What Happened to the 12 Players Drafted Before Nick Suzuki?
The 2017 NHL Draft will always be remembered as one of the strangest, most unpredictable drafts in recent memory. It was the year the Vegas Golden Knights made their debut, shaking the league to its core. It was a draft defined by uncertainty—no McDavid, no Matthews, no can’t-miss generational player. Teams were guessing, gambling, and praying they’d find the next superstar.
And somewhere, in the middle of all that chaos, twelve teams made one shared mistake.
They all passed on a quiet, poised center from the OHL who didn’t talk much but let his game speak for him. A player who’d go on to become the captain of one of hockey’s most iconic franchises.
Nick Suzuki wasn’t flashy. He wasn’t huge. But he had something you couldn’t measure. And when the Montreal Canadiens made him the heart of their rebuild, every other team that drafted before him was suddenly forced to ask the same uncomfortable question: “How did we miss this guy?”
So today, we’re going through all twelve players drafted before Suzuki—one by one—to see where their careers ended up, who became stars, who disappeared, and who might still rewrite their story.
12 Comments
A Finnish defenseman that doesn’t need any flash- I see what you did there 😜
Suzuki makes half of what Paterson makes and is a better player 😅
Necas was dealt to the avs in the Rantanen trade….
As a flyers fan, tippet had 1 good season, a highlight reel goal and ever since has been awful, he could hit the net last year, it would sail over and would turn it over, he couldn’t do anything besides use his speed and skate into the boards and turn it over, and this upcoming year I can only hope he does well so we can trade him for a defenseman, owen tippet is NOT a bright spot in Philly this year
cody glass is on the devils
"If there on pick before Suzuki that truly work out it this one " proceed to show makar right after😂
For a ''weak'' year, it sure ended up beeing one of the biggest talent pool.
Lias Anderson praised for maturity is this not the guy that threw his silver medal in the crowd
16:30 why did you call him Callan Makar?
Necas is literally wearing a Colorado jerseys in one of the pics on this video..
And MTL was asking for Cody Glass for the prospect trade for Max Pacciorety… That would have been desastrous.
there was a lot of tik tok videos of suzuki before the draft. they where very impressive. he should got picked number one pick.