31 teams, 31 picks to build the ultimate draft round

Today’s post is another cool idea from a reader. Take it away, Neil:

Do the “Ultimate Draft” next.

Best ever 1st overall. Best ever 2nd overall, etc.

Have to use all 31 teams (sorry, Seattle!)

— Neil Rocha (@isnhhb) October 7, 2020

Love it. The Ultimate First Round. Let’s do this. But first, a few ground rules:

• As Neil says, we’re going to put together one round, lasting 31 picks, from all of NHL Draft history. Every player we take has to have been drafted in that exact slot, and we have to use one pick from all 31 existing teams.
• To up the difficulty even further, I’m going to add another wrinkle: We want to come away with something resembling a realistic extended roster, so I’m going to say we need to use our 31 picks to draft four goalies, nine defensemen and 18 forwards.
• We’re picking guys based on their entire NHL career, not just what they did for the team that actually drafted them.
• While we’re presenting this as the ultimate first round, we’ll allow players who weren’t actually first-round picks as long as their draft slot matches the one we’re on. For example, in the 1980s the 22nd overall pick would have been a second-round choice, but that’s still OK for our team.
• Finally, we’re only looking at players who were drafted by one of the 31 current teams. No picks by the Nordiques, Whalers, Golden Seals, etc. But the Winnipeg Jets count as both the old version and the new. If you’d like to head into the comments or my Twitter mentions to argue technicalities about franchise lineage, let me assure you that I do not care. Go find a Winnipeg hockey fan and tell them they think about hockey wrong. The Jets are the Jets.

Sound good? I think this will be fun...

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