Going down memory lane on past Blue Jackets drafts

Next week, the Blue Jackets will draft players they believe will be centerpieces of the team's success for years to come.
Immediately, analysts will grade how Columbus did at the NHL draft, while general manager Jarmo Kekalainen likely will say a draft can't be evaluated until many years down the road.

Kekalainen will be correct, of course. Half the fun of a draft is seeing the immediate reaction from experts and pundits, but the real proof in the pudding will come down the road when players make the roster and are tested against the best in the world.
With that in mind, now seems like a good time to look back at some previous CBJ drafts. Rather than go in-depth on the more than 20 years of drafts, we'll focus on 2002, 2012 and 2017 -- 20 years, 10 years and five years back.

2002 draft

If we're looking at CBJ draft history, this is a pretty good place to start. Then-CBJ general manager Doug MacLean woke up on the morning of June 22, 2002, with one thing on his mind -- leaving Toronto with Rick Nash in a Blue Jackets sweater.
And he was able to pull it off, trading up from No. 3 to No. 1 overall to select the star London Knights forward. It still remains the only time the Jackets have drafted first overall, and we probably don't have to tell you what happened next.
Nash would go on to become the face of the Blue Jackets for the next nine seasons, scoring in his NHL debut as 18-year-old and never looking back on the way to franchise records in every major statistical category. Now back with the organization as the team's director of player development, Nash had his iconic jersey No. 61 retired this past season.
"I can't say that there was a close second," MacLean said in March when asked if the move to acquire Nash was his best while in charge of the team. "I wish there would have been some other ones. ... Rick was without a doubt the best draft pick. I wish there would have been other guys closer to him.
"I remember the years prior to the draft, we went to Plymouth and watched him when he was an underager, and I remember thinking for the next year, if we could just get this guy, what it would mean for the franchise.
"I was around the NHL for 24 years and he was my favorite player, and I had some good ones. I get teased in Canada a lot because I talk too much about him, but I'm really proud of him."
Selecting Nash alone made the 2002 draft a success, but he was just the first of 13 players chosen by the Jackets in what was then a nine-round draft. Six other players chosen by the Jackets that year would go on to play for the team in second-rounder Joakim Lindstrom, third-rounder Ole-Kristian Tollefsen, fifth-rounder Lasse Pirjeta, sixth-rounder Jaroslav Balastik and seventh-rounders Greg Mauldin and Steven Goertzen.
Unfortunately, none would play more than the 163 NHL games skated by Tollefsen. In many ways, it was the story of the early years of the franchise -- a failure to find NHL-quality depth in later rounds of the draft would be a recurring theme as the franchise struggled to build competitive teams.

2012 draft

If the goal of an NHL draft is to draft two regulars, as many in the hockey world think, then the 2012 selection process was a success for the Blue Jackets.
Columbus chose Ryan Murray in the first round, Joonas Korpisalo in the third and Josh Anderson in the fourth, all of whom spent at least six seasons with the Jackets.
But there's also some thoughts of what could have been with each. Murray went second overall and was billed as one of the safest picks in the draft as a rock-solid two-way defenseman, but injuries have curtailed much of his career. He performed quite well at times, posting 110 points and a plus-13 rating in 347 games with the Jackets, but eventually was traded to New Jersey and was a healthy scratch for Colorado during its recent Stanley Cup run.
Korpisalo remains the only player from the 2012 draft with the organization, having signed a one-year contract for the upcoming season. He's coming off the toughest campaign of his career but has shown flashes of brilliance in his seven-year career with the team, including his 2020 playoff run, but he goes into this season expected to be the CBJ backup behind Elvis Merzlikins.
Anderson, meanwhile, was a standout for the Jackets at times, including a 27-goal, 47-point season for the 2018-19 team that won the first playoff series in franchise history. He finished with a 65-50-115 line in 267 games with Columbus before being traded to Montreal at the 2020 draft.
The Jackets had six picks in the draft, and one other player did play in the NHL in goalie Oscar Dansk. The Swedish netminder was chosen with the first pick of the second round, 31st overall, but never made it with Columbus, playing in six career games with Vegas.
In all, it was a solid but unspectacular draft, with the pick of Murray looking relatively strong given the lack of success at the highest end of the draft in No. 1 pick Nail Yakupov, third overall choice Alex Galchenyuk and fourth pick Griffin Reinhart.

2017 draft

Columbus went into the draft in a tough spot, with the Vegas expansion draft forcing the team's hand. The Blue Jackets would trade their first-round choice to the Golden Knights in order to protect Anderson, but it ended up costing the team both the draft pick as well as William Karlsson.
While that ended up being a tough trade to swallow for CBJ fans, the Blue Jackets did make a deal that paid dividends on the draft's second day, dealing prospect Keegan Kolesar to Vegas for the chance to move up to 45th overall and select Alexandre Texier. The French forward had a breakout 2021-22 campaign and is a big part of the CBJ's plans going forward as a top-six forward, while Kolesar has settled in as a bottom-six forward with the Golden Knights the past two seasons.
Time will tell how the rest of the draft still will shake out, but there are some promising prospects in the mix. Third-round pick Daniil Tarasov was coming off injury at the time of the draft but has worked himself into being the team's top goaltending prospect, and so far the big, athletic goalie has impressed in the KHL and in an NHL cameo with a .937 save percentage in four games last season.
Fourth-round choice Emil Bemstrom came to North America with fanfare three years ago after a dominant SHL season, but his NHL career to this point has moved in fits and starts, with the Swedish winger scoring 19 goals with 36 points in 117 games while battling injuries.
The other player still with the organization is sixth-round choice Carson Meyer, who made his NHL debut at the end of the 2021-22 season with a goal and two assists in 13 games and looked like he could be a solid energy forward.
Fifth-round choice Kale Howarth, sixth-rounder Jonathan Davidsson and seventh-rounder Robbie Stucker were the team's other choices.
In the end, this draft is off to a solid start with Texier, but the eventual success of Tarasov, Bemstrom and Meyer likely will be the ultimate judge of how this draft grades out.