If you’re like me, you likely spent much of your July 4 weekend watching YouTube clips of old NHL drafts.
No? Well, apparently that’s why I’m here.
I’d never run across these before — the treasure trove is endless — and at first I checked out a couple from the early 1980s, when I worked for the Devils. There I was, walking alongside Kirk Muller on his way to the team table after he had been selected second-overall in 1984 behind Mario Lemieux.
I scrolled through a few others from the bad old days, as New Jersey’s beloved general manager Max McNab would say, and watched us select Craig Wolanin No. 3 overall in 1985. No, I haven’t yet seen the 1986 draft in which the Devils selected Neil Brady third overall while Brian Leetch was on the board and remained so until the Rangers selected the lad from Avon Old Farms at No. 9.
Leetch stands as the greatest first-round pick in franchise history, ahead of Steve Vickers’ 10th-overall selection in 1971, Alex Kovalev’s 15th-overall selection in 1991 and, you bet, Chris Kreider’s 19th-overall selection in 2009.
That is in chronological order, but if you want to reverse it so that the third-leading goal-scorer in franchise history is runner-up to Leetch, that’s cool.
I watched a couple of seconds of the draft in which Alexandre Daigle was touted as a generational No. 1, remembered him as a pleasant yet ineffectual short-term Ranger during the days when the likes of Kevin Hatcher, Scott Fraser and Rumun Ndur roamed the Garden.
And then 2003 popped up on my screen.
Hugh’s miss
The 2003 draft is never far from any Rangers fan’s memory. It’s the one in which 17 of the 30 first-round picks played in an NHL All-Star Game, nine became first- or second-team season All-Stars. It’s the one in which potential Hall of Famers Ryan Getzlaf and Brent Burns went back-to-back at No. 19 and No. 20.
It’s also the one in which the Rangers selected Hugh Jessiman out of Dartmouth College 12th overall while Zach Parise, Brent Seabrook, Ryan Kesler and Mike Richards remained on the board.
There’s no need to pile on, but Jessiman is universally regarded as the worst first-round draft choice in franchise history. That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Jessiman played two games in the NHL, and those were for Nashville.
So I was curious to hear the analysis of the pick by the crew who covered the draft. I wondered whether the pick was immediately identified as off-the-board by commentators Gord Miller, Bob McKenzie and Pierre McGuire.
Actually, not at all.
Say what?
As the Rangers followed the Flyers’ selection of Jeff Carter at No. 11, McKenzie mused that the Blueshirts had wanted a defenseman but the top three — Ryan Suter, Braydon Coburn and Dion Phaneuf, who went 7-8-9, respectively — were off the board.
“Now they could continue to pick a defenseman here, a guy like Mark Stuart,” McKenzie said, referring to the blue liner who went 21st overall to the Bruins and had a 673-game NHL career. “But there are also some big forwards out there, and there’s all sorts of talk whether they might trade this pick or trade [for] Jaromir Jagr.”
General manager Glen Sather did not trade the pick. The Rangers did not trade for Jagr until the following January. Sather, director of player personnel Tom Renney and assistant GM Don Maloney took the stage in Nashville. Renney announced the selection of Jessiman, a 6-foot-6, 231-pound winger who had scored 23 goals as a freshman.
There was no “Whaaaat?” from the broadcast booth.
There was no sense of shock.
Not in the least.
“Here’s a 6-5 guy, Dartmouth, not really on the track of most scouts’ beaten path there,” Miller said.
“No, but I’ll tell you one thing: Bob Gaudet’s the coach there, and he’s done a phenomenal job to rebuild that franchise at Dartmouth,” McKenzie said. “The other thing about this kid, he comes from such a great athletic family, both of his parents were world-class rowers.
“He’s a big-bodied presence, he can lean on people, he scores magnificent goals, he lifts people out of the stands with his ability to beat guys one-on-one, and for a big guy, a lot of his game is right there, hands in tight and he can outmuscle people.
“That’s one of the things that really endeared him to the New York Rangers.”
Maybe it was just a different era. Maybe everything didn’t need a hot take back then. But there was sure no second-guessing of the selection. Not a single, “They didn’t want Zach Parise?”
I did not cover that draft, but watching on television I know that I sure said, “They didn’t want Zach Parise?”
Anyway, there were clips of Jessiman banging bodies, driving to the net with a neat finishing touch. After all of that, you’d have been excused for wondering why the lifelong Rangers fan didn’t go in the top five.
“His nickname among the scouts is, ‘Huge Specimen,’” McKenzie said. “Any time anyone comes in to Division I college hockey, even if it’s a school like Dartmouth in the ECAC, and puts up 23 goals in his freshman season, you’re going to get a lot of attention.
“The scouts were flocking all year to see this guy who came so fast over the course of the season.”
Again. There was no second-guessing. On the contrary.
“New York has had so many soft players for so long, now they have someone who can really get after you,” McKenzie said. “It’s a great pick.”
Two decades and one year later, we find out that Sather and Maloney, who a few years later took responsibility for the selection, were not alone in feeling that way.
Who knew?
