You can make an argument for Virtanen but imo Juolevi was by far our biggest bust at being drafted 5th overall.
He was supposed to be our future franchise D-man but ended up playing only 23 games for us before being bounced out of the NHL. In fact, he played the least amount of NHL games out of the top 20 picks in his draft year.
De_Floppss
Recency bias but Virtanen, was given every chance and tool to succeed and couldn’t even make it in the KHL which says a lot.
HM to Juolevi, sure he wasn’t gonna live up to 5OA but injuries derailed him exceedingly quick
GrizSeahawk84
Jake Virtanen by a country mile (or kilometer, since I’m from the U.S.).
crap4you
Jason Herter. 8th OA and 1 NHL games.
Ruilin96
Patrick White – a first round pick that didn’t even end up playing a single ECHL game. Thankfully we got Ehrhoff out of trading him. And he was drafted 1 pick ahead of David Perron and other notable NHLers drafted after him includes Brendan Smith and PK Subban.
gangstarapmademe
Hodgson, Virtanen, Olli, Podz…
DrexellGames
Olli Juolevi for sure
Btgood52
Olli Juolevi and mentions to Patrick White who’s was a first round pick to never play a NHL game and Nathan Smith who played in the NHL but never registered a single point
jtllee
Virtanen – had the biggest potential and asset to be a top 6 power forward but ruined it on his own terms in the worst way possible. At least Juolevi did his best but succumbed to injuries
zoonucks
Libor Polasek
Never heard of him? There is a reason why. On his wiki page he is described as one of the worst 1st round picks by any NHL team. From the get go, he was never good enough for any professional league. At least Virtanen made the team and scored a few goals.
jimmyray05
Olli since we passed on Matt Tkachuk for him. Olli never showed a smattering of skill at the NHL level. At least we got an 18 goal season out of Jake. #ThanksJim
Kyanders
Juolevi
Interesting-Help-421
Dan Woodley 2 goal 5 games drafted 7th in 1986
Olli Juolevi (The likely winner ) had same number of goals an assist and 4x the games for Vancouver
Who could have been drafted instead Both cold have been replace by top player
In 1986 Leetch
In 2016 Matthew Tkachuk
Close and I think the voting will go joulvi but Woodley wins for me
Drab_Majesty
Stojanov was such a huge whiff at 7th, dude was meant to rival Lindros. Even Juolevi had more goals as a Canuck.
mtrutt91
Olli Juolevi
meanseanbean
I’m going with Jake the Snake. Dude had every tool in the box, but was too lazy to use them. Not even going to touch on the outside of hockey stuff. On the ice that kid was infuriating. He looked so fucken lazy all the time. I know Juolevi was realistically the bigger bust, but I feel like injuries played a bigger role in his overall failure than Virtanen who was just a lazy slug.
bimbiheid
Josh Holden. So much hype and Butkus.
NerdPunch
If he doesn’t crack the NHL this year, I think it’s probably **Podkolzin**. He had a good amount of hype going into the draft, and the fanbase was fairly high on him. Guys like Boldy, Caufield, York and Harley went in the terms.
With Juolevi, people were disappointed in the pick, he dealt with ton of injuries and there wasn’t a lot of hype.
SpiralFunZone
Patrick White was such a bust he never played any NHL games but the trade that MG pulled off getting Christian Erhoff for him was pure genius. Got two solid seasons out of him.
mithtified
Patrick White or Olli Juolevi
elrizzy
It’s Libor (or Herter) and it isn’t even close.
I like the engagement of these threads but really it’s “which guys do you remember?”, which is really bad for specifically this topic. Juolevi and Virtanen played NHL games. In the 90s we had the Canucks trainers bringing Libor out to our AAA Bantam practices to get in shape. I vividly remember doing 1 on 1 drills against him.
We literally had a first round draft pick on the ice running lines with 14 year olds trying to salvage him.
Chionger
Olli
Infinite_Show_5715
Olli Juolevi – just given the strength of that draft class and the expectations of him becoming a top2 guy for our team. He didn’t even really make the main roster at any point.
Hodgson is a close second – though he managed to play some games and put up a few points before finally leaving the league.
Hyack57
Patrick White.
Razzamatazz14
Juolevi is the clear winner in my time as a fan.
Obvious-Property-236
We need another grid for this answer
NoOcelot
Libor Polasek
Bricklettuce
Libor Polasek for sure
passittobulis
This is a tough question because while researching my book I generally found all sorts of reasons why someone became a bust.
For biggest bust, I would probably go with Dan Woodley, who was a 7th overall pick who played just 5 NHL games. But Woodley also had an abdominal tear in his draft season that was misdiagnosed for months as a groin strain. He played through it, making it worse over time, and had to have abdominal surgery. Former Canucks scout Mike Penny said he was never the same player after that.
At the same time, there’s an argument that Woodley didn’t put in the work to get back on track after the surgery. Even he admitted as much when he saw Trevor Linden show up to his first Canucks camp a couple of years later.
“I see Trevor Linden with his gung-ho attitude and I realize that’s the way I should have been,” he said. “I was callow, I wasn’t in great shape. I didn’t realize what it takes to prepare yourself for a pro camp.”
So, was Woodley a bust because of an injury and misdiagnosis that was out of his control? Or was he a bust because he didn’t work hard enough? I don’t know, which is what makes this such a tough question to answer.
The same thing could be said for Olli Juolevi, who dealt with a string of injuries that derailed his development.
IceCreamScuseMe
Juolevi. Top 5 picks have the highest success rates and need to hit. Having one bust is far worse than a player taken in the 20s.
Short_Freedom380
…biggest draft bust (transaction) trading Cam Neeley and #3 overall (Glen Wesley) for Pederson.
A what could have been situation. As far as the draft day (disappointment), I would look at Stojanov, simply due to the (available) talent drafted after the 7th spot.
MayorQuimby1616
Top 10 picks that barely play any NHL games have to rank higher than 11-32 first rd picks. So saying that, the worst picks are Olli Juolevi, Alex Stojanov (flipping him for Markus Naslund almost makes it a good pick 😜), Jason Herter. The non top 10 picks that would also fit here just because they were SO bad are Libor Polasek (never played a game in the NHL), Patrick White (Also zero games but we flipped him for Ehrhoff) and Josh Holden. Out of those illustrious names, I pick Olli Juolevi.
catgotcha
Antoski. Man was a beast among boys in junior (fair enough, he was bigger and older), but should have been WAY better in the NHL than he was.
Instead, in 183 games, he scored three goals total. And just one for the Canucks.
34 Comments
Olli Juolevi
You can make an argument for Virtanen but imo Juolevi was by far our biggest bust at being drafted 5th overall.
He was supposed to be our future franchise D-man but ended up playing only 23 games for us before being bounced out of the NHL. In fact, he played the least amount of NHL games out of the top 20 picks in his draft year.
Recency bias but Virtanen, was given every chance and tool to succeed and couldn’t even make it in the KHL which says a lot.
HM to Juolevi, sure he wasn’t gonna live up to 5OA but injuries derailed him exceedingly quick
Jake Virtanen by a country mile (or kilometer, since I’m from the U.S.).
Jason Herter. 8th OA and 1 NHL games.
Patrick White – a first round pick that didn’t even end up playing a single ECHL game. Thankfully we got Ehrhoff out of trading him. And he was drafted 1 pick ahead of David Perron and other notable NHLers drafted after him includes Brendan Smith and PK Subban.
Hodgson, Virtanen, Olli, Podz…
Olli Juolevi for sure
Olli Juolevi and mentions to Patrick White who’s was a first round pick to never play a NHL game and Nathan Smith who played in the NHL but never registered a single point
Virtanen – had the biggest potential and asset to be a top 6 power forward but ruined it on his own terms in the worst way possible. At least Juolevi did his best but succumbed to injuries
Libor Polasek
Never heard of him? There is a reason why. On his wiki page he is described as one of the worst 1st round picks by any NHL team. From the get go, he was never good enough for any professional league. At least Virtanen made the team and scored a few goals.
Olli since we passed on Matt Tkachuk for him. Olli never showed a smattering of skill at the NHL level. At least we got an 18 goal season out of Jake. #ThanksJim
Juolevi
Dan Woodley 2 goal 5 games drafted 7th in 1986
Olli Juolevi (The likely winner ) had same number of goals an assist and 4x the games for Vancouver
Who could have been drafted instead
Both cold have been replace by top player
In 1986 Leetch
In 2016 Matthew Tkachuk
Close and I think the voting will go joulvi but Woodley wins for me
Stojanov was such a huge whiff at 7th, dude was meant to rival Lindros. Even Juolevi had more goals as a Canuck.
Olli Juolevi
I’m going with Jake the Snake. Dude had every tool in the box, but was too lazy to use them. Not even going to touch on the outside of hockey stuff. On the ice that kid was infuriating. He looked so fucken lazy all the time. I know Juolevi was realistically the bigger bust, but I feel like injuries played a bigger role in his overall failure than Virtanen who was just a lazy slug.
Josh Holden. So much hype and Butkus.
If he doesn’t crack the NHL this year, I think it’s probably **Podkolzin**. He had a good amount of hype going into the draft, and the fanbase was fairly high on him. Guys like Boldy, Caufield, York and Harley went in the terms.
With Juolevi, people were disappointed in the pick, he dealt with ton of injuries and there wasn’t a lot of hype.
Patrick White was such a bust he never played any NHL games but the trade that MG pulled off getting Christian Erhoff for him was pure genius. Got two solid seasons out of him.
Patrick White or Olli Juolevi
It’s Libor (or Herter) and it isn’t even close.
I like the engagement of these threads but really it’s “which guys do you remember?”, which is really bad for specifically this topic. Juolevi and Virtanen played NHL games. In the 90s we had the Canucks trainers bringing Libor out to our AAA Bantam practices to get in shape. I vividly remember doing 1 on 1 drills against him.
We literally had a first round draft pick on the ice running lines with 14 year olds trying to salvage him.
Olli
Olli Juolevi – just given the strength of that draft class and the expectations of him becoming a top2 guy for our team. He didn’t even really make the main roster at any point.
Hodgson is a close second – though he managed to play some games and put up a few points before finally leaving the league.
Patrick White.
Juolevi is the clear winner in my time as a fan.
We need another grid for this answer
Libor Polasek
Libor Polasek for sure
This is a tough question because while researching my book I generally found all sorts of reasons why someone became a bust.
For biggest bust, I would probably go with Dan Woodley, who was a 7th overall pick who played just 5 NHL games. But Woodley also had an abdominal tear in his draft season that was misdiagnosed for months as a groin strain. He played through it, making it worse over time, and had to have abdominal surgery. Former Canucks scout Mike Penny said he was never the same player after that.
At the same time, there’s an argument that Woodley didn’t put in the work to get back on track after the surgery. Even he admitted as much when he saw Trevor Linden show up to his first Canucks camp a couple of years later.
“I see Trevor Linden with his gung-ho attitude and I realize that’s the way I should have been,” he said. “I was callow, I wasn’t in great shape. I didn’t realize what it takes to prepare yourself for a pro camp.”
So, was Woodley a bust because of an injury and misdiagnosis that was out of his control? Or was he a bust because he didn’t work hard enough? I don’t know, which is what makes this such a tough question to answer.
The same thing could be said for Olli Juolevi, who dealt with a string of injuries that derailed his development.
Juolevi. Top 5 picks have the highest success rates and need to hit. Having one bust is far worse than a player taken in the 20s.
…biggest draft bust (transaction) trading Cam Neeley and #3 overall (Glen Wesley) for Pederson.
A what could have been situation. As far as the draft day (disappointment), I would look at Stojanov, simply due to the (available) talent drafted after the 7th spot.
Top 10 picks that barely play any NHL games have to rank higher than 11-32 first rd picks. So saying that, the worst picks are
Olli Juolevi, Alex Stojanov (flipping him for Markus Naslund almost makes it a good pick 😜), Jason Herter. The non top 10 picks that would also fit here just because they were SO bad are Libor Polasek (never played a game in the NHL), Patrick White (Also zero games but we flipped him for Ehrhoff) and Josh Holden. Out of those illustrious names, I pick Olli Juolevi.
Antoski. Man was a beast among boys in junior (fair enough, he was bigger and older), but should have been WAY better in the NHL than he was.
Instead, in 183 games, he scored three goals total. And just one for the Canucks.
I’m going to go with local boy Jake Virtanen