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Ghosts of Drafts Past: A Look Back At The 1990 3rd Overall Pick

Photo credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

Mar 25, 2017, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Mar 23, 2017, 22:48 EDT

Seems poetic that the Detroit Red Wings are ending a 25 season playoff streak in 25th place. This will also be the first time Captain Henrik Zetterberg will miss the playoffs. However, finishing near the bottom of the standings does come with a perk.

The chance to pick higher up in the draft is not something that the Wings have much experience with over the last quarter century. With 11 games left in the regular season the Red Wings are predicted to pick 7th overall with a 6.7% chance of picking first overall and 20.9% to pick third overall. This draft will also see the introduction of the Vegas Golden Knights who are given the same odds as the team who finished with the third least amount of points. This will be the first time in 27 years that Detroit will have an opportunity to pick high in the draft. It could mean that they pick a player that will help the team become great again like Steve Yzerman, who was picked 4th overall and captained the team to their first Stanley Cup in 42 years.

The last time the Detroit Red Wings picked in the top 5 was in the 1990 draft held in Vancouver, British Columbia, 27 years ago. With their first round pick, they selected center Keith Primeau 3rd overall. Primeau played with the Wings for 363 regular season games scoring 97 goals, 133 assists and racking up an impressive 781 penalty minutes. Primeau was not loved by fans while he was in Detroit. In fact he has been named to lists like the Most Hated/Worst players in Detroit Red Wings history. Fans were upset that he wasn’t Jaromir Jagr, who was selected 5th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins that year, is still playing in the NHL today, and will go down as one of the best players of all time.

More frustration came from the lack of productivity Primeau had in playoff appearances. He played 64 playoff games, scoring 6 goals and 14 assists. He would score no goals in the playoffs between 91/92 and 93/94. Keith Primeau did however impress coaches and fans in the 1995 conference finals against the Chicago Blackhawks when he centered a line between Dino Ciccarelli and Shawn Burr (two men and a baby line) and shut down players like Chris Chelios and Jeremy Roenick. The Wings would go on to win this series 4-1 and then be swept by the New Jersey Devils in the Stanley Cup finals.

Primeau would play one more season with the Wings before being traded to the Hartford Whalers with Paul Coffey and a first round pick in return for Brian Glynn who never played a game for Detroit and Brendan Shanahan who in his first year as a Wing helped them win the Stanley Cup and has been named one of NHL’s top 100 players. Primeau would captain the Carolina Hurricanes and then be traded to the Philadelphia flyers where he would finish his career.

After 15 seasons in the NHL, Primeau was forced to retire due to effects of a concussion. He played 1037 games, scored 676 points and is a top 50 figure in Flyers history.

With the Red Wings potentially getting the chance to pick top 10 in the draft this year, there is an opportunity to get a vital position filled and hopefully start the change that is desperately needed. Canadian Cale Makar could be a consideration for the Wings, he is a right handed defenseman and has played 54 games in the AJHL with a total of 75 points. Makar’s style of play has been compared to Erik Karlsson when he was that age. Rookies have proved this year that they can be beneficial to the team, we need less on the brink of retirement players signed to one year deals hoping they will be the one that will drag the team into the playoffs and get more use out of the players we have drafted and molded to suit the Red Wings system.

Let’s hope the lottery balls are forever in our favor.