Yay! You just won the Stanley Cup, Chicago! The first cup win since 1961 – double yay!
Now what?
Well, how does this sound? You have to very quickly dismantle your championship winning team.
The selling-off-of-parts did bring back some prospects and draft picks. The latter is what we're going to hone in on today.
Welcome to the time machine that I am calling
"Re-Draft Friday". This will be a 7-part series reoccurring, yep, you guessed it… every Friday.
The first edition today focuses on the Blackhawks 2010 draft. The remaining will be in sequential order with a work back schedule running right up until the week before this year's entry draft:
May 3 - 2010
May 10 - 2011
May 17 - 2012
May 24 - 2013
May 31 - 2014
June 7 - 2015
June 14 – 2016
"Hindsight is 20/20" and "anyone can re-draft NHLers after a couple of years" is what they say - and I agree with
them.
The purpose of this series is not to simply re-arrange the better players and add in 6th rounder Mark Stone as a top 10 pick in 2010.
The overall theme of these blogs is meant to instill confidence, cringe at a few picks and find overall trends in the Blackhawks drafting results.
We've been chatting so much about the upcoming draft, I wanted to create some fun conversation of past drafts.
Each article will begin with setting up the story of what was going on with the Blackhawks at that time, then we'll move into their selections for that year and finally to evaluate Stan Bowman and Mark Kelley.
Let's kick it off; below are the Blackhawks picks from 2010:
Kevin Hayes was the big pick for CHI – a nice addition to the middle of the ice, which was a need for the Hawks at that time. Hayes had committed to Boston College at the time.
The Kevin Hayes selection was actually the Atlanta Thrashers pick they had acquired in the Byfuglien/Sopel/Eager trade. The Hawks actually traded that 30th overall pick to the NYI for 2x 2nd rounders. A solid idea at the time if they didn't see anyone they liked at that spot. The Islanders though went on to draft Brock Nelson in that spot who has played 480 games in the NHL. The Hawks? They used those 2nd rounders for Superbust Ludvig Rensfeldt and Kent Simpson. Barf.
The 2010 draft was held in Los Angeles with the first round concluding on June 25th. On June 26th, the Hawks sent a 2nd rounder over to Toronto to acquire Jimmy Hayes, their recent 1st round picks' brother. Was Stan trying to butter up Kevin from Day 1 in the organization? Well, that sure backfired, didn't it?
Out of the 2nd rounders that the Hawks took, Stephen Johns looks to be the best of the bunch. He's hurt right now but has shown flashes of top 4 potential, if not a really, really good bottom pairing guy. That trade that sent him and Patrick Sharp to Dallas is still a black eye on Stan Bowman's resume.
Hey! And there's Joakim Nordstrom there in round 3. He is 350+ games into the league and playing a very effective 4th line role in BOS right now in the playoffs. He was never flashy but a lunch-pail type grinder. A solid pick in the 3rd.
Overall, the Hawks drafted players that have played:
897 games
134 goals
320 points
Not outstanding, but had Kevin Hayes stayed with the organization and Stan hadn't blacked out and traded Johns, then there would be 2 players still in Chicago contributing in a big way.
There was a lot going on after the Hawks won the cup in 2010 (I felt like I was drunk celebrating right there with them) so here's a recap of the dismantling that led up to the entry draft (courtesy: NHL Trade Tracker)
Now, moving on to the draft as a whole; here is how Round 1 and 2 shook out:
Ahhh… the ol' Taylor vs. Tyler draft – who could forget that?
Looking at the first round, it was a solid draft. Here are a couple of awards:
Best Value Pick – Vlad Tarsenko, 16th overall (St. Louis Blues)
Worst Pick – Dylan McIlrath, 10th overall (New York Rangers)
"Oh Hey, I Forgot About Him" Pick – Alexander Burmistrov
After reviewing this draft, I'm not mad at the Hawks for taking Kevin Hayes at 24. Sure, Evgeny Kuznetsov would have been nice, but the Hawks hadn't drafted a Russian player since 2006 when they selected Igor Makarov. So, I don't blame them for not taking Kuznetsov in that spot.
Who I am mad at is Kevin Hayes for not signing here. However, karma is a "B" and even if he wanted to play 4 years for Boston College and then come to Chicago, that would have put him on the team for 2014-15. He would be a Stanley Cup Champion right now instead of looking at heading to his 3rd team in under a year with no ring. #justsayin.
The trade that sent the 30th pick to acquire 2x 2nd rounders obviously didn't pan out, but you can see why they did it.
Also, let's never speak of Ludvig Rensfeldt again. I can see the appeal of drafting a tall, skilled kid out of Sweden but everyone would admit that was a miss. He was a project at best and tried to come over to the OHL (actually had a strong season for the Sarnia Sting) but it never panned out. He is still playing and funny enough he plays for Timra IK, the same team as Anton Wedin, the free agent that the Blackhawks are courting.
I will have final grades and rankings for all of these drafts at the conclusion of the series.
I want to hear from you though! Thoughts on the Hawks picks? What grade would you give them?
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Lastly, I wanted to share a fun fact to close it off, scroll back to see how many games Kent Simpson played in the NHL. I'll wait. Yep, 1 game. And you know who was at that game on December 14th, 2013? THIS GUY!
Crawford was hurt, Raanta was playing well leading into the game, but was lit up for 5 goals on 25 shots. The Hawks had just traded for Jason LaBarbera earlier that day but he wasn't available to play. So, who comes in for the 3rd period? Kent Simpson.
"He's never even played a game?" my wife gasps.
First shot goes in. Damn, Kent!
He ended up giving up 2 goals on 7 shots. That is, and will always be his NHL career. Hey, more than any of us, but I'm guessing he would have loved to have that 20 minutes back.
See ya out there,
TC
(All Draft Results Courtesy of HockeyDB)
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