montoya.
2nd Worst Rangers Draft Pick
And now we come to the strange saga of Pavel Brendl.
After the 1998-99 WHL season, where the Czech winger scored 134 points (73 goals – 61 assists) in only 68 games for the Calgary Hitmen, he was drafted fourth overall by New York in the 1999 Entry Draft. But Brendl never got to show his stuff on Broadway, only playing two games (with no points) for the Hartford Wolf Pack.
Apparently, G.M. Glen Sather was not impressed on seeing Brendl at rookie camp. Knocks on the player included him being out of condition, lazy, having a bad work ethic, and his outstanding offensive stats were because he was a cherry picker.
Brendl was allowed to keep playing with the Hitmen and during the 1999-2000 WHL season, he continued to score (59 assists and 52 goals in 61 games) but the Rangers were out of love with their prospect and Pavel was sent where no man has gone before. Philadelphia. In 2001, Brendl was traded to the Flyers as part of a package for Eric Lindros.
Though Brendl scored just 22 points in 78 NHL games, Rangers fans might still think fondly of him if Lindros’ career hadn’t started sputtering to an end in New York.
Philadelphia fans probably adore the Czech. Not only were they able to get rid of a dangerously fragile Lindros, but the Flyers wound up trading Brendl for Sami Kapanen.
The fourth overall pick wound up with just 11 goals and 22 points in 78 NHL games for the Flyers, Hurricanes, and Coyotes, then hung up the skates in 2018 after several years in Sweden, Russia, Finland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, and Slovakia.
The worst Rangers draft pick
In a city as big as New York, with such a rich and extensive history, it’s tough to make the top of any list, good or bad. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Hugh Jessiman. How did he achieve the apex of awfulness, the pinnacle of pitifulness, the Mt. Everest of missed draft choices?Is it that the Rangers, holding the 12th overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, could have instead picked Zach Parise, Brent Burns, or Ryan Getzlaf?
Is it disappointment that Jessiman was a hometown boy, sure to be a fan favorite like Nicky Fotiu?
Is it that the Blueshirts only got two NHL games (no goals, no assists, five penalty minutes) out of a first round pick?
Well…yes. To all of it.
The 2003 draft was stacked. It is not hyperbole to say a blind, epileptic monkey throwing darts at a list on the wall would have selected a player that worked out better for New York.
The Rangers drafted Jessiman after his first year at Dartmouth where he scored 23 goals in 34 games. At 6’6”, 231 pounds, the story was that Glen Sather was enamored of Jessiman’s size and his nickname among Rangers’ brass was “Huge Specimen.” Unfortunately, his college career deteriorated and that freshman year ended up being his best season in hockey.
Huge disappointment.
There you have it. The worst draft picks in the history of the three Metro Area teams. But a list like this is always open for debate. What do the readers think? Is there someone I missed? Are the rankings correct? Make your case.
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