Which 2003 draftee will end up with the most NHL games played?

[Geeoff]

I think Bergeron and Pavelski are the ones still playing the best hockey, so they might have the most games left?

[rogermexico]

I thought it might get more interesting to look for pro games played outside the NHL I haven’t done an exhaustive search but looked up a few names.

I was really hoping that Hugh Jessiman would turn out to still be playing someplace just for the sake of the story, but his last season was with Vienna in the Austrian League in 2014-15, where he played 7 games. He had 2 NHL games with the Florida Panthers, and 37 in one season in the KHL.

On the other hand, Nikolai Zherdev played 11 seasons in the KHL after leaving the Flyers in 2011, adding 306 more games to his 421 in the NHL for 727 total pro games.

Nigel Dawes was still playing pro with Kazan Ak Bars as of last season, adding 543 KHL games to his 212 in the NHL for 755 altogether — but that's still a long way off our NHL leaders.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Is this the greatest draft ever in regards to quantity of talent? Has to be pretty close if it isn't.

I think it's pretty safe to say 1979 is still regarded as the best draft class ever. In large part that was due to the draft age being lowered from 20 to 18 that year, so effectively three draft classes graduated at once, and the WHA had merged into the NHL and weren't poaching young players as free agents anymore.

103/126 (81.7%) of draftees played in at least one game in the NHL.
73 played in at least 100 games.
44 played in at least 500 games.
17 played in over 1000 games.
7 finished their careers with over 1000 points. (Mark Messier, Ray Bourque, Mike Gartner, Michel Goulet, Glenn Anderson, Dale Hunter and Brian Propp)

The career average of all players in this draft class was 479 GP, 107 goals, 179 assists, 558 PIM.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by timbit

My bet would be on Suter, with confidence.

100% hands down.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by timbit

My bet would be on Suter, with confidence.

I agree, or Burns. A dman for sure, they can play longer.

[The Yen Man]

I'm pleasantly surprised Begeron was able to overcome his early concussion issues and last this long. For awhile there, I thought he was going to be the next Pat Lafontaine.

[powderjunkie]

I suppose one big advantage for Burns is that he could play 7D/4RW at the very end which could be very valuable for a team to load-manage him through a reg season.