The Detroit Red Wings placed forward Jonatan Berggren on waivers Monday, a move that further underscored the lasting damage caused by the organization’s 2018 NHL Draft class and reinforced the growing belief that it stands as one of the worst drafts in franchise history.
Berggren, who was selected 33rd overall early in the second round, now appears likely to be claimed by another organization, which would make him the latest high draft pick from that class to leave Detroit without ever establishing himself as a meaningful long term contributor during a period when the Red Wings were in desperate need of young talent to anchor their rebuild.
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Detroit entered the 2018 draft holding the sixth overall selection and used it on forward Filip Zadina, who had fallen out of the top five amid concerns regarding his overall projection that the Red Wings chose to overlook, a decision that became immediately controversial when defenseman Quinn Hughes was selected with the very next pick and went on to develop into one of the NHL’s premier blueliners.
The opportunity cost of that decision only deepened as other players available shortly after Detroit’s selection, including Evan Bouchard, Noah Dobson, and K’Andre Miller, each progressed into reliable and impactful NHL defensemen, while Zadina’s tenure in Detroit ultimately ended without him fulfilling the role of a top line scorer and eventually saw him return to Europe, where he now plays in the Swiss National League.
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Despite already missing on a franchise altering opportunity at the top of the draft, the Red Wings still possessed three more picks within the first 36 selections and used the 30th overall pick at the end of the first round to select center Joe Veleno before turning to Berggren at 33rd overall and defenseman Jared McIsaac three picks later at 36th overall.
None of those selections produced lasting value for the organization, as Berggren has now been placed on waivers, Veleno is currently with the Montreal Canadiens and on pace for just nine points this season, and McIsaac never appeared in an NHL game before continuing his professional career overseas in Slovakia.
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The extent of Detroit’s missteps becomes even more glaring when examining the players selected shortly after those picks, as the second round alone featured future NHL regulars and impact contributors such as Kirill Marchenko, Alexander Romanov, Ryan McLeod, Kevin Bahl, Sean Durzi, Jack McBain, and Martin Fehérváry, all of whom were available when the Red Wings were making their selections.
Detroit’s difficulties continued into the third round, where the organization selected defenseman Alec Regula, who is currently working into the lineup as a seventh defenseman for the Edmonton Oilers, while players chosen later in the same round, including star goaltender Lukas Dostal and forward Jakub Lauko, have gone on to carve out more stable NHL roles.
In the fourth round, the Red Wings selected Ryan O’Reilly, a player not to be confused with the longtime NHL star of the same name, and while that selection failed to yield NHL results and currently sees O’Reilly playing in the ECHL, several players taken later in the round such as Martin Pospisil, Paul Cotter, and Philipp Kurashev have since become contributors at the NHL level.
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The trend persisted throughout the remainder of the draft, which ultimately produced numerous star players and dependable role players across the league, yet Detroit emerged without a single piece or even a reliable long term contributor from a class in which they held four of the first 36 selections.
The cumulative result was a complete failure at one of the most critical moments of the organization’s rebuild, as the draft conducted under then general manager Ken Holland and director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright squandered premium assets and left the franchise with virtually no return on investment. That failure reverberated through the following seasons and contributed heavily to Detroit’s prolonged playoff drought, as the absence of impact talent from the 2018 class created a developmental void that stalled progress and forced the organization to rely on future drafts to compensate for lost time.
When Steve Yzerman took over as general manager the following season, he inherited a system that lacked meaningful contributions from the previous draft, yet in his first opportunity at the podium in 2019 he managed to reverse course by selecting Moritz Seider, Albert Johansson, and Elmer Söderblom, all of whom are currently playing in the Red Wings lineup.
Had Detroit managed to secure even one or two impact players from the 2018 draft, the trajectory of the rebuild could have been dramatically different by the time Yzerman arrived, but instead the franchise was left navigating the consequences of a draft class that provided no lasting benefit and now stands as a stark reminder of how costly missed evaluations can be at the highest level.
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