Brian Burke first round draft pick history

Teams naturally want to know what kind of teenagers they will be drafting and Burke said that players that are good enough to be high draft picks are almost always captains at some level as they grew up. When asked why he was never a captain (raising questions about attitude or some other red flag), Jaromir Jagr explained that it was because he always played with players that were three years older. Burke said it was the best answer he ever got to that question.

Burke also said that, when he was with Vancouver, he decided he liked Ryan Kesler after seeing him play one shift at Ohio State, telling his scouts he had seen enough and that they should do whatever they needed to get him in the first round. By contrast, Burke said he went to watch Wayne Simmonds play eight games for Owen Sound and didn’t see anything in those eight games to indicate that he’d be worth drafting.

We liked Patrik Stefan, we weren’t big on Brendl, but the World Juniors that year in Winnipeg and the twins weren’t very good, so I’m like ‘we’re not taking the twins. We’re probably going to trade the pick.’ We didn’t like that draft, and we thought we could make a good deal and trade the pick.

Then the twins made the men’s senior team for the World Championships in Oslo, and I said ‘you know, we’d better go over and watch these kids’. And they were terrific. Bigger ice surface, they’re playing with men, and back then the Swedish team never took 18-year olds on the senior men’s team. Never, and these two kids made it and they were great. That’s when we said we’re going to get the twins.