The unforgetable 1979 NHL Draft
The NHL Draft is an annual event where teams select eligible players to join the league. It’s a crucial opportunity for teams to build their rosters with young talent. The draft consists of seven rounds, with each team having one pick per round, although trades can affect the number of picks a team has. Due to the short time before the season began, the 1979 NHL Draft was shortened to six rounds with 108 fewer selections. Many pundits agree that the 1979 draft was the best draft class in NHL history, with the 2003 Draft coming in at a very close second.
The 1979 NHL Entry Draft was held on August 9 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec.
It was the first draft after the NHL-WHA merger. The draft order was based on the 1978-79 NHL season and playoff standings. The minimum draft age was lowered from 20 to 19, and WHA teams were picked last. The lowering of the draft age caused two years’ worth of draft picks to go in the same draft, contributing to what is generally considered one of the best draft classes in NHL entry draft history.
The draft included seven future Hall of Famers: Ray Bourque, Mike Gartner, Michel Goulet, and Kevin Lowe, who were selected in the first round alone, while Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, and Guy Carbonneau would be drafted in later rounds.
Twelve of the 21 players selected in the first round would play at least one All-Star game, 19 of the 21 would play at least 450 career NHL games, and all 21 had NHL careers of at least 235 games. Under the old rules, Wayne Gretzky and Messier would not have been eligible to enter the NHL until the 1981 draft.
On the other hand, the NHL shortened the draft to only six rounds, whereas some previous drafts ran for more than twenty rounds. As a result, despite the more significant number of teams participating, the 1979 draft had 108 fewer selections than the previous draft and was the shortest since 1971.
It is the last entry draft to have fewer than 200 selections. Due to the strength of the class and fewer selections, many undrafted players who were eligible to be drafted went on to have notable NHL careers, including Hall of Famer Dino Ciccarelli, five-time Stanley Cup champion Charlie Huddy, and four-time 50-goal scorer Tim Kerr. Gretzky, protected by the Oilers in the 1979 NHL expansion draft, also entered the Hall of Fame.
Mark Messier, the last active NHL player from this draft class, played his last game in the 2003–04 season.
Rising superstar Wayne Gretzky had played for the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA’s final season. As per the terms of the NHL-WHA merger, Gretzky was to have become eligible for the 1979 draft due to having already played professionally in the WHA. However, Gretzky had a personal services contract with Oilers owner Peter Pocklington. The NHL had initially expected the contract would be voided. But Gretzky, faced with the likelihood of having to play for the struggling Colorado Rockies if he were to enter the draft, refused to void his contract with Pocklington. It was determined that the Oilers were allowed to keep Gretzky in exchange for being placed at the bottom of the draft order in the entry draft.
With the addition of the Oilers, Nordiques, Whalers, and Jets joining the NHL ranks as expansion teams. They were all placed at the bottom of the draft order, but the Edmonton Oilers managed to walk away from the 1979 draft in a very profitable fashion.
Not only did the Oilers come out of the draft with the likes of Kevin Lowe, Mark Messier, and Glenn Anderson, but they were also allowed to keep the rights to hockey’s Great One, Wayne Gretzky.
While the NHL-WHA merger significantly impacted the draft order for expansion teams, changes to draft eligibility made 1979 a year that saw the NHL draft ranks stocked with an unprecedented amount of young talent. Since the age requirements for drafting were lowered, both eighteen-and nineteen-year-old players were allowed to join the draft.
In essence, the 1979 NHL Entry Draft was unique, as two years’ worth of talent was thrown into the mix for NHL teams to dissect.
The first round of the 1979 draft was impressive because all twenty-one first-round picks played in at least 200 NHL games. The amount of talent produced by the 2003 NHL Entry Draft cannot be understated.
When all is said and done, the 2003 class might just become the best draft in NHL history, but the ’79 draft undoubtedly had more implications on the NHL hockey world than any other draft before or after it. More than four decades after it took place, the players in this draft are still regarded as the greatest pool of talent ever available to NHL teams in one year.
An incredible 81.7 percent of the 126 drafted played at least one NHL game. Before 1979, no more than 58 percent of the players picked in one year had ever reached the NHL, and it is almost certain that this stunning record set in 1979 will never be broken.
Keep Your Stick on the Ice.
The unforgetable 1979 NHL Draft
