NHL Draft Spotlight - 1986

The 1986 NHL Entry Draft was, in many ways, a typical entry draft...

One future Hall of Famer, Brian Leetch was selected at #9 by the New York Rangers.

Some mild controversy arose when the Detroit Red Wings selected Joe Murphy over native son Jimmy Carson. This was rectified when Edmonton dealt Carson to Detroit for Murphy in a multi-player trade when retooling for their fifth Cup run several years later.

Solid, if unspectacular, NHL regulars in the first round highlighted by Vincent Damphousse and included Zarley Zalapski, Craig Janney, Tom Fitzgerald, Pat Elynuik, Jocelyn Lemieux, and Kerry Huffman.

Steady D-men Teppo Numminen at 29 in the 2nd round and Jyrki Lumme at 57 in the 3rd round.

Vancouver thinking ahead of the time and out of the box by selecting Vladimir Krutov in the 12th and final round.

Lost amongst all of this DRAFT HISTORY was a player that would never play a minute in the NHL but would play 15 years across Europe with teams like the HUSKIES and MOSQUITOES, making stops in his native Finland, as well as, Germany, Italy and The Czech Republic.

The IMMORTAL and LEGENDARY: JUKKA-PEKKA SEPPO

Jukka caught the eyes of the Philadelphia Flyers Brass with his performance at the Under-18 European Junior Championships in 1986 where he posted 3 goals and 8 points in 5 games. He was selected 23rd overall by the Flyers with the 2nd pick of the 2nd round right after Adam Graves was drafted. He won an U20 WJC Gold medal in 86/87 with 3 goals and 12 points in 7 games and won a Bronze in 87/88. He appeared in 39 games with Tappera Tampere in Finland in 1986-87 notching 11 goals and 27 points.

For whatever reasons, he never landed in North America, instead spending 15 seasons in Europe. He played 571 career games, recording 196 goals and 478 points. If he was so highly rated, one has to wonder the impact he could have had in the league here. Maybe he could have developed into a Selanne-lite, the "Finnish Flash" himself was drafted 10th overall only 2 years later. Who knows? But is fun to look back at the woulda couldas in any past draft.

Till next time...

Da H8R