The 10 most loaded draft classes in NHL history

With the 2018 NHL Draft now firmly behind us, we set out to find the 10 most loaded classes in the history of the game.

It’s been 55 years since the NHL first started drafting players into the league, an effort that was as weird and hallucinatory as you might expect given the fact that only six teams were in existence at the time.

In fact, the 1963 draft was more akin to a P.E. dodgeball session than what we know today. There were only four rounds, and after the second both the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks were so over the lack of “cool kids” available that they decided to not even select anyone else. They basically said, “We’re fine letting you guys have the leftovers” and totally bowed out like a pair of bosses.

Sure, they were a pair of bosses that would go on to annually lose in the Stanley Cup Final for a decade to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens, but bosses nonetheless. I mean, who does that?

Well, everyone apparently. The ’63 draft wasn’t even the high point of this Hunter S. Thompson-like acid trip. Toronto refused outright to even participate in 1965. They simply handed in a card that said “nah” and went back to winning Cups. There were also only three rounds that year, and only two players were picked in the last one. Imagine that happening today and then feel free to take a nap.

Fortunately (in a weird way, we guess), none of them panned out anyway in a hockey sense. There weren’t any All-Stars and none made the Hall of Fame, though Ken Dryden did make it from ‘64.

But we’re not always about the lows in history. Despite a less than memorable beginning, there have been some outstanding classes in the years since. With the advent of more teams and changing rules, and with the increase of course in talent, we’ve seen some wicked drafts come and go. With the 2018 session now past, we found it to be the perfect time to look at 10 of them so loaded we couldn’t possibly contain ourselves.

10. 2003

Let’s start with an easy one.

2003 might be the Wendy’s baked potato of NHL entry drafts. It had everything you could ask for: Fantastic goaltenders, potential Hall of Famers, All-Stars literally up and down the line, eventual cogs to Stanley Cups. In fact, of the first 30 overall picks, 17 have made at least one All-Star game. Seventeen!

If you were a NHL general manager in ’03, you could probably close your eyes, toss a rock in any direction and hit a stud square in the gullet. Unless you have the worst luck ever or took the Maple Leafs’ ’65 Draft approach.

You can count 12 rings between Jeff Carter, Marc-Andre Fleury, Dustin Brown, Brent Seabrook, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry. That isn’t even adding Boston Bruins’ Centre Patrice Bergeron, who was drafted in Round 2 and has won a Cup and won four Selke Trophies.

Then there’s Joe Pavelski, who has more than 300 goals; Corey Crawford, with two rings; Brent Burns, who has a Norris Trophy; Dustin Bfyuglien, who has a ring and is a four-time All-Star or Shea Weber, who has been nominated for multiple Norris Trophies. There are a few guys listed who may be serious candidates for the Hockey Hall once they finish their careers. Right now we can only attest to their greatness and speculate since all of them are still playing. Bergeron might be a virtual lock at this point, Seabrook and Crawford are icons in Chicago, and Getzlaf has been one of the best and maybe most underappreciated captains in the game since he joined the Anaheim Ducks.

Fleury backstopped the Pittsburgh Penguins to multiple championships and he’s also still going strong with over 400 regular season wins. As evidenced by his monumental efforts in this past postseason, he isn’t likely to slow any time soon. Is he a serious contender for the Hall of Fame too? Certainly there will be an interesting argument in the next five to 10 years as to whether or not this is the best draft class we’ve seen. Heck, that debate might be over already.