Looking back at the best draft picks the Edmonton Oilers have made outside the first round

The Edmonton Oilers only have selections in the second, sixth, and seventh rounds of this year’s draft, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t land a quality player.

Here’s a round-by-round look back at the most successful picks the Oilers have ever made beyond the first round of the draft…

The Oilers had three selections in the second round of the 2002 draft and they selected a goaltender, a forward, and a defenceman. Jarret Stoll was the forward they selected and he quickly developed into a very effective two-way, middle-six centre. He scored 59 goals and 165 points with the Oilers over 286 games before being traded to Los Angeles, where he helped the Kings win two Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014.

The defenceman the Oilers drafted that year was Matt Greene. He made his NHL debut during the 2005-06 season and spent three seasons in Edmonton before being traded along with Stoll to the Kings. Greene put together a successful career as a shutdown defenceman, as he played 615 games in the league and won two Stanley Cups.

The last time the Oilers didn’t have a selection in the first round was back in 2006. They traded their first-round pick to acquire Dwayne Roloson ahead of that season’s trade deadline and the veteran goaltender helped them reach the Stanley Cup Final. Their first selection came in the second round and the Oilers drafted Jeff Petry, a puck-moving defender who has 864 NHL games under his belt.

The Oilers had an incredible run of drafting in their first few years after the WHA-NHL merger in 1979. In their first-ever draft, they selected local product Mark Messier in the third round. Messier went on to become one of the best ever to play the game, as he scored 694 goals and 1,887 points over 1,756 games and won six Stanley Cups.

Mike Comrie put together one of the best seasons in AJHL history for the St. Albert Saints in 1997-98 and the Oilers grabbed him in the third round of the draft a couple of years later. Comrie quickly emerged as a hometown star in Edmonton, as he scored 61 goals and 133 points over his first three seasons with the Oilers. He was traded away following a contract dispute with Kevin Lowe and wound up scoring 365 points over 589 games in his NHL career.

After selecting Mark Messier in the third round of the 1979 draft, the Oilers found another future Hall of Famer in the next round. Glenn Anderson scored 417 goals and 906 points for the Oilers and was a member of all five of their Stanley Cup teams in the 1980s.

The Oilers made another nice selection at No. 69 overall in the following year’s draft. Jari Kurri became Wayne Gretzky’s wingman and scored 474 goals and 1,043 points for the Oilers over the course of 10 seasons and was a member of all of their Stanley Cup teams. His 1,398 points in the NHL ranks second all-time among Finnish players behind only Teemu Selanne.

Ninth among Finnish NHLers with 630 career points is Esa Tikkanen, a winger the Oilers selected in the third round of the 1983 draft. Tikkanen was one of the league’s best pests during the late-80s and early-90s. He scored 244 goals and 630 points over his career and won five Stanley Cups, four with the Oilers and one with the New York Rangers. The Oilers traded Tikkanen to New York in 1994 in exchange for Doug Weight, who was the team’s best player in the late-90s.

Edmonton’s first-round pick from the 1998 draft never played a game in the NHL but they found a future captain in the fourth round. The Oilers selected Shawn Horcoff out of Michigan State and he broke into the NHL a couple of years later. Horcoff scored 447 points for the Oilers over the course of 796 games and he played 1,008 games in the NHL all told.

The Oilers found a hidden gem in the fifth round of the 1993 draft in Miroslav Satan, but they traded him away in one of the more regrettable deals in team history. After just 126 games with the Oilers, Satan was dealt to the Buffalo Sabres for Craig Millar and Barrie Moore. Neither player became anything with the Oilers while Satan scored 735 points over 1,050 games in the NHL.

Edmonton native Jason Chimera was another great find by the Oilers in the fifth round, but, like Satan, his best years were spent playing elsewhere. The Oilers traded Chimera away in 2004 for draft picks and he wound up developing into a very good two-way winger. All told, Chimera scored 186 goals and 415 points over 1,107 NHL games.

Though he might be best remembered for his own-goal flub against the Calgary Flames in the playoffs, Steve Smith was a very good NHL defenceman for over a decade. The Oilers selected him in the sixth round of the 1981 draft and he won three Stanley Cups with the team. Smith played 804 games in the NHL, scored 375 points, and racked up 2,139 penalty minutes.

The 1981 draft was already a home run for the Oilers with their selections of Paul Coffey in the first round and Jari Kurri in the third and then they found a quality starting goaltender in the seventh round. Andy Moog split the net with Grant Fuhr during much of the 1980s and helped the team win three Stanley Cups. He was traded to the Boston Bruins in 1987 in exchange for Bill Ranford, a young goalie who led the Oilers to the 1990 Stanley Cup. Moog ranks 19th in NHL history with 372 wins.

The Oilers traded down at the 2003 draft from No. 17 overall and selected Marc-Antoine Pouliot and Jean-Francois Jacques at No. 22 and No. 68 overall respectively. Their best pick in that draft was Kyle Brodziak, a native of St. Paul, Alberta, who they took in the seventh round. Brodziak developed into an effective bottom-six centre and scored 296 points over 917 games in the NHL, though his best seasons came after the Oilers traded him to the Minnesota Wild in 2009.

Edmonton’s early draft success started to dry up in the mid-80s and their biggest win in the latter part of the decade came when they selected Kelly Buchberger in the ninth round of the 1985 draft. Buchberger won the Stanley Cup with the Oilers in 1987 and 1990 and he was the team’s captain for four seasons during the late-90s. He played 1,182 games in the NHL and scored 309 points over his career.

A common theme with a lot of the hidden gems the Oilers have unearthed in later rounds is that many of them are local products. Fernando Pisani scored 103 points in the AJHL in 1995-96 and the Oilers took a flyer on him with their selection in the eighth round of the draft. He broke into the NHL a few years later and played a huge role in Edmonton’s run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006. Pisani’s career was cut short due to an illness but he scored 169 points over 462 games and will always be an Oilers legend because of the 14 goals he scored in the playoffs.