The final four: Comparing the last active members of the legendary 2003 draft class

Mike Gould
Mike Gould
The final four: Comparing the last active members of the legendary 2003 draft class
Credit: James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

More than two decades later, only four active players remain from the stacked 2003 NHL Draft — and they’re the four oldest players in the entire National Hockey League.

It’s only fitting that Marc-André Fleury, that year’s No. 1 pick and the most recent goaltender to be taken first overall, is one of those four players. But you have to go down to the No. 7 overall selection to find another active player in Ryan Suter, and the other two didn’t even go in the top half of the first round that year.

In a draft renowned for its star power and depth, first-round picks Eric Staal, Dion Phaneuf, Jeff Carter, Dustin Brown, Brent Seabrook, Zach Parise, Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler, and Mike Richards are all done, as are fellow 2003 selections Patrice Bergeron, Joe Pavelski, Shea Weber, Dustin Byfuglien, and David Backes.

But, against the odds, a quartet of players still remain, with at least one or two potentially set to stick around for more than just the 2024-25 season. Here’s a brief check-in on the final four holdouts from a draft class that helped define the NHL for the better part of two decades.

Marc-André Fleury

The top pick from the 2003 NHL Draft is also the only member of this group who has already confirmed that 2024-25 will be his final season.

Fleury, 39, posted a 17-15-5 record, two shutouts, and an .895 save percentage in 40 games with the Minnesota Wild last season. He subsequently signed a one-year, $2.5 million extension with the Wild, with the caveat that it will be his final NHL standard playing contract. With three Stanley Cup championships and a Vezina Trophy already on his résumé, Fleury has more than earned the right to go out on his own terms.

As rare as it is for goaltenders to be selected in the top 10 of the draft, let alone at No. 1, Fleury did something even more unusual by playing NHL games as an 18-year-old with the Pittsburgh Penguins immediately after being drafted. He is now one of only two remaining NHLers to have played in the league prior to the 2005 lockout.

Those 21 games in the 2003-04 season were only the beginning. Fleury went on to appear in 13 seasons with the Penguins, helping them win the Stanley Cup in 2009 and forming a tandem with Matt Murray for their 2016 and 2017 championships. He then joined the Vegas Golden Knights through the 2017 Expansion Draft, leading them to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018 and winning his only Vezina Trophy in 2021. Finally, after a brief stint with the Chicago Blackhawks, Fleury joined the Wild in 2022.

Through 1,025 career NHL games over 20 seasons with the Penguins, Golden Knights, Blackhawks, and Wild, Fleury has posted a 561-330-96 record, 75 shutouts, and a .912 save percentage. The Sorel, Quebec product ranks high on the league’s all-time leaderboard for wins, shutouts, and games played by a goaltender, and he’ll once again form a tandem with Filip Gustavsson in Minnesota this season.

Ryan Suter

Suter became the second player in NHL history to be bought out twice (after Tony DeAngelo) when the Dallas Stars exercised that mechanism this summer to get out of the final year of his previous contract. After that, the Madison, Wisconsin product continued his career-long tour of the Central Division by signing an incentive-laden one-year deal with the St. Louis Blues.

Although his career is very much now in its twilight period, Suter was once regarded as one of the most rock-solid and underrated defenders in the entire league. After emerging as a perfect complement to Shea Weber with the Nashville Predators in the early days of his career, Suter got his chance to be a No. 1 when he and Zach Parise both signed 13-year deals with the Wild as unrestricted free agents in 2012.

With Minnesota, Suter established himself as arguably the best minute-munching defender in the game, finishing as the runner-up for the Norris Trophy in his first season and averaging more than 26 minutes per night in eight consecutive seasons (including a career-high 29:25 per game in 2013-14).

As the Wild organization began to embark upon a cultural reset in the early 2020s, they opted to sever ties with both Parise and Suter for the purpose of a fresh start for all involved. Suter quickly found new employment with the Stars, but he found himself relegated to bottom-pairing duty this past season for the first time since he was a rookie with the Predators in 2005-06.

Now, Suter will be looked upon as the elder statesman in a Blues defensive group that already features veterans Colton Parayko, Justin Faulk, and Nick Leddy, as well as more unproven options in Philip Broberg, Scott Perunovich, and P-O Joseph. It’s unclear whether this will be Suter’s last kick at the can, but he technically still has four more Central Division teams to play with to complete the set.

Brent Burns

The only member of the 2003 draft class still playing anything close to star-calibre hockey, Burns is coming off back-to-back strong seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes and has shown few signs of slowing down. Although, like the other three players on this list, Burns has only one year remaining on his current contract, he likely has the best chance of any of them to prolong his career beyond the 2024-25 campaign.

Burns began his career with the Wild — starting to sense a theme, here? — after being drafted by the club with the No. 20 overall pick in 2003. Although the 6’5″, 230-pound Burns played as a winger during his junior career with the OHL’s Brampton Battalion, he ended up switching to defense in the NHL under the watchful eye of legendary head coach Jacques Lemaire. Save for a brief period at the start of his tenure with the San Jose Sharks when he reverted to the wing, Burns has remained a defenseman throughout his NHL career.

After skating in parts of seven seasons with the Wild in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Burns was involved in a blockbuster trade with the Sharks that turned out rather lopsided in their favor. Burns won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman after scoring a career-high 29 goals and 76 points with the Sharks in the 2016-17 season, and he outdid himself with 83 points in 2018-19. He also scored 24 points in 24 playoff games in 2016 as the Sharks made their first and only Stanley Cup Final appearance.

As the Sharks began to exit their competitive window in the early 2020s, they traded a 37-year-old Burns to the Hurricanes in 2022 in exchange for a relatively light package headlined by a 2023 third-round pick. Burns responded by playing some of his best hockey in years, putting up 18 goals and 61 points in 82 games in 2022-23 and helping the Hurricanes reach the Eastern Conference Final.

Burns is the seventh-most productive member of the 2003 draft class and its highest-scoring defenseman, having amassed 881 points (255 goals, 626 assists) in 1,415 career games with the Wild, Sharks, and Hurricanes. He’s added 23 goals and 75 points in 120 playoff contests.

Corey Perry

The only player on this list not to have played for the Wild (yet), Perry is nonetheless one of only two Stanley Cup champions out of the remaining 2003 draftees — although, in recent years, he’s gained more notoriety for his string of high-profile playoff setbacks.

After the end of his long tenure with the Anaheim Ducks, with whom he won the Cup in 2007, Perry signed with Dallas for the 2019-20 season. He scored five goals and nine points in 27 playoff games in 2020 to help the Stars reach the 2020 Stanley Cup Final, where they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The following spring, Perry collected four goals and 10 points in 22 playoff games with the Montreal Canadiens but fell short at the hands of the Lightning in the Stanley Cup Final once again.

Well, as they say, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In much the same vein as Marian Hossa jumping from the Penguins to the Detroit Red Wings back in 2008, Perry elected to join the Lightning as a free agent in 2021 — just in time for them to lose to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2022 Stanley Cup Final. The following year, Perry and the Lightning lost in the first round to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who hadn’t won a single playoff series since 2004.

Perry split the 2023-24 season between the Blackhawks and Edmonton Oilers, joining his new team in January after having his contract terminated by Chicago in November as the result of an off-ice incident. After racking up eight goals and 13 points in 38 games with the Oilers to conclude the 2023-24 campaign, Perry scored three points in 19 playoff contests en route to his fourth Stanley Cup Final appearance in five years. But despite the Oilers battling back from a 3-0 series deficit against the Florida Panthers to force a Game 7, they were unable to end Perry’s infamous losing streak.

Of course, Perry’s long tenure with the Ducks shouldn’t be overlooked. After being selected with the No. 28 overall pick in 2003, Perry quickly formed a strong partnership with Ryan Getzlaf in Anaheim and scored 15 points in 21 playoff games in 2007 as the Ducks won their first and only Stanley Cup championship. He also captured Olympic Gold with Team Canada in 2010 and 2014 and won the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player after scoring 50 goals and 98 points in the 2010-11 season. But it’s hard to imagine Perry being fully ready to retire until he finally wins the Stanley Cup again, and his new one-year deal with the Oilers should give him as good an opportunity as any to do just that.

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