Arguably our 3 best players ever were all acquired via trade. Iggy was drafted by Dallas, Kipper by San Jose, and Lanny was drafted by Toronto. This begs the question, which Flames draft pick went on to have the best career with Calgary? My vote is Johnny, just considering how much he accomplished in only 9 years and where he was taken in the draft as well, but I also wasn’t around for the 80s and 90s teams so I’m a little naive perhaps when it comes to this topic. I’d love to hear what you all have to say about it? Would love to learn about past greats who we actually drafted

15 comments

  5. It’s gotta be the 2 time Cup champ, Conn Smythe trophy winner, but not the one you’re thinking of.

  9. Gary Suter. A late round steal. Too bad he is mainly known for ending the careers of Wayne Gretzky and Paul Kariya.

  10. Brett Hull.

    He wasn’t great for us, but he ended up being a 700 goal scorer in the NHL. Hard to top that.

  11. Calgary has 11 picks that have played 1000 games: Backlund, Fleury, (Brett) Hull, MacInnis, Manheim, (Derek) Morris, Nieuwendyk, Phaneuf, (Gary) Roberts, (Cory) Stillman, and (also Gary) Suter.

    Johnny would have been in that list, obviously, but IMO Al MacInnis clearly takes the win here — only three of these guys are in the Hall and AMac is the only one of those three who was definitely a HHOF lock when he left Calgary.

    MacInnis gave the Flames 822 points in 803 games over 11 seasons, including five in which he was an all-star. He was a three time Runner up for the Norris in those seasons. He’s the only Flames defenseman to score more than 100 points in a season (fourth defenseman to ever do so in the NHL). 

    Of the eight highest scoring seasons by a Flames defenseman, Al MacInnis scored six of them. Gary Suter has the other two, both seasons where his limenate was MacInnis.

    MacInnis was the first defenseman to lead the playoffs in point scoring en route to winning the Conn Smythe in 1989, scoring 31 points and putting together a 17 game point streak in that time.

    He left the franchise as the all-time leader in games played, points, assists, playoffs points…

    The fact that he went on to play another 600 games in St. Louis is just gravy — MacInnis was literally one of the best NHL defensemen to ever do it, doing it in Calgary, for an entire decade.

Leave a Reply