There are certain cards out there that
you have to have because they are awesome cards (1971 Topps ThurmanMunson). There are some cards that you have to have because they are
iconic (1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey Jr). And there are some that you
have to have because they represent a specific moment in history.
For me, the 2011-12 Panini Rookie
Anthology Draft Year Vincent Lecavalier/ David Legwand because it
represents the draft that the Lightning got right and started
building into a Stanley Cup winner. The fact that it has Vinny on it
and two jersey swatches makes it a little bit awesome as well.
Let's talk about the 1998 draft.
Heading into it, it was clear that there were two players at the top
of the class and then a bunch of decent players after that (sounds
familiar). Both of those players were centers (sounds familiar).
There was a consensus number one pick, a franchise savior, a “Next
One” if you will, but the other player was quietly gaining in
popularity to the point that some think they might go first overall
depending what team ended up with the overall pick (sounds familiar).
One was Canadian and one was American (again, sound familiar).
So yes, there are a lot of parallels
between the 1998 NHL draft and the upcoming 2015 draft. Instead of
McDavid vs. Eichel we had Lecavalier vs. Legwand. Lecavalier played
the part of McDavid, dominating Major Junior hockey for years leading
up to the draft, while Legwand was the hard-working American kid that
may be having a better year (mostly because of McDavid's injury, but
hey I'm trying to build a narrative here!)
It's odd looking back now that fifteen
years have passed, but there was talk that the Lightning might go
with Legwand instead of Lecavalier. At the time, Legwand was actually
considered the more offensively gifted of the two players by some.
Now, it was quite apparent that the Lightning were all aboard the
Lecavalier train, but that doesn't prevent experts from speculating.
Would things have developed differently
if Art Williams had declared Legwand the “Michael Jordan” of
hockey instead of Lecavalier? Would he have blossomed into the scorer
under the defensively lax guidence of Jaques Demers and Steve Ludzik?
Would Lecavalier developed into a solid two-way center instead of the
50-goal scorer under Barry Trotz's offense-stifling style of play?
One thing is certain – Lightning fans
wouldn't have had to sit through a decade of “Lecavalier to
Montreal” rumors. Talk which actually started before the Lightning
had drafted him. In an April 1998 St. Pete Times article, Tim Buckley
mentions that Montreal was rumored to be dangling Saku Koivu inexchange for the pick.
Joe Sakic's name was also floated around as potential trade bait.
While Sakic and Koivu never ended up in
Tampa, without a couple of trades this card would look a lot
different. The picks used by Tampa and Nashville were not their
original first round picks. The number one pick used by the Lightning
was originally held by the Florida Panthers who traded it to San Jose
for Victor Kozlov. At the time the deal was made (November of 1997)
the Panthers were 5-9-4 (the last column was for ties. Yes Little
Jimmy in the '90s games could end in a tie). They were struggling,
but not necessarily out of the playoff hunt. General Manager Bryan
Murray thought Kozlov, 23-years-old at the time, would be more
beneficial to the team in the short run then what he thought would be
a mid-round draft pick. “Certainly we thought we'd be a playoff
team and never expected the top pick, but we'll have a top player in
Kozlov for many years to come” he told the Sun Sentinel after the
draft order was announced.
While Kozlov never reached the upper
echelons of stardom he did have some solid seasons for the Panthers
topping out with 22 goals in 2002-03 before getting dealt to New
Jersey in 2004. Oddly enough Kozlov has the distinction of being
traded for a #1 overall pick (Lecavalier) AND a #2 overall pick as
his rights were traded from Hartford to San Jose for a package that
included Chris Pronger in June of 1993.
Speaking of the Sharks, they kept that
first round draft pick all of four months when Lightning General
Manager “Trader” Phil Esposito came a' calling. For Bryan
Marchment, David Shaw and the Lightning's first round pick Espo
received the Sharks first round pick and Andrei Nazarov. Marchment
himself had barely unpacked in Tampa before getting shuttled off to
San Jose. He had been part of a trade with Edmonton that had sent
former first overall pick Roman Hamrlik to the Oilers. It was a busy
year for Mr. Esposito as he managed to pull off 10 trades over the
season.
So the Lightning had the number one
pick and drafted Lecavalier. So why isn't David Legwand a San Jose
legend? On the day of the draft the two teams swapped positions with
San Jose moving down to draft third (where they would pick up
defenseman Brad Stuart and a second round pick that they used to
draft Jonathon Cheechoo who would score 56 goals in 2005-06 for the
Sharks, a year before Lecavalier would score 52 for the Lightning)
and Nashville moving up to get their franchise center in Legwand.
All-in-all I think it ended up alright
for everyone involved (maybe not Florida). Despite never developing
into a scoring juggernaut Legwand had a long tenure in Nashville and
still holds just about every offensive record for the team. And
despite some rough going early on (and suffering the shame of having
the captaincy stripped from him) Lecavalier put together a pretty
decent career in Tampa before economics and nagging injuries made him
a contract buyout casualty.
All three of the top picks from that
year have logged more than 1,000 games in the NHL which is kind of
special in itself (Kozlov ended up playing in 897 NHL games and is
still kicking around in the KHL). In the last 30 years only three
other drafts can boast that – the 1987, 1988 and 1997 drafts. We
have a few years left to see if the 2007 and 2008 drafts can be added
to the list, but the top three players in both drafts are still in
the NHL so there is a chance!
One thing that began to bother me after
staring at this card for the last couple of hours. Panini surely
could have used better pictures/cropping. Vinny is missing part of
his hand. Meanwhile they went with the LinkedIn profile practice of
cropping Legwand out of a group photo – most likely this one:
They get credit for using draft year
photos (and for both of them sporting the dress shirt/tie/jersey
combo. However, a little more time in the Google Image search
probably could have led to some better results. Despite that, still a
pretty neat card to add to the Lightning collection.
