Let's Draft Again (1999-2000)

Don’t you ever wonder how our team would look like if we had made the right draft choices instead of the poor ones we usually made? So many good players have been passed over for complete duds who didn’t even make the NHL because they didn’t know how to hold a hockey stick. This is why I have decided to look at some of the players we could have had if we drafted differently. Although we have to remember hindsight is always clearer then what the general managers see at the draft tables.

So basically I will start from the 1999-2000 draft all the way to the 2007-2008 draft because in those years I think we made some poor choices. The last two season have been not as bad and I will like to give credit the current scouting team for their excellent work in getting players like Schenn and Kadri. They might not be the best players in the draft but as of now they are two very good prospects. What I will do is i will redraft the seven rounds and instead pick the best player that went soon after the Leafs drafted. There will be times where I will decide to keep the players the Leafs selected due to them being good players and better then ones that followed them.

**The order of the players is by rounds... so first players is from the 1^st round and so on.**

1999

Players we drafted – Brad Boyes, Kris Vernarsky, Mikael Tellqvist, Jean-Francoise Racine, Miguel Delisie, Vadim Sozinov, Markus Seikola, Lubos Velebny, Alexander Shinkar and Jean-Philippe Cote.

Players we should have drafted – Brad Boyes (i would keep him), Antoine Vermette, Micheal Rupp, Dominic Moore, Lubomir Visnovsky, Darcy Hordichuk, Matthew Lombardi, Antti Miettinen, Alexander Shinkar (the guys after him sucked even more) and Simon Gamache.

This draft didn’t have much class at the spots the Leafs were picking but we did miss out on guys like Vermette, Moore and Visnovsky. These three would have been better additions then some of the weak talent we picked up. This draft didn’t hurt as much but then next few will hurt where it really hurts as die hard fans.

I will be back tomorrow with the next draft and it’s only going to get worse I am afraid.