The Best Red Wings Picks in Each Round of the NHL Draft: First Round

Here are the best Red Wings to be selected in the first round of the NHL Draft

Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports - The Best Red Wings Picks in Each Round of the NHL Draft: First Round

For a variety of reasons, the Detroit Red Wings are known as one of the best drafting teams across NHL history.

The Red Wings’ 1989 draft class played a historic 5,995 games headlined by the likes of Sergei Federov, Nicklas Lidstrom and Vladimir Konstantinov. They extensively mined Sweden for talent in the late 1990s and early 2000s, finding a late-round, hall-of-fame talent in Henrik Zetterberg in the 1999 draft. The year prior, they picked Pavel Datsyuk late to create one of the most dominant duos of the 2000s.

Those are just the highlights, but Detroit has drafted tons of talent in each round of the modern NHL draft. In fact, you could field complete lineups from their draft picks.

So, let's do just that.

For the next six days, THN Detroit will release its All-Draft team for each round of the draft. The best Red Wing drafted at each position will be selected based on a variety of criteria including career accomplishments, point totals and comparisons against peers.

Some ground rules: First, each pick accounts for the quality of the player in their overall career, not just with the Red Wings. Inefficient roster management doesn’t mean a draft selection wasn’t wise.

Second, even though the rounds corresponding to each draft selection have changed with NHL expansion, these selections are still based on the round when the player was picked. More teams picking today means later round picks draw from a smaller talent pool, but retroactively assigning rounds to dozens of players changes history so much so as to lose its meaning. Different draft philosophies and risk assessments are at play with later round picks, and many of those early late round picks were less scouted than they are today with more robust scouting systems in the present. There’s too much nuance involved to contextualize every single draft pick, so for now we’ll stick with the actual draft round.

Without further ado, here are the selections for the Red Wings’ first round All-Draft team.

Left Wing: Pete Mahovlich
2nd overall, 1963

The Red Wings’ first ever pick in an NHL entry draft was a good one — just not for them. In his first 82 games with Detroit across his first four seasons, Mahovlich scored just 19 points. After Detroit traded him to Montreal in 1969, he scored 569 points in 580 games for the Canadiens, whose dynastic success saw him lift the Stanley Cup four times. After a brief stint with Pittsburgh, Mahovlich made a return to Detroit from 1979 to 1981 and scored 71 points across two seasons. In his second season with the Red Wings organization, he helped the Adirondack Red Wings farm team win a championship.

While Mahovlich didn’t achieve his success with Detroit, he is by far the best left winger selected by the Red Wings. They’ve only selected five true left wingers in the first round who have played NHL games. Only 1984’s Shawn Burr and 2020’s Lucas Raymond have enjoyed successful enough careers to stack up to Mahovlich. But with four Stanley Cups and 773 career points, Mahovlich takes the crown.

Center: Steve Yzerman
4th overall, 1983

The Captain needs little introduction. Picked fourth overall in 1983, Yzerman is arguably the Red Wings’ most important draft pick of all time. He captained Detroit for an NHL record 19 years, and he led the Red Wings to three Stanley Cups as a player (1997, 1998, 2002) and one as part of the front office (2008). His 692 career goals and 1,755 career points are second among all Red Wings’ draft picks behind Marcel Dionne, who scored the majority of his with Los Angeles. Yzerman’s 1,063 assists rank first among draft picks, while his points rank second in Red Wings history only trailing Gordie Howe.

But Yzerman wasn’t just a scorer. As nearly every analyst points out when discussing a star scorer who struggles in the playoffs, Yzerman developed an elite two-way game later in his career when playing for Scotty Bowman. This was a pivotal development for the Red Wings to win those Stanley Cups, and it was another reason why Yzerman is the most important pick in franchise history. Now, he’s the one making them as the team’s general manager since 2019.

Other talented first round centers include Dionne, Keith Primeau and Dylan Larkin, but none of them surpass Yzerman. To be frank, it’s an unfair comparison.

Right Wing: Mike Foligno
3rd overall, 1979

Foligno, a hard-nosed winger, had an excellent start to his career in the early 1980s. He finished top three in scoring for Detroit and averaged a point-per-game in his third year. It was then that the Red Wings traded him to help bring in Sabres star Danny Gare.

Gare didn’t end up playing a huge role in success for the Red Wings, but Foligno did with the Sabres. His 511 points in 664 games played a big role in the Sabres’ 1980s success, which saw them make the playoffs seven times in his career. He also helped the Toronto Maple Leafs make the playoffs once in his penultimate season. His sons Nick and Marcus are both NHLers today.

While Foligno is known for his time in Buffalo, he remains one of the best right wings selected by Detroit all time. Arguments can be made for 1991’s Martin Lapointe and 1986 first overall pick Joe Murphy. However, Foligno’s scoring touch and longevity make him the best of the bunch.

Defense: Niklas Kronwall
29th overall, 2000

His highlight reel hits made Kronwall a star of the late-2000s and early 2010s Red Wings. Few defensemen channeled the pure, high-speed destruction of hockey quite like Kronwall. And that physicality came as a means to his defensive prowess, which saw him receive Norris votes for three straight seasons from 2012-15. If Nicklas Lidstrom hadn’t led the blue line before then, Kronwall probably would’ve received more recognition.

Injuries hampered the end of his career, but Kronwall was also among the better power play quarterbacks during his career. And considering he was a bit of a late-bloomer who had scouts perplexed, this pick is one of the more underrated Red Wings picks of all time.

Defense: Moritz Seider
6th overall, 2019

It’s still so early in Seider’s career — he’s only now leaving his entry-level contract. But, Seider has become a shutdown stalwart for the Red Wings who shoulders their toughest defensive matchups. Few defensemen face the kind of stars that Seider is tasked with shutting down, and few get as little defensive help as he does with Detroit just teasing its way out of the rebuild.

As the team improves around him, Seider is primed to continue leading on the blue line. The next few years of his career could reshape this argument, but as it stands Seider is in the upper echelon of first-round Detroit defensemen.

Other defensemen in consideration include Brendan Smith, Gary Bergman and Rick Lapointe, but Seider and Kronwall both clear them when considering their counting stats and their overall impact on the Red Wings’ play.

Goaltender: Jim Rutherford
10th overall, 1969

The Red Wings have only drafted four goalies in the first round — Rutherford, Terry Richardson, Tom McCollum and Sebastian Cossa. With 457 NHL games played, Rutherford is by far the best goalie picked by Detroit in this round. He played 10 seasons in Detroit, interrupted by a two-and-a-half year stint in Pittsburgh and one year with Los Angeles. Rutherford averaged an .876 save percentage and 3.69 goals against.

If Rutherford hadn’t played in the height of the Dead Wings era, perhaps those numbers could’ve been better. Even so, in 1978 he helped Detroit make one of its two playoff appearances during that era.

Since hanging up his skates, Rutherford has enjoyed a long career in management. He won the Stanley Cup as the general manager of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2002 and Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017. He’s currently with the Vancouver Canucks as the president of hockey operations.

While Richardson and McCollum played 20 and three games, respectively, Cossa is the Red Wings’ current prized goalie prospect. It would take a long and successful career to dethrone Rutherford as the best first round goalie picked by Detroit.