Vancouver Canucks: Redrafting the 2006 NHL Draft

The Vancouver Canucks were rather unlucky at the 2006 NHL Draft — time to give them a second shot.

For the Vancouver Canucks, the 2005-06 season was not exactly successful. They missed the playoffs by three points, with four out of six Canadian teams qualifying for the postseason. In years like that, the draft can really cheer fans and management up. But for the Canucks in 2006, that did not happen either.

Vancouver was in a similarly difficult situation as this year. After a disappointing season, they only had five draft picks: one in the first, one in the third, two in the sixth, and one in the seventh round. What that meant was clear, much like it is this year; the Canucks could not afford to miss with their picks.

Unfortunately, they did miss on quite a few of them.

The Canucks’ 2006 first-round pick, Michael Grabner, only played 29 games for the club. Sergei Shirokov, the 163rd choice, only appeared in eight. The three remaining players combined for… zero NHL games played.

This is the Vancouver Canucks’ 2006 draft class:

14 – W Michael Grabner
82 – D Daniel Rahimi
163 – W Sergei Shirokov
167 – W Juraj Simek
197 – C Evan Fuller

To be fair, there are many teams who missed with their picks, starting with the St. Louis Blues selecting defenseman Erik Johnson first overall. Johnson is a great player today, but not a first-overall player. At second overall, the Pittsburgh Penguins went with center Jared Staal. He, too, turned into a decent middle-six center. But that is not enough for a second-overall selection.

Jonathan Toews, Nicklas Backstrom and Phil Kessel were next. All three are arguably better players than the top two.

But, 2006 was not exactly a deep draft, so St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Vancouver were not the only teams who hit and missed. Today, the Canucks are getting a chance to do better, so let’s jump right in and see what could have been.

Next: Round 1