Ugh...

The Peerless was perusing an old Hockey News issue – the 2007 “Future Watch” issue – and stumbled upon an interesting, if unfortunate, nugget of Capitals history. Fittingly, it came from the very last page of the issue, a look back at the 2002 and 1997 prospect lists. Did you know that in 1997, The Hockey News rated five Capitals’ draftees in their top-19? Well, they did, and here they are, with their draft year/position and career regular season numbers to date…

6. Jaroslav Svejkovsky, 1996, 1^st round/17^th overall, (113 games, 23-19-43, -22)
10. Jan Bulis, 1996, 2/43, (552 G, 96-149-245, -3)
11. Brendan Witt, 1993, 1/11 (724 G, 21-79-100, -31)
12. Alexandre Volchkov, 1996, 1/4 (3G, 0-0-0, -2)
19. Nolan Baumgartner, 1994, 1/10 (131, 3-39-45, +4)

Five top prospects, all drafted by the Caps, all in the system at the same time. As a group, this quintet was 64-141-205 in their respective tenures with the Capitals. That is roughly equivalent to Wayne Gretzky…well, his 1984-1985 season (73-135-208). Trouble is, this group was -72; Gretzky was +98.