Vancouver Canucks: Redrafting the 2008 NHL Draft
Round 7 – 191st Overall
Original Pick: G Morgan Clark
New Pick: G Anders Lindback (207th to NSH)
Honorable Mentions: None
With their final pick of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, the Vancouver Canucks decided to draft a goaltender. Goalies are usually the biggest wild cards as some early picks never pan out while late-rounders become elite players, so the idea wasn’t bad. It gets even more promising when you realize that the only player picked 191st and after to play more than seven NHL games was a goalie. It just wasn’t the one Vancouver picked — of course not.
Morgan Clark was an okay goalie for the WHL Red Deer Rebels and, unfortunately, he never became more than an okay goalie. Not in the dub, not in the QMJHL, not anywhere. As said, goalies are total wild cards, so that does not come as a big surprise. With this seventh-round selection, the Canucks certainly didn’t lose anything.
One player from that seventh round played in 135 NHL games, however, and he is still active: Arizona Coyotes goaltender Anders Lindback. Admittedly, Lindback was never more than an okay goalie either, but at least he is that at the NHL level. The talent is certainly there, but Lindback has always struggled with inconsistency.
The perfect example for that is his past two seasons. In 2014-15, Lindback posted a .924 save percentage in 16 games for the Buffalo Sabres. In seven AHL games that season, it was even better, at .946. However, before being traded to the Sabres, Lindback appeared in 10 games for the Dallas Stars, where he posted a .875 save percentage. That was followed up by .894 this season.
Anders Lindback is not an NHL starter, but he is much closer to that level than Morgan Clark.