MacKinnon, then who? We redo the 2013 NHL draft

When Bo Horvat was traded to the New York Islanders earlier this season, he lamented the end of his time with the Vancouver Canucks.

“I thought I was going to be a Canuck for life, to be honest with you. Things just didn’t work out that way,” he said, before signing a $68 million contract extension with the Islanders, as an example of things working out in unexpected ways.

Horvat was selected ninth overall in the 2013 NHL draft by the Canucks. In what will go down as one of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s cheekiest moments, he cut through the traditional booing at Prudential Center in New Jersey by saying he had a trade to announce and “I think you’re gonna wanna hear this.” Vancouver traded goalie Cory Schneider to the Devils, who traded the 9th overall pick to the Canucks, who used it to select Horvat.

It was one of several surprises in the draft on that day just under 10 years ago. Of course, the surprises didn’t end there. “Things just didn’t work out that way” might as well be written on the Class of 2013 reunion banner.

As many of its players have made headlines in the last year — including one leading his team to the Stanley Cup — we decided to do a redraft of 2013’s first round. The criteria is simple: Ranking the players that had the best NHL careers following their draft day. There might be a slight weighing on how things have ended up for them recently, but overall we wanted to see how their selection spots in 2013 reflected how they ended up in the NHL.

So, with that, let’s start with the obvious:

Previous pick: Nathan MacKinnon, C
Redraft pick: Same

No notes here. MacKinnon leads all players from this draft class in goals (267), assists (455) and — taking the math to its logical conclusion — points (722). He won the Calder Trophy in 2013-14, the Stanley Cup last season and was a finalist for the Hart Trophy three times. That the Avalanche made the correct call 10 years ago is a credit to them, because MacKinnon wasn’t a consensus first overall pick. Half of the most prominent prospect rankings at the time had MacKinnon ranked either second or third overall.