Hockey16 years later our experts select Alfredsson

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At the Staples Center in Los Angeles this weekend, 30 teams will hunker down for the annual NHL Entry Draft in the hopes that they get it right. It's always an interesting exercise to return to past drafts to see how a team's selections panned out over time.

Since the Edmonton Oilers, who have the first overall choice this year, have never selected first we took a look at the first round in 1994 NHL Entry Draft when they made the fourth and sixth overall picks.

We enlisted an eight-member panel that included former Calgary Flames general manager Craig Button, now an analyst on the NHL Network, and Hockey Night in Canada radio and cbcsports.ca contributor Mark Seidel as well as six anonymous NHL scouts.

Sixteen years later, our panel combined for a drastically different looking first round with only eight players who were taken in the first round in 1994 making the grade in the Redo.

Ottawa Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson was the near unanimous first overall pick this time around. But in 1994, he was passed over in the previous three drafts before the Senators chose him in the sixth round at age 21.

Interestingly, three players from the first round never played in a single NHL game: right wing Alexander Kharlamov, goalie Evgeni Ryabchikov and defenceman Jeff Kealty. But even though the Quebec Nordiques stumbled with Kealty, they made up for their mistake with better picks later on in Milan Hejduk and Chris Drury and Tim Thomas. Thomas, however, never played for the Nordiques.

In our Redo three undrafted players were taken this time around in Martin St. Louis, Dan Boyle and Steven Reinprecht. It also is worth noting that defenceman Kim Johnsson was the last player taken in the 1994 draft and proved to merit a much higher selection this time around.

1994 NHL Entry Draft -- First Round

1. Ed Jovanovski, Florida

2. Oleg Tverdovsky, Anaheim

3. Radek Bonk, Ottawa

4. Jason Bonsignore, Edmonton

5. Jeff O'Neill, Hartford

6. Ryan Smyth, Edmonton

7. Jamie Storr, Los Angeles

8. Jason Wiemer, Tampa Bay

9. Brett Lindros, N.Y. Islanders

10. Nolan Baumgartner, Washington

11. Jeff Friesen, San Jose

12. Wade Belak, Quebec

13. Mattias Ohlund, Vancouver

14. Ethan Moreau, Chicago

15. Alexander Kharlamov, Washington

16. Eric Fichaud, Toronto

17. Wayne Primeau, Buffalo

18. Brad Brown, Montreal

19. Chris Dingman, Calgary

20. Jason Botterill, Dallas

21. Evgeni Ryabchikov, Boston

22. Jeff Kealty, Quebec

23. Yan Golubovsky, Detroit

24. Chris Wells, Pittsburgh

25. Vadim Sharifijanov, New Jersey

26. Dan Cloutier, N.Y. Rangers

1994 First Round Redo

(Our eight-member panel made selections based on a 26-25-24-23-22, etc. points system. Alfredsson received 205 out of a possible 208 votes and was the first overall selection in the redo draft on six of the ballots.)

1. Daniel Alfredsson 205 (Ottawa, 6th round, 133rd)

2. Smyth 192

3. Martin St. Louis 189 (undrafted)

4. Patrik Elias 183 (New Jersey, 2nd round, 51st overall)

5. Dan Boyle 167 (undrafted)

6. Jovanovski 164

7. Milan Hejduk 160 (Quebec, 4th round, 87th)

8. Chris Drury 156 (Quebec, 3rd round, 72nd)

9. Tomas Holmstrom 133 (Detroit, 10th round, 257th)

10. Ohlund 128

11. Marty Turco 122 (Dallas, 5th round, 124th)

12. Evgeni Nabokov 113 (San Jose, 9th round, 219th)

13. Tomas Vokoun 108 (Montreal, 9th round, 226th)

14. Jose Theodore 92 (Montreal, 2nd round, 44th)

15. Steve Sullivan 80 (New Jersey, 9th round, 233rd)

16. Kim Johnsson 74 (N.Y. Rangers, 11th round, 286th)

17. O'Neill 73

18. Friesen 72

19. Sheldon Souray 70 (New Jersey, 3rd round, 71st)

20. Fredrik Modin 59 (Toronto, 3rd round, 64th)

21. Tim Thomas 51 (Quebec, 9th round, 217th)

22. Bonk 36

23. Mathieu Dandenault 32 (Detroit, 2nd round, 49th)

24. Richard Zednik 30 (Washington, 10th round, 249th)

25. Moreau 29

26. Tverdovsky 21

27. Rhett Warrener 19 (Florida, 2nd round, 27th)

28. Steven Reinprecht 16 (undrafted)

29. Lubomir Visnovsky 15 (Los Angeles, 4th round in 2000)

30. Sergei Berezin 6 (Toronto, 10th round, 256th).

Others receiving votes: Bryce Salvador 5 (Tampa Bay, 6th round, 138th); Chris Clark 4 (Calgary, 3rd round, 77th); Richard Park 2 (Pittsburgh, 2nd round, 50th); Curtis Brown 1 (Buffalo, 2nd round, 43rd); Brad Lukowich 1 (N.Y. Islanders, 4th round, 90th).

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