Did The Capitals Make The Right Selections In These Drafts
By CJ Witt
Hindsight is 20/20. Everyone knows that saying and I think everybody can also agree that statement is 100% truth. That being the case I think that is also what makes sports drafts so much fun. Pretty much all the information on prospects is out there, we can all make educated guesses on who is a good pick at a certain spot.
But at the end of the day, all of us, even the “experts” and the people who scout prospects for a living really have no idea who will be great and who won’t.
Looking back at these drafts and who teams selected is really fun for that reason. It’s interesting to go back and see who teams picked and who they could have picked in place of that player. That is exactly what we will do here today.
We will obviously only be looking at the Washington Capitals and we are only going to go back so far. We will only be going back to 2012, that being a nice round number of ten years ago. We’ll also only be looking at first round selections, the majority of attention of course falling on that round.
A rule I have also made for myself is we won’t go back to far to find a prospect they could have or should have drafted. Sure the Capitals should have drafted Henrik Zetterberg in the first round in 1999 but he was left until the eighth round. He was never going in the first round, there’s no use debating that. I’m only going to go a few picks down, or about half a round down to find someone the Capitals could have picked.
With that being said, how many times did the Caps make the right selection in the draft?
In the 2012 draft the Capitals selected Tom Wilson in the first round with the 16th overall pick. It would be hard to say that Capitals are disappointed with that selection. Wilson has gone on the possibly be the best power forward the game has right now. Only possibly if you want to nail him down to a position/role. Wilson has frankly turned into more than that in my opinion.
However, there are a couple of great options that went right after Wilson.
Tomas Hertl went to San Jose just one pick later. Would you rather have Wilson or Hertl. I don’t think there is a wrong answer here personally. Wilson is potentially more impactful in different ways, Hertl is more of a scorer. Wilson’s career high in goals and points is this past seasons at 24 goals and points 52. Hertl on the other hand has career highs of 35 goals and 74 points.
Hertl is obviously the better player offensively. But Wilson is no slouch. I don’t think anyone cares that the Caps passed on Hertl. Even though he is a very good player.
Then we have the big one. At number nineteen in that same draft, just three picks after Wilson, the Tampa Bay Lightning selected Andrei Vasilevskiy. In hindsight, I’m never taking Tom Wilson over Andrei Vasilevskiy. Maybe some would, I question their sanity.
The Capitals did not need goaltending at the time as much as they need it now, back then this was not a bad pass up. I still don’t think this is a bad selection. The Capitals and the fans are probably and justifiably happy with Wilson being the pick and I would agree. They drafted the right guy in 2012.
The 2013 draft is pretty easy. With the 23rd overall pick the Capitals selected Andre Burakovsky. That young man helped the Capitals win the Stanley Cup in 2018 and scored two huge goals in Game 7 vs. the Lightning.
There isn’t too many guys I would take over him in that draft. Shea Theodore was taken at 26th. Would you prefer the Caps took him? After him I think you have to go down to 58th overall where the Red Wings took Tyler Bertuzzi.
The Capitals made the right pick in 2013.
2014 might hurt a little bit. Especially considering what has happened since. With the 13th overall pick in this draft the Caps picked Jakub Vrana. Vrana also helped the team win the Cup in 2018 but he is also no longer on the team. There is also at least one guy they passed on that ended up, not only good, but great.
David Pastrnak went to the Bruins at 25. Pastrnak has gone on to score 30+ goals five times and has scored 40+ goals twice. Vrana is a very talented player, and still has a lot of potential, but his career high in goals is 25 compared to “Pasta’s” 48.
Again, it’s easy to say now, but the Caps could have had Pastrnak over Vrana. I think most would take that.
In the 2015 draft the Capitals went on to select Ilya Samsonov with the 22nd pick. I remember being very excited about this pick for the team. He still has potential, but there are some players the Caps missed by selecting him. One pick later Vancouver took Brock Boeser. Boeser isn’t elite by any means, but he’ll give you 20+ goals every season with 40-60 points and he could still get better too.
Travis Konecny went a single pick after Boeser. In terms of production a very similar player.
The biggest miss this draft was probably Sebastian Aho who went 35th overall. Aho has scored 30+ goals three times. He has been a point per game player for the past four seasons. His best career seasons are a little split. He had more points in 2018-19 with 83, but he had more goals this past season with 37 while only scoring 81 points.
It would be hard to pass up on Aho if the Caps had the opportunity. Did the Caps make the right pick in 2015? Probably not.
The 2016 draft has the potential to hurt as well. At pick 28 the Capitals selected Lucas Johansen. He has yet to make his mark in the NHL although that time could easily still be coming. But there is at least one, maybe two guys the Capitals could have picked up instead.
The first guy is Jordan Kyrou who the Blues took at 35. This past season he had a career year scoring 27 goals and putting up 75 points. Can he do it again and remain a good NHL player?
The guy that should have gone way higher in this draft is Alex DeBrincat. The Cat has gone on to become one of the scarier goal scorers in the league on a weaker Blackhawks team. He has scored over 40 goals twice and was probably well on his way to doing so again in the abbreviated 2021 season where he scored 32 goals in 52 games.
That was a miss by many teams and you could probably add the Capitals to that list.
The Capitals did not have a first round draft pick in 2017.
We will finish this up right there. In my opinion we are getting too close to fully evaluate players. In the 2018 draft the Caps took Alex Alexeyev in the first round with the last pick in that round. Going down the list of guys picked after him the first name I see I would have rather picked is Martin Fehervary at 46. The next name to know is Sean Durzi at 52 who had a very nice rookie season for the LA Kings. He could be a very nice defenseman for a long while.
We’ll put a halt on it there though. Should the Capitals have passed on Connor McMichael in 2019? Well, there isn’t anyone behind him that has developed into anything yet. The same can be said for Hendrix Lapierre in 2020. It’s too soon to say what these players are or what they will become.
So how many drafts are you completely happy with? A couple of picks helped the Capitals win the Cup in 2018, but have since been let go. Those players were also passed for potentially better players.
At the end of the day, Wilson was a good pick in 2012 and probably picked the right guy in 2013 with Burakovsky. After them, I would say the other picks are debatable, or possibly just misses.