Brian MacLellan’s Five Best Drafts Picks As Capitals General Manager
The 5 best Washington Capitals draft picks of the Brian MacLellan era.
The draft season has come and gone. Unfortunately for us, this year, there was no draft. At least not at its regular time. The NHL draft usually coming at the end of June, this year the date was supposed to be June 26th and 27th. However, things in the world have prevented that from actually happening.
It’s unclear on when the 2020 draft will take place, but it will be sometime after the playoffs. Which still does not have a starting date.
With no draft from this year to look back on, like most might be doing around this time, why not go back and look at the past few drafts and see how well the Washington Capitals and General Manager Brian MacLellan have done?
MacLellan has been in charge of the team and drafts since May of 2014. While I and everyone else should understand, it’s not just him that drafts or finds players to draft. But as a GM, your name gets put on the drafts selections. So how well has MacLellan done as Capitals General Manager?
2014
In his first draft making the final decisions the Capitals and MacLellan possibly hit a home run. With the 13th overall pick in the draft the Caps used that pick on Czech forward Jakub Vrana. Vrana has now played in three full seasons with the Capitals and is getting better every year.
In his first full year he scored 13 goals and 27 points in 73 games. The next year he scored 24 goals and 47 points in 82 games. This past year with just 69 games played he had already scored 25 goals and put up 52 points. He’s only 24 years old and is still yet to reach his ceiling. Thirty goals and potentially 70 points, in my opinion is not out of the question for this young man. Maybe even more than that, we’ll see.
Even if Vrana were to not get much better, this was still a heck of a first pick to make as a GM.
Vitek Vanecek
The jury is still out on this one, as will most of the guys on this list honestly. The Capitals are in a cap crunch, and the somewhat easy and obvious choice to ease that crunch is to move on from Braden Holtby. The organizational goaltending depth makes that decision a lot easier. Vanecek is a part of that depth.
Vanecek was picked 39th overall in this draft. His numbers in the AHL have been pretty average. He’s hovered around the 2.50 goals against average and been around the .908 save percentage area. He has a down year in 2017-18 where he had a GAA over 3 (3.04 to be exact) and his save percentage was just .888%.
This past season however he’s put in some good numbers. The last season, he had a 2.26 GAA and a .917 save percentage. Pretty good for a young goaltender.
He might not be the number one goalie in the pipeline, but it looks like it was a solid pick in the 2014 draft. He could be a great backup in the NHL, or maybe you can trade that great backup for other needs.
2015
Ilya Samsonov
The 2015 draft may go down as the Connor McDavid draft. The Capitals were able to pick a pretty good player that year as well at the 22nd pick. Ilya Samsonov, another goaltender. At the time, to me, that seemed like a weird pick, considering the Capitals had Braden Holtby. Now, that pick looks like it could be a steal for Washington.
While his numbers last season in the minors didn’t look very good (a 2.70 GAA and .898 save percentage) his numbers and play in the NHL this season showed his potential to be a number one goaltender in D.C. In his first NHL season Samsonov played in 26 games putting up a 2.55 GAA and had a .913 save percentage.
Up until the 18th of January, Samsonov had a 2.06 GAA and a .927 save percentage. He potentially hit a rookie wall. After the 18th he had a 3.88 GAA with a .878 save percentage. It wouldn’t be the first time and it will in no way be the last time a rookie hit a wall halfway through his first season. Let’s just hope his NHL career looks like the first half of his season rather than the second half.
If his career ends up like the first half of his rookie season the Caps absolutely nailed this pick at 22nd overall. We have a long ways to go to find out how good he will be, but as of right now, this was a great pick by MacLellan and his team.
This past year, the Capitals needed a depth defenseman to step up. They got someone to do just that in the form of Jonas Siegenthaler. Siegenthaler was one of the more promising Caps defensive prospects. He made the jump to full time NHLer this season.
He played up and down the lineup as well. He played some alongside John Carlson on the first D pair before eventually finding his spot on the 3rd pairing.
He, of course, had some up and down moments, but that’s to be expected from a young guy. There is plenty of time for the 23-year-old to find consistency and even a bigger role. But scoring 2 goals and putting up 9 points, and probably more importantly being a +11 in your first season as a pro, not bad!
While not the best or flashiest player on this list, he may turn out to be a very good defenseman in the future, and for being picked number 57, that’s a heck of a pickup.
2019
You see a big jump in years here. It’s too early to tell for others if they will be good NHL players. Heck, it’s too early to tell for most of these guys, especially this guy. But after what this kid has done in his limited NHL time and his career so far in junior hockey, it’s hard to not be excited for this player.
McMichael was drafted 25th overall in the 2019 NHL draft. In his draft year he put up 36 goals and 72 points in 67 games. Everything you read about this guy said he was a good player with good potential.
Then he played in some preseason games and personally blew me away. I was surprised he did not get more of a look in the preseason and maybe even a start in the NHL before sending him back to juniors. The team ended up sending him back early.
He then went on to put up some very, very impressive numbers. In the 52 games played with the London Knights this season McMichael scored 47 goals and 102 points. He had six hat tricks last season and was named to the OHL’s second all-star team.
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It is, of course, way too early to tell how good McMichael will be. However, everything I’ve seen and everything I’ve read says this kid has the potential to be a very good player. To pick someone this good at number twenty-five was a tremendous pick.