Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Friday NHL Doomsday for Panthers

2000:

58th overall pick (did not have a 1st round pick) - Vladimir Sapozhnikov He played in 0 NHL GMs.

2001:

4th overall pick - Stephen Weiss (C) 323 games 163 points
24th overall pick - Lukas Krajicek (D) (Traded along with Luongo to Van)
34th overall pick - Greg Watson - He played in 0 NHL GMs.

2002:

3rd overall pick - Jay Bouwmeester (D) 389 games 161 points
9th overall pick - Petr Taticek - Played in 3 NHL games 0 points.
40th overall pick - Rob Globke - Played in 46 NHL games 2 points.

2003:

3rd overall pick - Nathan Horton (RW) 290 games 193 points
25th overall pick - Anthony Stewart (RW) 46 games 5 points
38th overall pick - Kamil Kreps (C) 90 games 27 points

2004:

7th overall pick - Rostislav Olesz (C) 190 games 77 points
37th overall pick - David Shantz (G) - Played in 0 NHL games.

2005:

20th overall pick - Kenndall McArdle (LW) - Played in 0 NHL games
32nd overall pick - Tyler Plante (G) - Played in 0 NHL games.

2006:

10th overall pick - Michael Frolik (LW) - Played in 0 NHL games.

2007:

10th overall pick - Keaton Ellerby (D) - Played in 0 NHL games.

2008....................?


If hockey fans in South Florida want to know the reason why this team hasn't made the playoffs in 8 years, well just look at the above information and you will see that this franchise has a poor history of drafting players. This organization might be one of the worst in the NHL.

Take a look at the 2000, 2002, and 2005 NHL draft selections. Let me tell you a few things about those drafts.

2000 - There was a lot of talent in the 2000 NHL draft. The Panthers picked 8 players in that draft and out of the 8, only 18 games were played in the NHL with a total of 4 points from this draft.

2002 - 10 players were drafted by the Panthers. Besides Bouwmeester and Campbell, the other 8 guys totaled 49 games 2 points. Also, Semin and Higgins were selected later in the 1st round. So much for Petr Taticek.

2005 - Might be the worst overall draft. 0 games played by 8 players drafted. Besides Crosby, this draft was not strong at all. Better yet, 2005, 2006, and 2007 drafted players (22 players in total) 0 games played in the NHL.

So there are the reasons for why the Panthers system is a mess and there is basically no direction for this team in the near and distant future.

2008 draft will not be different from the others. There will be a horrible trade made for picks which will turn out to be just like the above history shows all of us.

This organization really needs to rethink how they operate their hockey operations.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This logic is flawed though. Go look at the Red Wings draft history for the last 8 years, and you'll see even less talent than the Panthers do. The next team I pulled up was the Hurricanes and that was even worse. Then the Lightning and it was more of the same.
alot of teams.

The draft is a crapshoot in the NHL moreso than any other league. Look at 2002, after our 9th pick of Taticek, the next 20 picks consist of about 2-4 players of any substantial importance.

The fact that we have Olesz, Booth, Horton, Kreps, Bouwmeester, Campbell, and Weiss from the last 7 drafts-all of whom are capable solid players in the NHL- is better than many teams can say. There's many reasons we haven't made it back to the playoffs, but I don't think the draft is one of them.

Jay Warman said...

anonymous makes some good points ...

Stanley C. said...

Gotta love the constant optimism... but anonymous beat me too it. The NHL draft, outside the top 2 or 3 overall picks, is a lottery. Every once in awhile there's a Crosby or Ovechkin or Staal that comes through that's a sure fire NHLer. Beyond that, it might take players 2-3 seasons in the OHL, IHL, ECHL, or some such farm system because hockey is that kind of sport. Rarely do you see pure NHL talent immediatly, unlike other leagues.

Anonymous said...

In the 2000 draft, after our 58th pick, there are about 10 players in the entire draft who play more than 100 NHL games. The first round was very solid, but we didn't have a first round pick so we couldn't really help that.