Nashville Predators make their first draft pick in 1998
I’m starting this countdown off with the draft pick that started it all, and that’s David Legwand. I get that this draft class wasn’t what you would call “star studded”, but the Predators didn’t screw up by taking the wrong player at the 2nd overall pick.
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This is widely considered a weak draft class, and the Predators made the best possible choice by taking Legwand, a player that to this day still leads a lot of major statistical categories including goals (210), assists (356) and games played (956).
Even the second-round pick from that year wasn’t a total bust. Denis Arkhipov went on to play 273 games and put up 111 points for Nashville once he got onto the NHL ice for the 2000-01 season.
In the 9th round the Predators took Karlis Skrastins, a defenseman who ended up playing 307 games for Nashville and logged an average ice time of over 20 minutes per game. You’ll take that every time from a late round draft pick.
The rest of the draft class really didn’t pan out, but you can say that for pretty much every team from that draft.