Winnipeg Jets Draft Retrospectives: 2014

The Winnipeg Jets this coming weekend will enter their eighth draft since their flight north from Atlanta. The club has just come off their most successful NHL season ever, a season that was built largely on the concept of “draft and develop” which has had it’s critics over the years but has turned out to be very fruitful and one where you can see positive results from pretty much every draft the Jets have had.

This week leading up to the draft, we’ll look back at the first seven drafts the Jets have taken part in and look back at the hits (quite a few), the misses (every team has ’em) and the fates-yet-to-be-determined.

The 2014 draft features one terrific standout and a bunch of projects that have yet to make their mark but all still hold some potential for the Jets yet. Most of these players are in the 23 to 24 year old range though, so in terms of their time left to make an impression on the Jets and have a future with the club, their time is starting to run a bit short.

A trend I’ve noticed over doing the first few of these drafts is looking to see at the names that were picked after the Jets made their pick in the first round and thinking: “I can’t possibly think of anyone else on this list I’d rather have than the guy the Jets picked” and the picks made after Ehlers at the nine spot is no different.

Dylan Larkin? David Pastrnak? Maybe either of those would have been fine, but can you imagine the Jets without Ehlers at this point?

But while we look at the teams that picked after the Jets that didn’t have a shot at him, maybe spare a thought for the teams who passed on him. The Islanders took Michael Dal Colle fifth overall. The Hurricanes picked Haydn Fleury with the seventh pick.

Woof.

69 goals and 162 points in 236 games played, he spent one more year in Halifax and then made the jump straight to the Jets with a 15 goal rookie campaign.

Glover continues to develop having spent his final year with the Minnesota Golden Gophers this past season – a bit of a rebound season for him after being limited to 13 games in 2016-17 due to undergoing surgeries to both shoulders the summer of 2016 – he jumped into the Jacksonville Icemen lineup for a handful of games.

When Glover was drafted he was clearly tabbed as a long term project and that was before the shoulder issues, but the 6’3 defenseman could be a very nice find in round three if he can continue his development in the ECHL and possibly AHL next season.

De Leo has spent the last three seasons as a pretty consistent middle six forward for the Manitoba Moose. This past season he had 12 goals and 35 points in 69 games in the AHL. He was also phenomenal in the first round of the AHL playoffs for the Moose and finished up with two goals and eight points in the nine playoff games they played.

De Leo’s issue may be that he’s too far down the Jets depth chart to have any kind of real shot at making the NHL club. His ELC has expired this year and he goes into this summer as a restricted free agent.

Nelson Nogier was drafted as a defensive defenseman with good size and decent skating ability and it was hoped he’d continue his progression, but he unfortunately suffered a shoulder in the first Moose pre-season game they had in October and he was out until the middle of March. Nogier ended up dressing in 13 regular season games and a couple of playoff games. He has one more year left on his current contract, so hopefully he can get healthy and resume his development.

2017-18 was a very good year for the former C.J. Franklin who legally changed his name this past summer in honor of his grandmother and mother. In his final year with the Minnesota State University as their captain he finished with 22 goals and 43 points in 40 games played which earned him a Hobey Baker nomination.

He then signed his ELC and joined the Moose for their last few weeks of play where he got in a goal and assist in six regular season games played and an assist in the two playoff games he was in. He was a terrific all around defenseman for the Mavericks and the Jets hope that skill set can carry over into the pros next season.

Kraskovsky has spent his time with hometown Lokomotiv of the KHL and has been fantastic the last couple of seasons. He’s been a member of the Russian World Junior team, earning a silver medal in 2016 (after losing to Patrik Laine’s Finland club in the gold medal game) and he’s even been involved with Russia’s men’s national team. The Jets still own his rights but it looks like Pavel will be spending another season in Russia this coming fall.

In a mid-season interview with Russian website Championat, the young man suggested that in time he would be open to going to the NHL, that he follows the Jets and that the Jets do keep in contact with him.

A definite project, Ustaski has some nice size – 6’6″ to be exact – and skates pretty well for such a big body. After finishing up his last year at Wisconsin, Ustaski got in a game with the Manitoba Moose and 14 games with the Jacksonville IceMen, where he will likely be as well next season as the Jets continue his development.