To round out the first round of the top 10 picks of this hypothetical redraft for the 2001 lottery class, the New York Rangers select longtime Predators, Wild, and Devils veteran defenseman Marek Zidlicky.
Zidlicky is the only defenseman from this draft class from 2001 who scored over 80 career regular season goals, 300 assists, and over 400 career points in the regular season.
Even though the Rangers picked Zidlicky in the sixth round (176th overall) in the 2001 draft lottery, he never played a game in a Rangers' uniform in New York in his career in the NHL. Zidlicky, however, did play over 300 regular season games for the Predators over four seasons, including scoring 26 goals in his first two campaigns playing in the Music City in Nashville in the early-to-mid 2000s.
Czech winger Tomas Plekanec was one of just five players from this draft class in 2001 who played over 1,000 career games in the regular season in the league. Plekanec was a good two-way forward for the Canadiens for over a decade in the NHL in the 2000s and 2010s.
The Phoenix Coyotes originally picked winger Fredrik Sjostrom 11th overall in the first round of the 2001 draft lottery. Sjostrom only played a few seasons with the Coyotes, and he never scored over two dozen points in a regular season in Arizona in the mid-to-late 2000s decade.
Plekanec slides up over 50 spots to be picked in the first round, just outside of the top 10, by the Coyotes in the No. 11 spot in the lottery in this hypothetical reimagining of the 2001 class.
It makes sense for the Preds to pick a defenseman in the draft lottery in this hypothetical redraft from 2001.
Instead of picking Hamhuis at No. 12 overall in this reimagining hypothetically of the 2001 draft lottery, Nashville picks another defenseman in former San Jose Sharks defender Christian Ehrhoff.
After he played a few seasons in San Jose, Ehrhoff had back-to-back double-digit goal seasons as a top-four defenseman on the blue line with the Vancouver Canucks in the West. Ehrhoff had a pretty long career on the blue line in the league, playing a dozen seasons in the NHL.