Nashville Predators: Top Players They Could’ve Drafted But Didn’t

We all know that drafting in any professional sport isn’t an exact science, and that seems especially true for hockey. The Nashville Predators have made their fair share of both bad picks and awesome picks over their 23-year history.

The Predators are looking to rebuild the roster with an injection of youth in the coming seasons while also looking to remain playoff competitive. Drafting effectively is a must, and it appears that the recent draft picks they’ve made have a lot of promise.

The 2021 NHL Entry Draft is slated for July 23-24.

Nashville Predators have a mixed bag of results in their draft history

This was painful to look back on in some instances to see where the Predators totally missed out on drafting a franchise-changing player. For the purpose of this list, I chose to highlight players they missed out on that were picked just after the Predators picks.

I also focused more on misses the Predators made with their own picks, and didn’t include instances where the Predators made a great pick regardless of who ended up going afterwards.

With that said, the Predators definitely missed out on some great players in their history, as has every NHL general manager. Time to play some “Monday Morning Quarterback” and look back on some picks we wish the Predators had back.

T.J. Oshie (2005, 1st Round)

I’ve always been a big fan of T.J. Oshie’s game, and he’s still a very productive player to this day for the Washington Capitals. But he was originally drafted by the St. Louis Blues with the 24th-overall pick in 2005.

As for the Predators, they swung and missed badly with their first-round pick that year by taking defenseman Ryan Parent, who never played a game for them.

Parent ended up only appearing in 106 NHL games and didn’t play in the NHL past the 2010-11 season. He did spend a little time in the AHL after that.

Oshie has gone on to have an outstanding NHL career with over 600 career points and 255 goals. Yet another dynamic offensive player that the Predators missed out on.

Later in that draft other solid offensive players like James Neal and Paul Statsny also went before the Predators could pick again in the third round to take Cody Fransen and Teemu Laakso.

Yeah, let’s try to forget about the 2005 Draft for the Predators after seeing those misses. But hey, they did take Patric Hornqvist with the very last pick in the entire draft at 230th overall!

Brad Marchand (2006, 3rd Round)

The Predators didn’t have a pick in this draft until all the way at the 56th-overall pick. They had just erupted the previous season with 106 points and nearly winning the Central Division. They were starting to build something great in Nashville.

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At the 56th pick the Predators took American centerman Blake Geoffrion, and unfortunately it ended up being a bust of a pick. He only played in 42 games for the Predators amassing 11 points and hardly seeing any ice time.

As much as Brad Marchand is a polarizing player that many fans can’t stand, you can’t deny he’s a great player. He got selected 15 picks later by the Boston Bruins in the third round, and now he’s past the 700-point career milestone.

Every team is kicking themselves for passing on Marchand in this draft, but it sting particularly for a team like the Predators who made a horrendous pick with Geoffrion. At least other teams still took a solid player despite passing on Marchand.

Marchand has 57 points this season for the Bruins, while many times during an 82-game season we rarely see a Predators player get to that point production.

Erik Karlsson (2008, 1st Round)

This one stings as well, but what lessens the sting somewhat is the Predators have always been really good at building up their defensive stockpile. With that said, this one still is painful to revisit and could’ve been catastrophic if not for a pick that saved them later on.

Erik Karlsson went 15th-overall to the Ottawa Senators in 2008 and ended up becoming one of the NHL’s most elite defenseman. He’s piled up over 600 points in his NHL career, has two Norris Trophies and is creeping up on 800 career games played.

The Predators took Colin Wilson at the 7th-overall pick, which wasn’t a horrendous pick by any means as we all love Colin Wilson and what he did for the Predators franchise. But in all due respect he didn’t produce 7th-overall pick type of numbers for the Predators.

Another horrible pick by the Predators came later in the first round when they took goaltender Chet Pickard, which is perhaps one of the worst picks in team history.

The Predators made up for it in a huge way and we’ll forgive them completely because they took Roman Josi in the second round, and he has the chance to eventually surpass what Karlsson has done in this league.

Mark Stone (2010, 6th Round)

You’re not going to pile on the Predators too much for this one because everyone passed on Mark Stone, including the team that drafted him, but it still makes you wonder.

Stone is widely considered a top-10 player in the NHL right now. He’s fun to watch and makes things happen on both ends. An outstanding skater, puck handler and scorer.

The proximity of where the Predators picked in the sixth round of 2010 in relation to where Stone got selected is what sticks out to me. The Predators took defenseman Anthony Bitetto at 168th-overall with Stone remaining on the board.

Stone would eventually get selected by the Ottawa Senators 10 picks later, and now he’s a perennial point-per-game type of player that’s regularly in the conversation for the Hart Trophy and the Selke Trophy.

The 2010 draft class for the Nashville Predators is one of the worst, if not the worst, draft class in franchise history. They took Austin Watson in the first round, and there’s nothing else to even speak of after that.

Nikita Kucherov (2011, 2nd Round)

To round out this list of draft sadness for the Nashville Predators we’re going back to 2011. An offseason where the Predators were riding high after getting a first round playoff series win over the Anaheim Ducks and finishing with 99 points in the regular season.

The Predators were looking to make that next big draft pick to push them over the top, but they didn’t have any first-round picks in this draft. Their first pick came at 38th-overall and they took Swedish goaltender Magnus Hellberg, who never registered an NHL start for the Predators.

An odd pick if you ask me considering the Predators already had Pekka Rinne at the helm, who had just posted a .930 save percentage the season before. They also had Anders Lindback backing him up, which was no scrub.

The Predators would get another chance to maybe take Nikita Kucherov, but instead they took Miikka Salomaki. I know there’s a lot of Salomaki fans out there, and I’m also one that appreciated his gritty style of play. But come on now; Kucherov ended up being one of the best players in the NHL, and Salomaki is now no longer in the NHL.

This one takes the cake for biggest miss the Predators made in their draft history. Not because Salomaki was a complete bust, but because they missed out on a franchise changing player and eventual Hart Trophy winner in Kucherov.

To the credit of the Predators and GM David Poile, I didn’t come across any glaring misses by the Predators since 2011. They’ve made some bad picks, but there weren’t any big time player that were on the board when the Predators picked or players that would’ve made sense.