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

NHL Draft: Best draft pick of all time: Arizona Coyotes, Keith Yandle 2005

Keith Yandle is more traditional to the type of player on this list. He’s a player that came into the draft without a lot of fanfare, but he overcame the odds and put together an awesome career. Keith Yandle isn’t a complete outlier, as the Coyotes have a few pretty good draft picks over the years, but the one that had the most impact on this franchise is Yandle. Six players from the 2005 NHL Draft played 1,000 games. Nobody was taken as late as Keith Yandle.

The Coyotes took Yandle with the 105th-overall pick in the fourth round. The Florida Panthers, Yandle’s current team, took defenseman Matt Duffy with the pick before Yandle. He played zero NHL games. Even the Yotes made a few picks before taking Yandle. Martin Hanzal wasn’t a terrible first-round pick, but taking goalie Pier Pelletier in the second round doesn’t look great now.

Yandle played nine years in Arizona before moving on to the New York Rangers. He scored 311 points as a defenseman, and he was a star on the 2012 and 2015 teams that made deep runs in the playoffs. This is a player who pulled the Coyotes up without getting the publicity of Shane Doan (who was technically drafted by the Winnipeg Jets). Yandle definitely deserves more love as a star in a Coyotes uniform.