Which NHL teams have made the most of early draft picks?

There are certain expectations that come with being a high draft pick in the NHL. These players represent an immediate injection of youth and excitement; someone you could build a whole team around.

In many cases, players taken in this range become all-stars, leading scorers and award contenders. But teams that have a string of misses can take years to recover.

In Part 2 of this series on draft success, we’ll explore trends from draft picks made in the first and second rounds. The sample covers 10 drafts from 2010 to 2019 and focuses on skaters who have reached the 200-game mark. Once again, Vegas and Seattle are not included since they have not been around long enough for a draft record to form.

League-wide, there were 567 skaters selected in the first or second round during that span. Of that group, 49.38 per cent of the players have, so far, appeared in 200 games.

Let’s take a look at how teams have done.

The Oilers being at the top of the list should come as no surprise as they also led the league with four No. 1 overall picks during this decade and landed Leon Drasaitl, Darnell Nurse and Evan Bouchard with other picks in the top 10, too.

The Devils were the only other team to make multiple first-overall picks during this decade, landing Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes. Adam Larsson, Pavel Zacha and Damon Severson might not have the same star power, but all three have become reliable middle-of-the-lineup players in the league. The Devils missed on all of their high selections from 2012-14 but a trip to the Stanley Cup Final covered that up.

The highest pick the Flames made was No. 4 Sam Bennett in 2014 but Calgary also grabbed Sean Monahan (2013) and Matthew Tkachuk (2016) each at sixth overall. In 2015, the Flames didn't have a first-round pick but managed to grab both Rasmus Andersson and Oliver Kylington in the second.

The Ducks did not pick higher than No. 6 when they selected Hampus Lindholm in 2012, but found success picking late in the first round, grabbing Rickard Rakell with No. 30 in 2011 and Sam Steel in the same slot in 2016.

The Wild slotting it at No. 5 might surprise some, but they were consistent during the decade by landing players such as Mikael Granlund, Jonas Brodin, Matt Dumba, Alex Tuch and Joel Eriksson Ek in the first round. These might not be household names but they have all carved out long careers in middle-six roles. More recently, in 2019, the Wild selected Matt Boldy with pick No. 12 and with 171 points he trails only Jack Hughes in scoring for his draft class.

The Sabres tied for the most skaters selected in the first two rounds during this period and hit on some big stars with Sam Reinhart, Jack Eichel, Rasmus Dahlin and Dylan Cozens.

The Capitals, Penguins, Bruins and Blues all won the Stanley Cup during the decade and did so while keeping the pipeline flowing with the limited high picks they made. No team selected fewer skaters in the first two rounds than the Penguins did (they only picked in Round 1 six times), and the Capitals were one ahead of them. Those teams are just now beginning to feel the stress of going all-in for as long as they did.

Finally, Columbus was the top-ranked team in Part 1's look at overall draft success, but dropped to No. 16 here. They did land some good players in the early rounds such as Ryan Johansen, Boone Jenner, Zach Werenski and Pierre-Luc Dubois and enjoyed their longest run of success, reaching the playoffs four years in a row (2017-2020).

The Coyotes, Blackhawks, Red Wings and Panthers were among the leaders in most skaters drafted early, but that didn’t put them ahead of the pack when it came to finding full-time NHLers. Of that group, only Florida has escaped its rebuild and become a regular Cup contender.

Winnipeg, Toronto and Vancouver had some lean years on the ice early in the decade and that pain was rewarded with early picks and cornerstone players who have contributed to multiple playoff runs. Mark Scheifele, Auston Matthews and Elias Pettersson are elite centres, while Nikolaj Ehlers, Mitch Marner and Brock Boeser are talented producers and Josh Morrissey, Morgan Rielly and Quinn Hughes are true No. 1 defencemen. All of those players, with the exception of Boeser, were picked in the top half of Round 1.

The Lightning and Avalanche have combined for three Stanley Cups in the past five seasons while the Rangers are the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winners. For Tampa, Nikita Kucherov (second round, 2011) is by far the best skater they’ve produced in the early rounds. As for the Avalanche, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen in the top 10 account for half of their early-round draft success in the decade. That’s a trio most teams would love to have.

The Rangers were all-in for most of the decade and did not make a first-round selection for four straight years from 2013-16. They did rebound from that dry spell to select Filip Chytil, K’Andre Miller and Kaapo Kakko in back-to-back-to-back drafts to close out the decade (Alexis Lafreniere missed our cutoff by one season). All three have played over 200 games, but the book is far from fully written on their careers.

The Senators are the outlier here as the only team in the group that has not fully emerged from their rebuild yet. The Senators used the No. 6 pick in 2011 on Mika Zibanejad but traded him before he reached his prime. More recently, Thomas Chabot and Brady Tkachuk are two first-round picks who have become cornerstone players.

The Kings are alone at the bottom after a decade that saw them celebrate two Stanley Cup wins but with mostly players drafted before the year 2010. Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson, two draft picks during this window, did contribute to the second Cup. Derek Forbort, taken in 2010 like Toffoli, is still active and approaching 500 games. But since that second championship in 2014, only Adrian Kempe (29th, 2014) and Erik Cernak (43rd, 2015) have cracked the 200-game mark.

Gabriel Vilardi, the oft-injured prospect now finding his footing in Winnipeg, is at 199 games.