Why the Bruins are cupless in nearly 35 years and more on Lubomir Visnovsky, Zdeno Chara, the best Slovaks and...Lars Jonsson?

First round, seventh overall selection in the 2000 draft, defenseman Lars Jonsson was never signed by the Bruins.

As I was sifting through the stats for this year's rookie class, I found a defenseman by the name of Lars Jonsson near the bottom of the list.

Jonsson will never celebrate in a Bruins uniform and could come back to haunt the B's someday

With two assists in just a handful or two of games for the Flyers, he seemd worth a look. Plus, the name Lars brings back sweet memories of the Northeastern men's soccer season and defenseman Lars Okland this past fall. Sure enough, what was revealed was another Bruins blunder swept under the rug. It turns out
Johnsson was the B's number one pick, seventh overall, in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft.

Jonsson

I believe that's their highest pick other than Kessel in the new millenium, and instead of holding on to this guy who they apparently felt very strongly enough and tried to sign several times, as Wikipedia shockingly describes, they let him slip away and decided to trade the league's MVP away for a solid defenseman just a few years later. I never heard about this through all the Thornton pre and post trade dialogue. But you don't just give away the second best defenseman of the draft for the 37th pick in 2006 draft, Russian defenseman Yuri Alexandrov (still playing in Russia).

Yuri looks like an awkward 14-year-old struggling with adolescenc, nevermind NHL players

Yuri doesn't exactly look furocious, but we will wait and see - apparently he was the eligible Russian this year. Don't bother trying to google Yuri because you will only find an old beared man. Just for added emphasis, lifetime Islander DiPietro, Heatley, Gaborik and Rostislav Klesla, the only D-man picked before Jonsson, headlined that 2000 draft, while the following gems came much lower...

118. Los Angeles (from Ottawa), Lubomir Visnovsky, D, Bratislava, Slovakia.
205. N.Y. Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist, G, Frolunda, Sweden.

Henrik Lundqvist and Lubomir Visnovsky (above) were the "hidden" gems of the 2000 draft

How does a guy like Visnovsky go at 118? He was obviously NHL ready, seeing how he made the Kings roster immediately and went on to play 81 games, collect 39 points and finish with a +16 rating in his 2000-01 rookie season. The guy led all rookie defencemen with 39 points in 2000-01 and was previously voted the best player overall in Slovakia for the year 2005 and was six-times voted the best defenceman in Slovakia (1999 to 2003 and 2005). We aren't talking the Japanese league here. The Slovaks are no sloches in the NHL.

See Stan Mikita, Peter Stastny, Peter Bondra, Zigmund Palffy, Pavol Demitra, Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik, Ladislav Nagy and guess who, Zdeno Chara. That list is in order by career points, with a few names left out in between (one-time Bruin Joseph Stumpel among those left out, despite 600 career points including four against the B's last Saturday).

Super Stan Mikita is undoubtably the best Slovak to ever play the game

But guess who is the 17th on that list, before Chara at 18th. Visnovsky, who has played 182 less games than Big Z but has five more points and could have been had in the same draft as the should-have-been-a-Bruin Lars Jonsson.

Lubomir Visnovsky has arguably had a more productive career than Zdeno Chara yet the Kings anchor is virtually unknown to the common fan

Visnovsky's stat line against Chara's is quite impressive and surprising in itself. With the miserable Kings, V has posted 44-136-180 line in 348 games since 2000, while Z has 57-118-175 in 530 games since 1997. I guess the Bruins aren't the only team saying What If? about overlooking V in 2000.

Visnovsky hooks ex-Bruin Sergei Samsonov during the World Cup of Hockey

Moral of the story is look how much we just paid to get Chara in town - and look what and where we could have got unheralded Visnovsky - but of course, the Bruins would never hit big like that when they didn't even want the second best defenseman of that draft enough to hold on. Great teams scout well, draft well and find a way to best develop that talent. And with their second highest draft pick of the new millenium, the B's scouted well, drafted well and then gave away a could-be franchise player. I might be overexagerating, but there's something to be said about these decisions. The B's certainly didn't reap nearly all the benefits of Thornton, and you can credit poor decision making from Joe's rookie season for that. We should have Chara, Mara and either Jonsson or Visnovsky in the back with Thornton, Samsonov, Boyes, Bergeron, Savard, Murray, Axellson etc. up front. The reason the Ducks are where they are right now? They scout well, draft well and find a way to best develop that talent. Other than Selanne and the big time D pair, the Ducks average age must be like 25.

6'3 Corey Perry is one of many big, young Ducks forwards helping the team dominate the league this year. Perry scored twice last night in a 4-1 win over the Stars.

Back to Wikipedia, which by the way, is the source for all of the above stats probably not up to date. But apparently you can type in the name of pretty much any hockey player and get their athletic life story. It's a pretty useful tool and makes me wonder how much information, and what kind, can be found here. The list of draftees from 2000 led me to find that Dany Heatley was once a Wisconsin Badger. Surprisingly, he is only 49th on their all-time scoring list with a 52-61-113 line in 77 games from 1999-01. So I guess if he had played 160 games like leader and current head coach Mike Eaves (1970-74), he would be closer to the top (267) in points. I also learned that ex-Bruin, flash-in-a-pan Jim Carey was a Badger. Currently in the NHL are former Badgers Rene Bourque, Chris Chelios, Sean Hill, CuJo, Scott Mellanby, Brian Refalski, Steve Reinprecht, Ryan Suter, David Tanabe, Brad Winchester and Andy Wozniewski.

Dany Heatley controls the puck off the faceoff during his collegiate years at Wisconsin.

IN defending the hobby
Crosby, Malkin and Ovechkin's mid to high level rookies are already out of the average collectors price range, but the NHL's future great defenseman are underpriced and overlooked right now.

Visnovsky and even Deon Phaneuf rookie singles can be had at a great bargain.