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Nashville Predators: Ranking the Best Draft Classes in Team History

By Chad Minton

Seth Jones (R), drafted #4 overall in the first round by the Nashville Predators, greets members of the Predators organization during the 2013 NHL Draft at the Prudential Center on June 30, 2013 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
Seth Jones (R), drafted #4 overall in the first round by the Nashville Predators, greets members of the Predators organization during the 2013 NHL Draft at the Prudential Center on June 30, 2013 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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Best draft class top to bottom

It’s hard to grade draft classes against each other because almost all of them are full of busts. Drafting is extremely difficult in all sports, but especially true in hockey.

For the sake of this rankings list I built for the Predators draft classes, I looked for drafts where the team drafted the most players who made the biggest impacts on the NHL level.

The 2009 draft class sticks out more than any other draft. They drafted four players who ended up making huge impacts on the NHL level, and two of them are still big parts of the Predators blueline in Ryan Ellis and Mattias Ekholm.

In current times Ellis is getting a lot of criticism in Predators fan circles for being overrated and not worthy of top-line status. Maybe there’s slight truth to that in 2021, but for almost all of his career he’s been a top-line defenseman who has helped make the Predators a very good team.

Then you have Ekholm, who was taken in the 4th round at the 102nd overall pick. A huge steal considering what he has become, and what hopefully he still can be even going into the 2021-22 season.

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Craig Smith, who played for the Predators all the way into 2020, was taken in this draft class as well in the 4th round, and just four picks before Ekholm. What a couple of picks by Poile. This is the kind of stuff general managers live for. Finding mid-round gems like Smith and Ekholm.

And not to be overlooked, Gabriel Bourque was taken in this draft in the 5th round. His NHL career came up rather short unfortunately, but he did give the Predators 242 games and 78 points.

Honorable Mention

I came really close to putting the 2013 draft class in my top-five, which included Seth Jones and Juuse Saros. If Jones would’ve spent longer in Nashville then you’d have a strong case, and Saros’ future could warrant moving this ahead of the 1998 drafting of Legwand.

It was also tempting to add 2014 into the list with Kevin Fiala and Viktor Arvidsson taken in this draft. But again, Fiala wasn’t here long enough to make his full impact on the franchise.

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