Islanders: Best and worst draft classes of the 2000s

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MONTREAL, QC – JUNE 26: (L-R) Team owner Charles Wang and General Manager Garth Snow of the New York Islanders sit at their draft table prior to the first round of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft at the Bell Centre on June 26, 2009 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Looking at the ten New York Islanders draft classes from 2000 to 2009, which was the best draft class of the decade an which was the worst?

On Saturday I put together a ranking of all ten New York Islanders draft classes over the last decade. Some draft classes were too soon to call, some of the draft classes were clear winners while others were clear losers even with such a small sample size.

Now I move down a decade to look at the drafts of the 2000’s.

In this set of drafts from 2000 to 2009, I’ve got a much larger sample size to look at. Players have had a chance to have long NHL careers (or not). So there’s no way to be on the fence about the quality of a draft class here.

With that being said, I wanted to add a bit more to this review. I wanted my ranking to be a little less subjective.

The whole point of the draft is to find players that will have the greatest impact on your NHL roster. So I decided to look at the number of games played* by each player drafted over the decade.

(*I only considered games played for the New York Islanders.)

I don’t care about AHL games. I want to know who had an impact at the NHL level.

I felt that the number of games played was the easiest way to determining the impact of a player. Players that don’t stick around long aren’t typically impactful. If total games played between two classes were close, then I could look at the caliber of players selected to differentiate between draft classes.

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