2008 NHL Re-Draft: Who would you take first overall?

Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams — or players — intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.

The summer doldrums often provide opportunities to look back at the past — moves that have worked out and others that didn’t go exactly as planned. The same can be said for draft picks — some early selections have panned out and become franchise players while others came up well short of expectations. In the past, we’ve looked back at the drafts in 2005, 2006, and 2007 and now, it’s time to do the same for 2008.

This draft class was a pretty strong one with 33 players (and counting) playing in at least 500 NHL games while it also has some All-Stars and future Hall of Famers. On the flip side, there were four players who never saw a taste of NHL action and certainly won’t be slotted as high in our redraft.

Over the coming weeks, as we wait for training camp to begin, we’ll be going through the 2008 NHL Entry Draft to have the PHR community select who they would have picked knowing the result of the player’s career. We’ll include a list of players to vote for, and update the first round as it progresses.

The Tampa Bay Lightning had the first pick in 2008 after winning the lottery to hold onto the top selection. They were faced with the choice of picking a franchise center or a franchise defenseman with Steven Stamkos and Drew Doughty being the consensus top two selections in Brian Lawton’s first draft at the helm. Obviously, they opted for the former and Stamkos has been as advertised as the leading scorer from this draft class although Doughty has played the most games and has been nominated for end-of-season awards more frequently. With the benefit of hindsight, did Tampa Bay make the right choice or would they have been better off with the franchise defender instead? Or someone else entirely?

With the first pick of the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, who should the Tampa Bay Lighting select? Cast your vote below.

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