Washington Capitals: What Does Brian MacLellan’s Draft History Look Like

With the NHL draft happening in just a few days reviews are surely happening. Teams and managements are no doubt reviewing their draft lists and the prospects they like the best with the hopes of grabbing a key guy for their team for years and years to come.

That of course is always the goal come draft time. It doesn’t really matter if you draft first overall or don’t have your first pick for several rounds. Obviously the higher the pick the bigger the expectation. But a key player can come from any round.

Nikita Kucherov for example, he was drafted 58th overall. All he has done is win a couple of Stanley Cups, help his Lightning teams make other deep playoffs runs and win an MVP to go along with a bunch of all-star appearances.

From someone out on the west coast and watches a lot of San Jose Sharks hockey, Joe Pavelski was drafted in the seventh round, 205th overall. He has gone on to be a tremendous NHL player. He was eventually named captain of a team and he is creeping up on 1,000 career points with well over 400 career goals.

There are plenty of Pavelski’s and Kucherov’s. Not the highest ranked players in their drafts, but future team legends or hall of famers. An important player can come from anywhere in the draft. But how has current General Manager Brian MacLellan done in drafting since he became GM? Has he found any later round pieces?

One good thing about the Washington Capitals is that they usually draft later. Since I started watching Capitals hockey well over a decade ago now they still have not drafted in the top ten. Although they have come close, 11th overall in 2012 and 13th in 2014.

That also means that the Caps will have to find those “gems” if you will. They usually will not get the flashiest guy where they make their pick. That’s not to say they haven’t landed some great prospects in the first round. Both ’12 and ’14 ended up very good players. Both of those players also no longer with the franchise.

The Capitals are forced to pick later in drafts. MacLellan has been in charge since 2014. The highest pick he has had is 22, that happened twice, once in his first year in 2015 and again in 2020. How has he done in the later rounds? Has he been able to find a later player that ended up being at least a somewhat important player.

There is not whole lot to look at when looking at MacLellan’s drafts. When looking at all of his draft picks I can count only three guys total who are pretty good, and pretty much all three still have some major questions and have plenty to prove. The three guys I look at are Connor McMichael, Martin Fehervary and Ilya Samsonov. Those are also high picks being 25, 46 and 22.

The Caps do have some promising talent coming but in my opinion it is still way too early to call them anything. At least the three players I just named have shown what they can do at the NHL level for extended time. I don’t think it’s fair to judge a guy like Hendrix Lapierre based on 6 career games. Alexander Alexeyev also has some promise, but has played in 1 game.

It’s also probably not fair to judge the last two or three drafts. It’s still too early for everyone in those years.

The sweet spot we will be looking at here is 2015-18. That is four drafts. We’re the Caps able to find a player in the later rounds that ended up a lineup regular?

Just one. Or just one that is currently on the team. That guy is Fehervary who, as we said earlier, was drafted 46th overall.

MacLellan and his team also drafted Jonas Siegenthaler in the second round, 57th overall in 2015. They have unfortunately traded him to the New Jersey Devils where it looks like he is developing into a very nice defenseman for them.

Going back to 2016 there is not a lot of guys who have turned into anything just yet. The Capitals 2016 draft class has played just 46 total NHL games. Axel Jonsson-Fjallby has played 23 of those 46.

We then move up to 2017 where no one has made their NHL debuts yet. A grand total of zero NHL games played for that year. The Capitals did not have a pick in that draft until the fourth round and the 120th pick.

2018 is a lot better than 2017 with 86 games played. Fehervary has all of that basically with 85 games played and Alexeyev having his one game. No one else has made the NHL from that year yet.

It would be cruel to suggest that MacLellan and his team are not great at drafting. But even the top picks he and his management side have selected still have a lot of proving to do. Judging a GM on how many late draft picks he hit on is also not the smartest thing to do.

However, going back to when MacLellan took over there is not a lot to love yet and we are now going back seven drafts. There are some higher picks that are starting to crack to lineup, but they still have a lot to show at the highest level. There are some names coming as well. Those players may end up great, or they may be a mirage in the desert. Who knows.

Bottom line, MacLellan has not yet drafted a key player for this franchise and we are nearly ten years into his management. Will he and his team draft one or more future pieces this year?