Columbus Blue Jackets: 2017 NHL Draft Review, How Did They Do?

The 2017 NHL Draft was somewhat overshadowed by an expansion draft, held less than a week prior. With the league expanding to 31 teams by adding the Vegas Golden Knights, several teams parleyed picks in this draft to protect additional players. The Blue Jackets were one of those teams.

The Jackets entered the draft without a first round pick, for just the second time in franchise history. They sent their first rounder to Vegas, as well as a second round pick in 2019, along with LTIR forward David Clarkson; with the agreement that the Knights would select William Karlsson at the expansion draft. This allowed the Jackets to protect coveted power forward Josh Anderson.

Unfortunately, we all know how things ultimately worked out. Karlsson burst onto the scene and suddenly became a top six center, scoring 43 goals the very next season. Anderson was productive, but only played three more seasons in Central Ohio, before being dealt to Montreal. The one silver lining here is that, the pick was ultimately dealt to Winnipeg, who took forward Kristian Vesalainen at #24 overall.

There were some good players taken soon after, including Jake Oettinger (#26, Dallas), Morgan Frost (#27, Philadelphia), and a few others. Perhaps the most notable would be Jason Robertson, who went 39th (again to Dallas), the best player taken after this pick, but before the Jackets would wind up making their first selection of the draft.

First round grade: F. With no first rounder, and the way things turned out after the expansion draft, this is an easy grade to dish out. This wasn’t a crazy strong draft, but there was some seriously good talent on the board at the end of the first round, and early in the second. If they’d had the foresight to hold onto that pick and draft a player like Jason Robertson, for example, how much differently would things be in Columbus over the last few years?

Worse for the Jackets – their second round pick in this same draft was given to the Vancouver Canucks, as compensation for hiring away terminated head coach John Tortorella. The Canucks would go on to pick forward Jonah Gadjovich (we’ll take that trade off) with our pick at #55 – but not before Jarmo made a move to add a second round pick, selecting a future NHL player…

The fourth round pick for the Blue Jackets in 2017 has been one of the most debated players around the team in recent years. With that said, he’s actually been great value in the range they picked him, even if things haven’t worked out as well as they’d hoped.

Fourth round (#117 overall): LW Emil Bemstrom

Little did we know at the time of this pick, but Bemstrom soon thereafter became one of the most talked about goal scoring prospects in the world. Yes, the entire world. And we had picked him in the fourth round! He scored at a historic pace in the SHL just two years later, potting 23 goals in 47 games as a 19 year old.

The Jackets were excited to have him come over the next fall, and he started off really well for them, playing in 56 games as a rookie, scoring 10 goals and 20 points. But over time, injuries and a clear lack of confidence seem to have stunted his promising offensive career. This past season, in spite of dominating in the AHL, he struggled to earn regular ice time at the NHL level – even as the injuries piled up around this team.

Thus far, he’s played in 172 NHL games, scoring 26 goals and 58 points, while being a huge topic of debate amongst the CBJ faithful. Part of this debate almost certainly stems from the unfair comparisons he drew by scoring at such a terrific rate in Sweden – and in the end, he’s become exactly what you would expect a fourth round pick to become. A depth player.

Fourth round grade: B+. Yes, Emil Bemstrom earns the Jackets a high “B” grade here. Only two players picked in the same round have played more games than Bemstrom – Mikey Anderson (#103, Los Angeles) and Drake Batherson (#121, Ottawa). In fact, only Batherson has played more games than Bemstrom, if you look at any player taken after him.

Fifth round (#148 overall): F Kale Howarth

In a draft where they made seven picks, Howarth is one of only two players that I think it’s fair to say, completely missed. It’s not entirely surprising – he was a third year eligible player, playing in the BCHL (lower tier junior), and taking his time by going the NCAA route.

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But, at 6’5″, he had a pro build, and he was coming off of a 30 goal, 58 point season in 51 BCHL games. So, why not take a flyer here? Unfortunately for the Jackets, that scoring touch never really carried over to the NCAA, where Kale scored just 16 goals in three seasons before turning pro. Over the past two years, he’s bounced around between the AHL and ECHL. He’s currently slated to return to the Rockford Ice Hogs (AHL) this fall.

Fifth round grade: F. Clear miss here. Their saving grace is that, you have to go well into the sixth round, all the way to pick #169, before you find an actual NHL player out of this draft. So, they weren’t the only ones that missed in this round.

The Jackets picked another overager in round six – this time, a productive winger out of Sweden. While he didn’t make it in Columbus, he became an important pick for this team in a different way.

Sixth round (#170 overall): RW Jonathan Davidsson

The Jackets used a pick acquired in the Brandon Saad/Artemi Panarin trade to pick a small, but productive winger playing in Sweden’s second tier league. Jonathan Davidsson never came to North America as a member of the Blue Jackets – instead spending two more seasons playing in the SHL – but, we can’t call this one a complete miss.

Davidsson was eventually part of the deal that brought Matt Duchene to Columbus at the 2019 trade deadline. Duchene was a key piece to the first round sweep over the Tampa Bay Lightning that spring, helping the team to their first ever playoff series win.

Davidsson came over and spent parts of two seasons in the Senators organization, playing in six NHL games during the 2019-20 season. Since then, he’s returned to Europe, where he’s played ever since. Any time you can turn a sixth round draft pick into an asset that brings back a player like Matt Duchene, it’s hard to be upset.

Sixth round (#179 overall): RW Carson Meyer

The Jackets took their third overage player in the draft just nine picks later, selecting Powell native and University of Miami (Ohio) forward Carson Meyer.

Meyer played three more years at the NCAA level, including two at the Ohio State University, before turning pro for the 2020-21 season. Since then, he’s been a bit of a ‘tweener, bouncing between the Jackets and the Cleveland Monsters (AHL). But, he has 27 NHL games under his belt, more than everyone taken after him in this draft.

He’s been an energetic workhorse ever since he was brought into the organization, earning everything he’s gotten along the way. It’s hard to be upset about the local team picking a local kid, when it turns out like this. The only concern I have now is, there’s not much room left for this guy on this team as the rebuild nears its completion.

Sixth round grade: B. Another high grade … they come away with two guys who made it to the NHL. To put it into perspective, only nine players from this round in 2017 played any NHL games, and four of them played fewer than 10.

Finding NHL players in the seventh round is really hard. By my own math during a good stretch of time, it’s about a 5% success rate across the league – from the 2017 draft, seven players picked in the seventh round made it into NHL games. Only two of them wound up played more than 10 games – and likely only one will remain an NHL player.

Seventh round (#210 overall): D Robbie Stucker

This was a home run swing that turned out to be a strike three in the seventh round for the Blue Jackets. Coming out of high school in Minnesota, Stucker was a big kid, standing in at 6’3″, with a lot of upside.

As things go at this point in the draft, you’re trying to project where he might be in four or five years, if everything goes just right. But, this player never developed as the Jackets hoped, and thus was never signed. After being selected, Stucker went on to spend three years with the University of Minnesota, and two more with the University of Vermont.

He did turn pro at the end of this season – with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays. Now 24 years old, I think it’s safe to say that Robbie Stucker is no longer an NHL prospect, and that this pick is a complete miss. Seventh round grade: F.

If we’re giving an overall grade to this draft, it’s not hard to give it a high “B”, or even an “A” grade. Without a first round pick, they came away with at least three NHL players (Texier, Tarasov, Bemstrom), and a tweener (Meyer). In seven picks, with your first one being #45 overall, that’s a really good turnout.

Anytime you’re dealing away your first round picks, you have to have an immense amount of trust in your scouting staff’s ability to find players deeper in the draft. In this year, this team’s scouting staff’s strength is evident. This would have been an easy draft to be reckless with picks, taking all kinds of chances or trading them around to find players here and there. The team was in contention that season, and it seemed like they were trending up for years to come.

But instead, they worked some serious magic and kept churning quality prospects into the system. Only two of these players never played an NHL game, and the third player who didn’t become an AHL/NHL player, was dealt for a #1 center (though, he was only here briefly). No matter how you shake it down, this was an impressive job by Jarmo Kekalainen and his scouting staff.