The 1990 Entry Draft was teeming with talent in the upper reaches of the first round. Quebec took Owen Nolan with the first pick, Vancouver then selected Petr Nedved. Detroit took Keith Primeau, Philadelphia selected Mike Ricci and Pittsburgh landed Jaromir Jagr. That's quite a top five. Just ahead of the Caps' selection of defenseman John Slaney in the ninth spot, Los Angeles took defenseman Darryl Sydor in the seventh spot and Dallas picked blueliner Derian Hatcher eighth. The first round closed with as much of a bang as it had opened with -- Keith Tkachuk (19th), Martin Brodeur (20th) and Bryan Smolinski (21st) rounded out round one.
The second round also produced several noteworthy players. Jiri Slegr (23rd), Chris Simon (25th), Felix Potvin (31st), Doug Weight (34th), Geoff Sanderson (36th) and Mikael Renberg (40th) were taken in that round. Later picks included Slava Kozlov (45th), Alexei Zhamnov (77th), Sergei Zubov (85th), Valeri Zelepukin (221st) and Sergei Nemchinov (244th).
Hindsight is 20/20: It's tough to quibble too much with the Slaney pick because Sydor and Hatcher were off the board. But Slegr became a decent two-way defenseman. Chris Therien was taken 17 picks after Pasma, but Doug Weight would have been a tremendous pick (unlike Pasma, he's not a defenseman, though). As for the later rounds, the Caps did better than a team can reasonably expect to do with Bondra and Klee.
Full Draft Results Here
