Canucks: 10 years later, how does Brock Boeser stack up to the rest of the 2015 Draft class?

It’s been just over ten years since the Vancouver Canucks drafted Brock Boeser at 23rd overall of the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. With the club’s most notable piece of business during free agency last week being re-signing Boeser to a contract that will likely see him finish out his career in Vancouver, we thought it’d be fitting to take a look at how Boeser stacks up to the rest of the 2015 Draft class, ten years later.

A stacked class

At the top of the class (and still there to this day) is Connor McDavid. There’s no point in us wasting any more words talking about McDavid. He was projected to be a generational talent available at first overall of this draft and that’s exactly what the Edmonton Oilers got when they drafted him.

Beyond McDavid, we see other star players such as Mitch Marner and Mikko Rantanen, both of whom just earned themselves some pretty big paydays for their ability to post 100+ points. Not to mention Jack Eichel, who went second overall in this draft to the Buffalo Sabres and has since established himself as a top line centre with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Other notable names in this draft: Mat Barzal (16th overall to NYI), Kyle Connor (17th to Winnipeg), Jake DeBrusk (14th to Boston), Thomas Chabot (18th to Ottawa, Sebastian Aho (35th overall to Carolina), Kirill Kaprizov (135th to Minnesota), Conor Garland (123rd to Arizona).

Players taken ahead of Boeser with under 300 NHL games played

We hate to throw the “bust” word around here, but the teams that drafted these players are almost certainly wishing they’d taken Boeser instead:

Denis Gurianov — 12th overall to Dallas
Jakub Zboril — 13th to Boston
Zachary Senyshyn — 15th to Boston
Evgeny Svechnikov — 19th to Detroit

How Boeser stacks up

As we mentioned, this was a loaded class with many star players taken in it. Here are some numbers on how Boeser stacks up to the rest of his peers ten years since they were drafted.

• With 434 points through 554 regular season games, Boeser ranks 10th in points behind: McDavid, Marner, Rantanen, Aho, Eichel, Connor, Konecny, Barzal, and Timo Meier.
• With 204 regular season goals, Boeser has the eighth-most goals of the 2015 draft class, sitting behind: McDavid, Rantanen, Connor, Aho, Eichel, Marner, and Meier.
• Boeser ranks 16th in regular season games played with 554.

Conclusion

The Canucks couldn’t have done much better than they did when they called Brock Boeser’s name at 23rd overall. He’s emerged as a talented goal scorer among an elite class of players and as fans in Vancouver know, has taken big strides in his game to become a complete player capable of logging top line minutes.