1997 draft- shoulda picked this guy

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?ID=54813&hubName=nhl

Imagine the holy hell to pay if we'd taken Daniel Tkaczuk
instead of Samsonov in the spot. Oh, wait, Calgary picked him before we got Samsonov, so I thank them for that. Either way, bad deal for him.
If we pick him up off waivers, we'll have 4 of the top 9 picks in the 1997 draft. Amazing the guy has been released at the age of 24 after being so highly touted. The guy has fallen hard.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl1997e.html

Hey, he plays center. :joker:

That 1997 draft is littered with busts.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?ID=54813&hubName=nhl

Imagine the holy hell to pay if we'd taken Daniel Tkaczuk
instead of Samsonov in the spot. Oh, wait, Calgary picked him before we got Samsonov, so I thank them for that. Either way, bad deal for him.
If we pick him up off waivers, we'll have 4 of the top 9 picks in the 1997 draft. Amazing the guy has been released at the age of 24 after being so highly touted. The guy has fallen hard.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl1997e.html

Hey, he plays center. :joker:

That 1997 draft is littered with busts.


The Bruins game plan believe it or not was Daniel Cleary to be selected if Sammy was gone.

Take a look at the entire draft....Not many players even get a sniff of the NHL....

The Bruins game plan believe it or not was Daniel Cleary to be selected if Sammy was gone.

Yeah, I think that was the word.

That was really a top heavy draft.
13 of the 26 1st rounders have played less than a full season in the league as of now.
Only Hannan at 23 and Morrow at 25
were truly great picks at that spot other than Noronen at 21 who we're waiting on.
It goes downhill after that.

If the 2nd round was better than the 3rd, it's not by much.

Round 4 shows only 3 players with any significant number of games with Willis, Mair and Novoseltsev.

Round 5 had Arvedson, Chimera and Calder as the only players of note to this point.

Heck, even round 6 had Mike York, Matt Cooke and David Aebischer.

Way down in round 8 the Bruins found Antii Laaksonen who's played 284 games in the league, far surpasssing nearly everyone after round 1 for games played

So far in career totals Thornton ranks 2nd in overall goals behind Hossa, 1st in assists, 1st in points and he leads the entire draft class in penalty minutes as well. Not bad when you consider the start he got off to.

All in all, it wasn't that bad of a draft, I mean there are quite a few decent players that came out of the year. The year before this draft in 96 is definetely tunring out to be one of the worst drafts of all time. Derek Morris is the only "star" player out of the bunch. It was also the year the Bruins made the famous Jonathan Aitken pick but luckily he wasn't the only bust from that year.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl1996e.html

So far in career totals Thornton ranks 2nd in overall goals behind Hossa, 1st in assists, 1st in points and he leads the entire draft class in penalty minutes as well. Not bad when you consider the start he got off to.

All in all, it wasn't that bad of a draft, I mean there are quite a few decent players that came out of the year. The year before this draft in 96 is definetely tunring out to be one of the worst drafts of all time. Derek Morris is the only "star" player out of the bunch. It was also the year the Bruins made the famous Jonathan Aitken pick but luckily he wasn't the only bust from that year.

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl1996e.html
That '96 draft is gross.
As bad as as the 1st round was, and it was bad, looka t how few after that have seen any time at all.

Sarich 27 (still improving)
Colin White 49 (never thought he'd ever get it but surprised me)
Chara 56
Poti 59 (Rangers can keep him)
Parrish 79
Eric Belanger 96
Hinote 167
Letowski 174
T. Kaberle 204
Sami Salo 239

That's about all I even care to mention from that draft.

Glad we didn't get Dan instead of Sammy.

BUT

I would gladly pick him up tommorrow now that he is on waivers. Sure he probably will never make it, but as thin as this organization is at center, you need to be willing to swing for the fences on a player like this