In our third and final installment, we’re diving into the players selected 6th overall since the dawn of the cap era in 2005 (apologies to 2000 6th overall pick, Scott Hartnell). You can check in with our breakdowns of the 22nd overall and 31st overall picks from earlier this week too, and hopefully get a sense of where the Flyers stand entering this draft.
The 6th overall pick is…I don’t want to say “cursed,” but it is a pick where the prospects rarely live up to the expectations of where they were drafted. Many of the players on this list have had long NHL careers as effective players, but it’s not until the 2010s that we start to see some real top-of-the-lineup, star potential. Some of that can be attributed to how much scouting has improved in the last 20 years, but it’s also a sign of how the game has changed and what front offices prioritize in their picks. As a result, more of the 6th overall picks in the last decade have hit than the decade prior. Let’s get into it.
The Draftees
2005: Gilbert Brule (C), Columbus Blue Jackets
This draft will always be known for Sidney Crosby going 1st overall, but there were some franchise changing players later in the draft, too–like Anze Kopitar and Kris Letang. Gilbert Brule, however, was not one of them. Brule scored 43 goals and 95 points on three different teams, never amounting to much more than a bottom-sixer. Not off to a great start!
2006: Derrick Brassard (C), Columbus Blue Jackets
Here’s a guy we’re all familiar with, after he had that one season with the Flyers. Brassard cracked a thousand NHL games, and scored 215 goals and 515 points, but was always “good not great” and never quite became a true top-line center. He ends up being part of a major trade with another player a little later on this list, though.
2007: Sam Gagner (C), Edmonton Oilers
Gagner had a long NHL career as a solid middle-sixer that included a stop with the Flyers, and he put up 529 points in 1,043 games. However, when you consider that one Jake Voracek was selected with the next pick, this was a complete whiff by the Edmonton Oilers. Logan Couture going 9th overall doesn’t help, either.
2008: Nikita Filatov (LW), Columbus Blue Jackets
Yet another entry from the Blue Jackets! This is the last 6th overall pick they’ll have for quite a while, but they do make one more appearance on this list. Unfortunately for Columbus, this selection was an even bigger bust than Brule. Filatov only appeared in 53 games over parts of four NHL seasons, scoring six goals and 14 points. To be fair, there weren’t many exciting picks immediately after Filatov, but at least the next guy picked (Josh Bailey) had a long NHL career.
2009: Oliver Ekman Larsson (D), Phoenix Coyotes
Now we get to a truly interesting player: the first defenseman of this exercise and perhaps the player with the biggest impact so far. Ekman Larsson had some incredible highs for the first eight-ish years of his career but, now in his 30s, should mostly be used in a sheltered depth role. Over a thousand NHL games and 500 points is nothing to shake a stick at, but there’s an argument to be made that Nazem Kadri, taken one spot later, may’ve been the better pick. Fun fact: Ekman Larsson’s buyout will be on the Vancouver Canucks’ books until 2030!
2010: Brett Connolly (RW), Tampa Bay Lightning
While 536 games is a healthy NHL career, Connolly is not at all what you want to see happen with such a high draft pick. He finished his career with 101 goals and 195 points with five different teams–though he did win a Cup with the Washington Capitals. Say what you will about Jeff Skinner–the player who went immediately after Connolly–and how he plays, but Skinner definitely had the better career, even without a Cup win.
2011: Mika Zibanejad (C), Ottawa Senators
Remember how we said Brassard was traded for another player on this list? Here he is! What were the Senators thinking with that one, huh? Zibanejad is a flawed player who relies heavily on the power play for his scoring, but 314 goals and 740 points in 930 games is pretty darn good for a top-line forward. The four players that went after Zibanejad–Mark Scheifele, Sean Couturier, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Brodin–have all had excellent careers as well.
The 2011 draft sorta marks the pivot point in this exercise, where players begin to have the careers you would expect of a prospect with this level of pedigree. Call it scouting improvements, early analytics, or even just a change in approach to team building, this is where teams start to hit on 6th overall more often than not.
2012: Hampus Lindholm (D), Anaheim Ducks
This was quite the year for defensemen: eight went in the top ten, Lindholm included, and the class will likely be defined by the sheer number of quality blueliners it produced (including Shayne Gostisbehere!). Lindholm should be remembered as one of the best of the bunch, as he’s played at a top-pair level since basically the day he set foot in the league, putting up 73 goals and 313 points in 762 games.
2013: Sean Monahan (C), Calgary Flames
Early in his career, Monahan was trending towards being a top-line center for the Flames, with back-to-back 30-goal seasons at ages 23 and 24. Then, he fell off hard, and injuries took him down even further, so much so that the Flames paid a 1st-round pick to the Montreal Canadiens to take Monahan and his contract off their books. Injuries struck again in his first season with the Columbus Blue Jackets last year, but he had something of a renaissance at age 30 and posted over a point per game.
2014: Jake Virtanen (RW), Vancouver Canucks
The next two entries on this list teeter on the edge of “bust” territory when you consider who was drafted shortly after them. Virtanen played over 300 NHL games, but only scored 100 points and was out of the league by age 25. Not great when you see William Nylander and Nikolaj Ehlers went two and three spots later, respectively.
2015: Pavel Zacha (C), New Jersey Devils
This might be the worst whiff of the 2010s. Zacha has had an underwhelming career for someone picked 6th overall; in almost 550 games, he’s scored 111 goals and 295 points. That’s not ideal on its own, but look at the draft year: 2015, perhaps the greatest draft of all time. Ivan Provorov was the next player off the board, and he’s the worst of the four taken after Zacha, which includes Zach Werenski, Timo Meier, and Mikko Rantanen. The first round of 2015 was loaded with talent, with several players in each of the following rounds amassing 300-plus NHL games apiece. In an unreal draft, Zacha was a pedestrian selection.
2016: Matthew Tkachuk (LW), Calgary Flames
Of all the players on this list, Tkachuk may be the one with the most star power. How he fell to six is a wonder, and Edmonton and Vancouver are likely kicking themselves to this day since they whiffed on their 4th- and 5th-overall picks (Jesse Puljujarvi and Olli Juolevi, respectively). Three straight runs to the Stanley Cup Final, back-to-back wins, and 636 points in 642 games, Tkachuk’s place in the Hockey Hall of Fame is almost certainly secure–and he’s only 27 years old. Yeah, the Flames knocked this one out of the park; it’s just too bad all of that success came in Florida.
2017: Cody Glass (C), Vegas Golden Knights
It’s rare to see “Vegas” and “1st-round pick” in the same sentence, considering how aggressive the Golden Knights are when it comes to spending draft capital to acquire the best players–especially this high in the draft order, though it was their first selection in franchise history. Glass never really stuck in Vegas, and finished this season on his fourth team. You could call him a bust but, considering the players taken after him, a lot of teams struggled to find talent in that part of the draft; Marty Necas and Nick Suzuki at 12th and 13th were the next big hits, and the Golden Knights traded away Suzuki in the end anyway. Just a weird draft where the consensus top two ended up completely overshadowed by the players that went 3rd, 4th, and 5th.
2018: Filip Zadina (RW), Detroit Red Wings
This might be the second biggest whiff on the list, and the Red Wings have paid dearly for it. Zadina hasn’t played in the NHL since the 2023-24 season, and in 262 games he only amassed 91 points. The player taken after him? One of the three best defensemen in the NHL, Quinn Hughes. A complete and utter fumble by the pre-Yzerman Red Wings. At least they get some redemption the following year at Yzerman’s first draft as general manager.
2019: Moritz Seider (D), Detroit Red Wings
The Red Wings follow their absolute whiff on Zadina with a slam dunk selection of Seider. It was a pick that shocked the hockey world, as Seider was generally projected to be taken in the teens; the Wings get the last laugh, though, as Seider went on to win the Calder and has become a pillar of the rebuilding Red Wings. We’re also now entering the “jury’s out” portion of the list, where the next few players are still young enough to take significant developmental steps or, in some cases, get in any NHL games at all.
2020: Jamie Drysdale (D), Anaheim Ducks
Hey, I know this guy! We won’t go into Drysdale too much since we’re already quite familiar with him but, at 23, here’s hoping there’s more development to be had–maybe bringing in his best friend will help them both find their game.
2021: Simon Edvinsson (D), Detroit Red Wings
Detroit seems pretty good at drafting defensemen, as Edvinsson is poised to be another great pick. It’s tough to say who’s destined to be the best player taken after him; Dylan Guenther may have the best case, but I wouldn’t sleep on Brandt Clarke or William Eklund, either. Still, seven goals and 31 points in Edvinsson’s first full NHL season last year is quite the foundation to build on.
2022: David Jiricek (D), Columbus Blue Jackets
We are now firmly in the “too early to tell” category of players. Jiricek has only played a handful of games (59) and is already on his second NHL team. He has the tools to be an excellent top-four defenseman, but his skating is a serious concern that could severely limit his ceiling. It’s impossible to tell yet if he was the correct choice at 6th overall, as most of the players behind him are just starting to get their feet wet at the NHL level.
2023: Dmitry Simashev (D), Arizona Coyotes
Thank goodness the Coyotes were a tire fire of an organization that Matvei Michkov didn’t want to play for. To be fair though, Simashev looks like a valuable top-four defenseman: he’s 6-foot-5 and a solid enough defender to rank second in Scott Wheeler’s pipeline analysis of the now-Utah Mammoth. He’s just signed his ELC, too, so expect to see him in the NHL next season.
2024: Tij Iginla (C), Utah Mammoth
Different name, same team: the Hockey Club picked sixth in back-to-back years (and now get 4th overall in 2025, which doesn’t seem fair), though this time around they went with a forward. Iginla is the first-ranked prospect in the Wheeler article linked under Simashev’s description, and boy does he look like an exciting prospect. Time will tell, though, if he was the right pick there, given the number of high-end defense prospects available in the 2024 draft.
It’s been fascinating to see how draft philosophy has shifted over time, from the types of players GMs covet to what players profile as busts (beware the guys in the QMJHL, apparently). Provided the Flyers don’t reach too far on a player on Friday, we should expect them to add a good-to-great prospect to the pipeline. Depending who the teams ahead of them in the order choose, the Flyers may have their decision made for them–and if you’re in the Philadelphia area, you should come to the Broad Street Hockey & PHLY Draft Party!
It's not party time 'til we make a potato quality flyer for you all to share. Get your tickets now, and tell your friends who aren't terminally online! allphly.com/event/phly-f…
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Get your tickets as soon as you can, cuz it may sell out–hope to see you there!
