NHL Draft: Worst 1st round draft pick in franchise history: Chicago Blackhawks, Cam Barker 2004 NHL Draft
The Chicago Blackhawks took a long time to get to their dynasty of the 2010s, and a lot of it came through the NHL Draft. Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Corey Crawford, and Duncan Keith all came through the draft, and they were the core that carried them to championship after championship. This was a new revalation for the Blackhawks who went through decades of underwhelming play and falling below expectations.
If you take out those 1960s amateur drafts where teams were trying to figure out how this works (although getting zero games out of four top-five picks is pretty pathetic), the highest pick that absolutely busted out of the league was Cam Barker in the 2004 NHL Draft. Barker was selected third overall and went on to win back-to-back gold medals at the World Junior Championships for Team Canada.
Unlike a lot of players on this list, Barker played north of 300 NHL games and actually made a really good living. The Blackhawks gave him a $9 million contract after the NHLPA filed a grievance against the team for how they were dealing with him as a restricted free agent. That put them in cap trouble, and they were forced to trade him to Minnesota. The Wild ended up buying out his contract a year later, and the Edmonton Oilers gave him a one-year, $2.25 million deal. He really never lived up to his offensive defenseman hype that brought him into the league.
Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler were both taken right after Barker. If the Blackhawks were destined to take an offensive defenseman, Mike Green was the pick. He ended up scoring 501 points in 880 NHL games.