NHL Draft: Each team’s best draft pick of all time

The NHL Draft is where teams build dynasties. That’s what those two days every year are all about, building. Sure, the trades and free-agent signings might be key in putting the team past the threshold from good to great, but those deals mean nothing if the team couldn’t draft prior to those moves.

The draft is where general managers make or break their legacy. Teams have staffs with dozens of people that get to travel around the globe just to pick seven players every year. Think about that for just a second. The draft is so important to hockey teams that millionaires and billionaires allocated a ton of money just to see teenagers play the game of hockey from every corner of the globe.

There’s a reason teams spend this much time, money, and manpower to pick the right player. If the team finds a star, then it could mean millions of dollars in marketing materials, a lot of nationally televised games, and more importantly, wins. Some of the best players in the history of the game weren’t taken in the first round. Each team has a superstar somewhere in the draft. Do a lot of great players come early in the draft? Sure, but the really good teams can get superstars in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds.

Taking a look at the drafts from years past, it’s not easy to just pick one great pick from each team. There are a million reasons why a player might have fallen in a draft. Maybe he was too small. It’s possible he got injured in his draft year, or it’s possible there were rumors about the player that didn’t turn out being true. Either way, they turn into something even better than a draft steal. They turn into a franchise cornerstone.