NHL Draft 2011: Looking Back at off-the-Board Picks (2025)

Teams have always looked to outfox the competition. It might be with a trick play on the field or a video coach in the pressbox, but teams are always looking for that upper hand.

Some of that outfoxing comes on draft day as well, though. Every team believes that their scouts, with their coaching and development, will turn less into more.

It works out sometimes, and it doesn’t other times. For every Zetterberg or Datsyuk you (well, Detroit, really) pluck out of the seventh round, you’re going to find a Sasha Pokulok who just doesn’t reward your gusto for risk-taking.

So what drives a team to make such a radical move?

Let’s take a look back over some recent drafts at off-the-board first round picks, guys taken higher than they were ranked, and try to make some sense of it all:

Sjostrom was a top-ten ranked European skater and jumped a little by being the sixth Euro taken. He became a decent NHL player, a good penalty killer, but most thought his incredible skating would evolve into a better offensive game than it did.

It wasn’t epically off the board, but it was definitely a bit of a reach. Dan Hamhuis and Ales Hemsky went immediately after Sjostrom, meaning there was better value there at eleven than what Phoenix got.

Nystrom is a microcosm for many a mistake Calgary has made in the first round. They loved his work ethic and grit, but ignored that he had hands like feet.

Alot of scouts had him as a first rounder, most said late though, and some suggested early second. Calgary made him top ten. That’s off the board, but you can see that the Flames were looking at a certain type of player if you research this era in their draft history. He fit the bill, so they went for him.

In retrospect, trading down to the late teens probably would have netted them Nystrom and a later pick or two, something they could have used to offset what turned out to be a bad pick. Plus Alex Semin and Cam Ward went later than Nystrom, which probably stings a bit too.

If there was ever an off-the-board pick, this was it. Burns jumped more than twenty spots in the eyes of some scouts, going from a mid-to-late second round pick to a mid-first. And the Wild drafted him as a forward with the full-on commitment of never having him play an NHL game at the position.

Gutsy? Yes.

Successful? Mostly.

Burns was one of the top offensive defensemen in the NHL until concussion issues put him off track a little. If he gets back to that level, Minnesota will still have bragging rights to the best out-of-nowhere first round pick of the past ten years. If he doesn’t, people will have the right to remind them that Ryan Kesler, Mike Richards, and Corey Perry all came after Burns – and that’s just in the first round.

Remember how I said if ever there was an off-the-board pick, it was Brent Burns. Yeah, I was wrong - if there was ever an off-the-board pick, Blake Wheeler was it.

The gangly Minnesotan high schooler came out of nowhere to jump the queue over names like Alex Radulov and Mike Green, but he never played a game for the franchise on the grounds that he’d never wear the jersey of a “non-hockey” market.

After never signing in the desert and spending time in Boston, he was dealt to Atlanta, where they love hockey so much that two separate teams went there to die.

He’s been an average NHLer, but he was definitely off-the-board at the time, even if that 2004 draft didn’t produce much in the first round.

2005 had alot of off-the-board picks in the first round. Bobby Ryan at no. 2 surprised alot of people by jumping both Benoit Pouliot and Jack Johnson, Devin Setoguchi and TJ Oshie were surprising, and Sasha Pokulok and Marek Zagrapan were back-to-back busts taken too early.

Out of that maze, Brian Lee stands out because he was such a reach. The Senators needed a legitimate second line centre, top-ranked Euro Anze Kopitar was still there, and they passed. And the guy they took wasn’t even the best defenseman available.

Now Lee, a bust by any definition, literally can’t be given away and sits behind probably ten guys taken after him in the first round on the “I’d take him if I absolutely had to” list.

While perhaps not a wildly off-the-board pick in the traditional sense, Giroux was seen by many to be too small and too timid in his junior career to make an impact at the NHL level. Many well-respected scouts and scouting services had him as a late-first rounder down onto a mid-second rounder, all dependent on how big an emphasis they were willing to put on the likelihood that his skill would outshine his lack of size.

The Flyers, of all teams, took him and did so ahead of schedule. Known for brutish play and oft-mindless aggression, the slippery Hearst, ON native who filled nets across the Quebec league seemed to be a weird fit, but here we are five years later, and a case could be made that he’s their best pure offensive player.

He’s become grittier and improved his two-way game dramatically, can play centre or either wing, plays in all circumstances, and has pretty much made Jeff Carter expendable all on his own.

Couple all this with the fact that no one even close to that impactful was taken after him in the first round, and he’s a case for the positives of an off-the-board pick.

Who?

The Blues went way off the board in taking Cole, who NHL Central Scouting had ranked 81^st just among North Americans – not even overall.

The US Development Program prospect looked to have two-way upside but has settled into his niche as a more defense-first guy in his young pro career.

It’s too early to label him a bust, and strictly speaking, he really isn’t, as he’s played some games for St. Louis and done a decent job in his role. That said, Max Pacioretty, Jon Blum, and Mikael Backlund went after Cole, and each of them would be a better fit on St. Louis today than he is.

Colbourne made a big jump on draft day in 2008, going from an early-second round pick to a mid-first thanks to the Bruins. Most scouts felt he’d barely be in the first round if the draft was only North Americans, but Boston liked his skill and size to evolve into a poor man’s Joe Thornton, a guy they secretly missed until they won the Cup.

It’s still too early to tell which way the Colbourne experiment is going to go, but suffice it to say that Boston wanted the decision back bad enough to deal him, along with a first round pick this year, to Toronto to get their hands on Tomas Kaberle. The Leafs are hoping that Colbourne will grow into the centre they desperately need, and his improvement once he joined the Toronto system was spoken of by people in the know.

Regardless, the Bruins colored well outside the lines when they selected him. It probably stings a little that Jordan Eberle and Tyler Myers went after he did, too.

The slick Leddy was seen by most to be a second round pick, likely mid-to-early, in 2009. Many were surprised when Minnesota took him, though given their penchant for going against the grain and their keenness for high ceilinged, two-way defenders, the pick made sense.

Leddy has panned out, though not for the Wild, who moved him pretty quickly as part of a deal to bring Cam Barker in from Chicago. Leddy has probably already matched for Chicago what Barker brings to Minnesota, giving the team a smooth presence on the back end who can play special teams if need be – a remarkable trait for a young 20-year-old who was fairly unheralded when he was drafted.

He’s another case for off-the-board picks gone right, particularly when you consider that Chris Kreider is the only guy to go after him in the first round that looks like he’ll be a better prospect.

Now officially the reigning rookie of the year, Skinner was ranked no higher than ninth by any major scouting bureau going into the draft. Some barely had him in the first round. Carolina had him in the top ten, and after a year, it looks like it was a pretty sharp move going off the board to land him.

Concerns about his size were alleviated by his passion for the game and other positive personality traits that teams like to see in young prospects, plus the fact that he’s really, really, good. In a league where speed and skill can now kill just as much as – probably more than – size and strength, kids like Skinner can shine.

It’s hard to say if he was the best pick of the first round last year with basically no historical context at this point, and there are already a handful of guys taken after him in the first round who look like they’ll pan out as well, but he’s definitely the premiere off-the-board pick considering the hardware he recently landed.

With the draft once again set for Friday, rest assured there will be a team that tries to get ahead of everyone else on what they think is the best-kept secret around.

What team that will be is anyone’s guess, but there are players out there right now that are on a secret radar that they don’t even know about, and when they’re picked earlier than expected, it will surprise people.

If the past ten years are any indication, that could be a good thing or a bad thing, but either way it’s bound to keep people watching.