Columbus Blue Jackets: History of the 18th Overall Pick
What do past drafts tell us about the type of player the Columbus Blue Jackets will draft at number 18?
The Columbus Blue Jackets should land a decent prospect at the 18th overall pick in this year’s draft. Jarmo and company will surely be locked in on a forward at this spot as the organizational depth at defense is very impressive right now.
Let’s take a look back at recent drafts to see what type of player the Jackets can hope to land at the 18th spot. We’ll be looking at the 2011-2015 drafts as all of those players have at least had a reasonable amount of time to prove themselves.
2011 NHL Draft: Mark McNeill, Center, Chicago Blackhawks
This is worst case scenario for the Columbus Blue Jackets at pick #18. And it’s a pretty terrible scenario.
With the 18th overall pick the Chicago Blackhawks thought they were drafting an NHL ready, two-way centerman in Mark McNeill from the Prince Albert Raiders. They thought that the two way center would compliment Jonthan Toews and help the Blackhawks lift the Stanley Cup with a solid one, two punch down the middle.
McNeill was a 6-2, 210 pound center out of the Western Hockey League and looked like a perfect second line center. That also sounds exactly like what the Jackets would love to draft at number 18 overall this year.
But that wasn’t what the Blackhawks drafted. In fact they drafted the player who has played the third least NHL games out of any 1st round pick from 2011. McNeill has been an AHL journeyman since that time and although he still “could” breakout at age 25, it seems unlikely at this point.
McNeill is similar to Barrett Hayton from the Soo Greyhounds who is expected to go in the top 15 of this year’s draft but could theoretically fall to 18. Both are great two way centers who put up good, but not great numbers in the CHL. Both had impressive World Junior showings in their draft year as well. Hayton and McNeill are also both bigger players and seem like they are NHL ready physically.
Hayton does have a bit more skill while McNeill had a bit more size. I am in no way saying that the Jackets shouldn’t draft Hayton. If Hayton fell to 18 the Columbus Blue Jackets would most certainly draft him and I would be happy. But there is a risk in drafting a player like this at 18 with two way skill but not top end scoring talent.
McNeill was a valuable trade piece for the Blackhawks in 2016 and again, could still breakout. But if the Jackets end up with a McNeill type player at 18, it will be a massive disappointment.
2012: Center, Teuvo Teravainen
The Chicago Blackhawks held the 18th pick in back-to-back years and ended up drafting two centers with widely different careers. Both draft picks ended up being traded away from Chicago.
In 2012 the 18th overall pick was Teuvo Teravainen. Teravainen was a smaller, more skilled center from the Finnish Liiga team, Jokerit Helsinki. At 17 he played at the top level of the Finnish mens league and won the rookie of the year award before his draft year. He had an impressive 31 points in 44 games. For comparison, the Jackets 2nd round pick from last year, Alexander Texier, played in Liiga this season at 18-years-old and had 22 points in 53 games.
Teravainen came to the NHL in 2014 and was a crucial component to the Blackhawks Stanley Cup run in 2015. In 18 playoff games he scored 10 points and became the fourth youngest player to score a goal in Stanley Cup Finals history.
Following the 2016 season, Teravainen was traded to Carolina where he has positioned himself as a top line NHL center. Last season at age 23, he played in all 82 games and scored 23 goals and 41 assist. The Columbus Blue Jackets would be overjoyed if they could pick up a center like Teravainen at 18. Perhaps a fellow Finn, Rasmus Kupari, could be this years Teravainen.
2013: Mirco Mueller
The San Jose Sharks went to the blue line for the 18th pick in 2013 and chose Mirco Mueller from the Everett Silvertips. The Swiss born defenseman spent another year in the Western Hockey League before heading to the professional ranks.
More from Union and Blue
- Blaming Columbus Blue Jacket Players for Babcock Fallout is Unfair
- The Mike Babcock Experiment in Columbus Has Failed
- Blue Jacket Prospects Win Traverse City Tournament: Who Stood Out?
- Mike Babcock Resigns as CBJ Head Coach: Reaction
- New Claims Bring Higher Level of Concern to Babcock Situation
Since that time Mueller has bounced back and forth from the AHL and the NHL. He has played 82 games in the NHL including 28 this season with the New Jersey Devils. He also played three games in the playoffs in the Devils first round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Unfortunately Mueller suffered a fractured clavicle that forced him to miss three months of the season. After a long recovery, Mueller was the Devils 6/7 defenseman for the remainder of the year.
Mueller had a great appearance at the World Championship this year with Team Switzerland. He helped guide the surprise run to a silver medal for the Swiss with six points in 10 games.
He is a typical bottom pair defenseman that still has time to blossom into a mid pair defenseman in the NHL. I doubt the Jackets will be looking at a defenseman at 18 unless a top tier blueliner falls like a Noah Dobson or Evan Buchard.
Defenseman do take longer than forwards to fully develop and the fractured clavicle didn’t help his development but the World Championship performance should give Devils fans some hope that Mueller will live up to being drafted 18th overall.
2014: Left Wing, Alex Tuch
This pick makes the Minnesota Wild look really good and really bad all at the same time. In the 2014 Entry Draft, the Wild took the big, skilled winger, Alex Tuch, from the U.S. National Development Program. The upstate New York product went on to have two dominate years at Boston College following his draft year.
Tuch didn’t get a ton of time with the Wild after he left Boston College and spent most of the year in the AHL. He was scoreless in six games in the NHL and that was enough for the Wild to deal him to Vegas so the Golden Knights wouldn’t take Matt Dumba. Yes, superstar Matt Dumba was protected over Alex Tuch.
All Tuch did was go on to score 37 points in 78 games as well as 10 points in 20 playoff games. He was a physical presence offensively below the circles and in his own zone. He was a key part to the Golden Knights unbelievable run to the Stanley Cup Final.
Tuch’s style is similar to Josh Anderson and Boone Jenner. I don’t think the Jackets are ideally looking for another player like Tuch, but they will certainly be fine with it being the case.
2015: Defenseman, Thomas Chabot
Forever known as the Connor McDavid draft, the 2015 year will go down as one of the deepest, and best, drafts in recent memory. Nine of the top 10 draft picks have already played 100 games and six have scored over 80 points. With that type of talent in one class, the 18th pick overall was bound to be an excellent pick.
The Ottawa Senator selected the offensive minded defenseman Thomas Chabot at 18th overall. Chabot played his first full season in the NHL this year and showed how high his ceiling is. On a terrible Senators team with more drama then an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. But the 21-year-old produced well for a young defenseman and played solid defense all year round.
Much like the 2015 draft, this year’s draft is stacked defensively. Drafted before Chabot were top pairing defenseman such as Noah Hanifin, Ivan Provorov, and our own Zach Werenski.
This year top defenseman such as Rasmus Dahlin, Evan Buchard, Quinn Hughes, and Adam Boqvist will be drafted early along with Noah Dobson. That will leave top end prospects like Ryan Merkley, Bode Wilde and Ty Smith to the 18th slot like Chabot did.
Much like the discussion around Marco Mueller though, I don’t think this will affect the Columbus Blue Jackets much. Although drafting the best player available philosophy is the right way to go, in this instance the Jackets have too much blue line talent in the system to draft a defenseman.
Next: Top 5 Games of 2017-2018
The 18th slot has been a hit or miss spot over the years. One common theme with all of these 18th overall picks is that they take some time to develop. Expect the Jackets to take a player thought that doesn’t make an impact for a few years.