Redrafting the Canucks’ 2003 draft class (part 2)
We redrafted the Vancouver Canucks’ first five picks in the 2003 NHL draft based on who was still available at each pick. Here are the other picks from that year.
Few pastimes are as much fun as reviewing past NHL entry drafts and the players that came out of them, particularly those later round picks that turned into stars. Today, we continue to look at the 2003 draft class, widely regarded as one of the best in NHL history. In the first half of this article, we redrafted the first five of the Vancouver Canucks’ first 10 picks in the 2003 draft. In hindsight, these would have been the best of the other five.
Before we begin, let me explain the parameters for this redraft. The goal is to create the best possible draft class from players that were still available when the Canucks made each of their picks.
While this would have been impossible to predict at the time, each one of these players went on to have a prominent NHL career. We are trying to create the best all-around group; in some cases, there will be players chosen higher than others who perhaps didn’t have quite as illustrious a career.
However, choosing all the best players with the highest picks would result in fewer stars taken later on, so sometimes a little flexibility helps. Also for the sake of simplicity, these selections do not take positional needs at the time into account.
6th Round (190th overall): Kyle Brodziak
Kyle Brodziak is perhaps the black sheep among this group of possible Canucks draft picks. He is best known for his role as a career bottom-six centre, playing for the Minnesota Wild, Edmonton Oilers, and St/ Louis Blues from 2005-2019.
Originally a seventh-round pick by the Oilers, Brodziak was never a prolific scorer, his career-high being just 44 points in 2011-12 while playing for the Wild.
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He consistently suffered from gaps in his defensive game and was never known for being overly physical.
However, Brodziak embodied the fight that it takes to make it to the NHL in how he worked his way up from the WHL to the NHL and stuck there for as long as he did, even battling chronic back issues that eventually forced his retirement along the way. Those are the kind of players that you want on your team.
Chad Brownlee, the Canucks’ actual sixth round pick did end up being successful, but as a musician rather than in hockey.
After concussions caused his departure from the game in 2008, he started a country music career that is still going strong and includes two Juno Award nominations. However, he just never quite turned out as a Canucks prospect.
7th Round (222nd overall): Toby Enstrom
Like Brodziak, Toby Enstrom is a bit of a black sheep in this group, playing the role of the underrated workhorse rather than the superstar. The Atlanta Thrashers originally selected Enstrom in the eighth round with the 239th pick, and he spent his entire career in the Thrashers organization, including as it moved to Winnipeg in 2011. He was a defenceman known for his cerebral style of play, much like Chris Tanev.
If everything was going well, you would hardly realize that he was there. However, unlike Tanev, Enstrom had a solid offensive side to his game, reaching 30 points in each of his first five seasons, including two 50-plus point campaigns in 2009-10 and 2010-11, even being named an All-Star in the latter. Through the years, Tanev has usually been an asset to the Canucks, and Enstrom would have been as well.
Instead, the Canucks opted to draft François-Pierre Guenette, a centreman out of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, who toiled in the ECHL for several years before playing out his career in the Italian and French leagues.
8th Round (252nd overall): Jaroslav Halak
The 2003 draft didn’t just give the Canucks a shot at what would be a decent haul of skaters, but a few good goaltenders as well, the best of whom ended up being Jaroslav Halak. The current Boston Bruins backup was originally taken 271st by Montreal, where he would spend four seasons, including two as a starter.
Halak has become well-traveled in his 520 career starts, appearing as a member of five different franchises. Along the way, he has posted a career save percentage of .916 and career goals-against average of 2.48. He has consistently demonstrated the ability to be a capable starting goalie, making it a wonder that Halak has spent the majority of his career as a backup. Maybe that trend could have been different in Vancouver.
Instead of Halak, the Canucks looked to Russia with the 252nd pick, selecting forward Sergei Topol from Avangard Omsk. Always more of a shutdown player than a scorer, Topol never played a game outside his home country and even struggled to make it as a regular in the KHL. He retired following the 2013-14 season.
8th Round (254th overall): Matt Moulson
He has fallen out of form in the past few years, but there was a time with Matt Moulson was a force to be reckoned with. Though his best years came as a member of the New York Islanders, Moulson was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins at the beginning of the ninth round, 263rd overall. A former starter for four different franchises, he was dominant from 2009-2013 with the Islanders. For three consecutive seasons, Moulson was a 30-goal scorer, including a 69-point year in 2011-12.
During the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign, he scored at near a point-per-game pace. Unfortunately, Moulson’s failure to transition his game to the quick, less physical style of play that characterizes the NHL today has left him in the AHL, but for a few years, there were few more productive players around.
Compared to most eighth-round picks, the Canucks got some decent NHL potential out of this pick in the form of Nathan McIver. A left-handed defenceman, McIver was one of their top prospects in the late 2000s.
After several years in the OHL and AHL, he made a total of 18 appearances for the Canucks in 2006-07 and 2007-08 without registering a point. In 2008, he was claimed off waivers by the Anaheim Ducks, where he played another 18 games and finally got his first and only NHL point. That would be it in the NHL for McIver, but for such a late-round pick, he did relatively well.
9th Round (285th overall): Brian Elliott
The later stages of the 2003 draft provided the opportunity for the Canucks to acquire not just one, but two NHL goalies. Brian Elliott was actually taken with the second to last pick in the entire draft, chosen by the Ottawa Senators 291st. With 471 starts under his belt, he has had an up and down career.
His best season came with the St. Louis Blues during a 2011-12 campaign in which he posted an astounding .940 save percentage in 38 starts, but he followed that performance up with one of his worst in 2012-13. However, Elliott’s next three seasons in St. Louis were some of the best of his career. Ever since signing with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2017, Elliott’s career has been on a downward trajectory.
He has now been relegated to a backup role behind youngster Carter Hart, but there was a time when Elliott was unbeatable. If our 2003 Canucks redraft class is to be a long-term team, Brian Elliott is likely the starting goalie.
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The Canucks didn’t have very many options by the time they got to their tenth and final pick. Hindsight tells us that Elliott would have been the best, but they selected defenceman Matthew Hansen instead. Little is known about what happened to Hansen, but it appears that he was never signed by the Canucks or any other NHL team. It seems as though he finished his period of age eligibility in the WHL before riding off into the sunset.