The Montreal Canadiens head into Wednesday night’s NHL Draft with high hopes. They hold a top five pick, and extra first round selection and an early second round pick among 11 total draft picks. They have had some great drafts in their long history and some that have not gone as planned.
We are counting down their best, and worst, draft classes and today we take a look at their third worst draft class of all time, back in 1999.
The 1998 draft class for the Canadiens was one of its best ever. It featured Andrei Markov, Mike Ribeiro, Michael Ryder and Francois Beauchemin. Four long time NHL players from one draft class is rare to find. The Canadiens didn’t exactly build a dynasty with that group, but Ribeiro and Ryder were longtime top six forwards in the NHL and Markov was a borderline Norris Trophy candidate for nearly a decade.
Unfortuantely, the Canadiens could not repeat their draft heroics in 1999. The 1999 NHL Draft was one of the worst performances by a Canadiens management team ever. They traded their first round pick, which was tenth overall, for veteran forward Trevor Linden, so they did not pick until the second round. They did have two second round picks, as they acquired one from the Philadelphia Flyers as part of a trade return for Mark Recchi.
The Habs selected Matt Carkner with that pick from the Flyers. It took him ten years, but Carkner finally became an NHL regular in 2009-10 with the Ottawa Senators. Carkner would go on to play 237 games in his career, scoring four goals and 27 points and mostly taking on a third pairing role and providing a physical, enforcer type role.
The Habs made a total of 11 picks (same as this year) in the 1999 NHL Draft and Carkner was the only one to play an NHL game. The rest of the draft class included Alexander Buturlin, Chris Dyment, Evan Lindsay, Dusty Jamieson, Marc-Andre Thinel, Matt Shasby, Sean Dixon, Vadim Tarasov, Mikko Hyytia, Jerome Marois.
Having ten of 11 picks not play a single NHL game is not a good showing at an NHL Draft. With all due respect to Matt Carkner, if he is the best player from a specific draft class, it isn’t a great showing. That is why the 1999 NHL Draft was one of the worst, third worst to be exact, in Canadiens history.
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