1999 NHL Entry Draft

The 1999 NHL Entry Draft was held on June 26 at the FleetCenter in Boston, Massachusetts. According to Sports Illustrated and other sports news agencies, at the time the 1999 draft was considered one of the deepest in talent in years, headed by Patrik Stefan and the Sedin twins. However, the overall impact in the NHL hasn't matched those of the neighboring drafts. An example of this one is how many first round picks have played the equivalent of an entire regular season ten seasons after the 1999 draft; only 16 out of 28 first round picks in 1999 have played 82 NHL games, while the same statistic applies to 23 out of 27 players in 1998 and 21 out of 30 players in 2000. In addition, while the Sedin twins have excelled in the NHL, only Barret Jackman and Martin Havlat were still active players of the other 26 first-round picks in the NHL 15 years after the draft. The team that originally held the first overall pick, the Tampa Bay Lightning, traded out of the first round altogether in the trading carousel used to select the Sedins.