4. Nikolai Zherdev (1st round, #4 overall, 2003).
The 2003 Draft is widely heralded as the best draft of an entire generation. Nearly every team in the league set their franchise up for the next decade, in a draft that was so strong that it had a player taken in the 7th round exceed 1000 career NHL games. Of course, the Blue Jackets would be one of the few teams to fumble the bag here.
Worse, they did it with the 4th overall pick in hand. They took Nikolai Zherdev, who was ridiculously talented; and was looked at by many as the most skilled player available in the entire draft. Just one year after landing Rick Nash first overall, it looked like the Jackets had the league's next great 1-2 scoring punch on the wings.
Soon after the pick, things looked really promising. Nikolai came over from Russia the very next year, and was productive from the start. He scored 13 goals and 34 points in 57 games with the Jackets. In his next year, he played back overseas due to the lockout; scoring 19 goals and 40 points in 51 games.
All in all, Zherdev was relatively productive throughout his time in Columbus. He played 283 games with the team, scoring 76 goals and 181 points. But, he was never able to find true consistency with the team. There was always a yearning for so much more from the super talented Russian.
On one shift, he would go end-to-end with the puck and look like the best player on the team. On the next shift, he would be completely invisible. Or worse, visible for all the wrong reasons. Eventually, the team gave up on him and dealt him to the New York Rangers in a deal for Fedor Tyutin.
After the trade, Zherdev had one really productive season in New York, before taking his talents back to Russia. He tried to make the NHL work one more time with Philadelphia, but it did not. In total, he got into just 421 games spread across six NHL seasons.
What really makes this pick sting is how strong this draft was. Three of the five players taken after him would go on to play 1000 or more games - with a fourth coming just 17 games short of the milestone. Several teams landed true stars with multiple first round picks, including Anaheim - who picked both Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry later in this first round.
Then-GM Doug MacLean not only missed on his first rounder: he also traded his second round pick for depth winger Grant Marshall, who played two seasons in Columbus. That pick (#33 overall) became Loui Eriksson, who played 1050 NHL games and scored over 600 points. Other second rounders included future Hall of Famers Patrice Bergeron and Shea Weber.
Instead of loading up with future superstars, the best player picked by the Blue Jackets in this draft would become Marc Methot; who was inevitably dealt away for Nick Foligno several years later. Aside from that, and despite Zherdev showing early promise, this was the worst draft in franchise history. At least, based solely on what could have been. Still, there were some worse individual busts...