What ever happened to: The Vancouver Canucks 2003 draft class (Part 1)

The Vancouver Canucks have had many terrible drafts since 2000, but the players they picked should not go unrecognized. These are some of their post-draft stories.

August is the most entertaining time of year to be a hockey fan, isn’t it? The draft and free agency are long gone and there is nothing to do but obsess over the minute details of whatever moves have and haven’t been made.

Distractions are necessary, and there are few more fun than reminiscing over past drafts. Who doesn’t enjoy finding out that a franchise star was a seventh-round pick?

Unfortunately, the Vancouver Canucks‘ draft history has had too many misfires in the past decade and a half for there to be diamonds in the rough, but that doesn’t mean that nobody was selected. In this brand new series, I will revisit past draft classes and pay each Canucks pick the respect that they deserve, and recognize their on-ice careers and achievements, and in some cases, off-ice success. Over the next few months, we will count down the the years, and hopefully see some quite familiar faces along the way.

Loui Eriksson is currently the Canucks’ oldest drafted player. We often think of him as being old and slow (among other things), yet he was only drafted in 2003. Therefore, I will open this series with that draft and evaluate some of his peers. Unfortunately, due to the length of pre-2004 drafts, this first edition of “Whatever Happened To…” will be split into two parts, so let’s get started.