In his article about Teemu Hartikainen, Michael Parkatti made note of the Oilers' peformance in the draft after the first round:
"...the Oilers haven't had a non-first round pick make it to 200 games in the NHL since Stortini & Brodziak in 2003.... players taken a decade ago."
I followed up on that by looking at players drafted outside of the first round between 2004-2009 and total games played in the league, not specifically for the team that drafted the player. I summed those by team in the table below.
| Players drafted in rounds two and beyond, 2004-2009, to have played 200+ NHL games | |
| Drafted By | # of players |
| Boston Bruins | 6 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 6 |
| Nashville Predators | 5 |
| New York Rangers | 5 |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 4 |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | 4 |
| Dallas Stars | 4 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 4 |
| New York Islanders | 4 |
| San Jose Sharks | 4 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 4 |
| Vancouver Canucks | 4 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 3 |
| Colorado Avalanche | 3 |
| Los Angeles Kings | 3 |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | 3 |
| Anaheim Ducks | 2 |
| Calgary Flames | 2 |
| Minnesota Wild | 2 |
| Phoenix Coyotes | 2 |
| Atlanta Thrashers | 1 |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 1 |
| Florida Panthers | 1 |
| St. Louis Blues | 1 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 1 |
| Edmonton Oilers | 0 |
| New Jersey Devils | 0 |
| Ottawa Senators | 0 |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 0 |
| Washington Capitals | 0 |
The Oilers are one of five teams who fall into this category. Jeff Petry will certainly surpass 200 games played if he stays healthy this season, but it's a longshot for anyone else in that group. Even noted player development hellhole Atlanta has a tickmark for.
Note that Stu MacGregor was in charge of scouting for only the 2008 and 2009 drafts, But considering the players taken in those two classes: Cameron Abney, Jordan Bendfield, Kyle Bigos, Philippe Cornet, Teemu Hartikainen, Troy Hesketh, Anton Lander, Johan Motin, Toni Rajala, and Olivier Roy, it seems that only Lander has a chance of playing 200 games in the NHL at this point.
The Oilers have been the worst team in the league since 2006-07, yet they couldn't manage to find a regular spot for any of their 32 picks aside from Petry. The teams they're keeping company with have, at the very least, made the playoffs, which raises the question, which came first, the player development problem or the scouting problem?