We went through the register of every draft pick the Caps have ever made and decided to rank the best of them, by round. We awarded Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals for each of the first five rounds, and then three more medals for the best of the post 5th round drafting by the Caps.
DraftGeek or not, share with us your thoughts.
| First Round | Second Round | Third Round | |
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Alexander Ovechkin (2004) |
Jan Bulis (1996) |
Michal Pivonka (1984) |
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Scott Stevens (1982) |
Byron Dafoe (1989) |
Steve Konowalchuk (1991) |
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Olaf Kolzig (1989) |
Jim Carey (1992) |
Glen Currie (1978) |
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| Fourth Round | Fifth Round | Post-Fifth Round | |
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Jason Woolley (1989) |
Trent Klatt (1989) |
Peter Bondra (8th, 1990) |
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Bengt Gustafsson (1978) |
Timo Blomqvist (1980) |
Ken Klee (9th, 1990) |
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Bill Houlder (1985) |
Lou Franceschetti (1978) |
Richard Zednik (10th, 1994) |
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5 Comments
How in the world could you possibly “take” Jason Wooley over Bengt Gustafsson??????
This was one round¬†we really struggled with. If you follow your heart, Bengt is the easy call. But the head . . . Jason’s final NHL season, nearly 20 years after he was drafted, it appears, was last year, when he played more than 50 games with a 120-plus-points Red Wings club. Bengt’s NHL career was brilliant but all too brief.
It’s hard to argue with Stevens getting the first round silver (maybe easier to argue that AO still has a way to go before being given the gold over a surefire HoF defenseman… maybe he deserves an asterisk there), but I’d have Olie higher. You can’t put a price on stability in goal for a decade-plus.
Sorry, I have to respectfully disagree with the logic. Wooley was a nobody for the Caps. If you’re going to take the full career (and longevity) into account then you’d have to “bump” Jim Carey out of the second round and put Tim Talyor in there somewhere. Steve Leach would also warrant serious consideration under those parameters.
Good points made by all, glad this is sparking some fun debate! Clearly the subjective nature of such a list leads to second-guessing. Depending on perspective — such as the weight given to accomplishments in a Caps uniform versus full career — the first-round Gold could justifiably go to any of the three in that list. And Tim Taylor is a good call as well.
Let’s hope that in the next few years we’ll have Semin and Backstrom vying for medals. And who knows, maybe Viktor Dovgan will challenge Zed or Klee for a spot in the Post-Fifth Round rankings!
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