Alexandre Daigle was the first overall pick in the 1993 NHL Draft, and for more than 30 years his name has been shorthand for a draft bust. He played his last NHL game in 2006, and the career he built after hockey put him behind a very different kind of camera.
What happened to Alexandre Daigle?
Alexandre Daigle works as a television producer in Quebec, the Montreal Gazette reported in January 2024. La Presse described him the same month as a TV producer who also spends time coaching at the peewee level.
| Alexandre Daigle: then and now | |
|---|---|
| Known for | First overall pick in 1993 and a $12.5 million rookie contract |
| Position | Center, shoots left |
| Born | 7 February 1975, Montreal, Quebec |
| Drafted | 1993, first round, first overall, Ottawa Senators |
| NHL career | 10 seasons, 616 games, six teams |
| Last NHL season | 2005-06, Minnesota Wild |
| Current role | Television producer in Quebec, as of January 2024 |
| Before that | Real estate, then attracting film productions to Montreal |
Television is his third career since hockey. After retiring from playing he spent about five years in real estate, and in 2016 he moved into the film business, working to attract American film and TV productions to a new studio complex in Montreal. He told La Presse at the time that the studio had landed Paramount’s Jack Ryan series. A year later, back in Ottawa for a Senators event, he told the local paper Le Droit that he did not miss playing: he had started at the age of eight and felt he had given the game enough.
Was Alexandre Daigle a bust?
By the standard of a first overall pick, yes, and Alexandre Daigle has never argued otherwise. He was expected to become a franchise center and topped out at 51 points, a total he reached three times. Chris Pronger, taken second, played 1,167 NHL games, won the Hart and Norris trophies in 2000 and the Stanley Cup with Anaheim in 2007. Paul Kariya, taken fourth, scored 989 points in 989 games and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, as is Pronger.
The label also came from what he said. On draft day in 1993, he told reporters he was glad to go first because nobody remembers the second pick, a line that followed him for the rest of his career. His years in the league are the subject of the 2024 documentary Chosen One: Alexandre Daigle.
But the numbers are less brutal than the reputation. Only 25 players from the entire 1993 draft class scored more NHL points than Alexandre Daigle’s 327, according to the 1993 draft table on Hockey-Reference. The draft had 286 picks.
Quebec junior hockey remembers him differently. The Victoriaville Tigres, where he played before the draft, retired his number, and in September 2024 he was inducted into the QMJHL Hall of Fame in the same class as Patrice Bergeron and Maxime Talbot, Radio-Canada reported.
Alexandre Daigle’s $12.5 million rookie contract
Before he had played an NHL game, Alexandre Daigle signed a five-year contract with Ottawa worth US$12.5 million, CTV News reported. It was an enormous sum for a rookie in 1993, a few years before salaries across the league exploded, and it set the expectations he was measured against in Ottawa.
The Senators traded him to Philadelphia in 1997-98. He moved on to Tampa Bay and the New York Rangers, stepped away from the game after 1999-2000, and came back with Pittsburgh in 2002-03.
His best comeback season was 2003-04 with the Minnesota Wild, when he scored 51 points, matching his rookie total. He then finished his playing career in Switzerland, far from the scrutiny that had followed him in Ottawa. Across the NHL and Europe he played professionally for more than 16 years, a point he made himself when La Presse asked him whether he was disappointed with his career.
Is Alexandre Daigle married?
Yes. Alexandre Daigle is married and has three children, the Montreal Gazette reported in January 2024.
Alexandre Daigle’s NHL stats
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1993-94 | Ottawa | 84 | 20 | 31 | 51 |
| 1994-95 | Ottawa | 47 | 16 | 21 | 37 |
| 1995-96 | Ottawa | 50 | 5 | 12 | 17 |
| 1996-97 | Ottawa | 82 | 26 | 25 | 51 |
| 1997-98 | Ottawa and Philadelphia | 75 | 16 | 26 | 42 |
| 1998-99 | Philadelphia and Tampa Bay | 63 | 9 | 8 | 17 |
| 1999-2000 | NY Rangers | 58 | 8 | 18 | 26 |
| 2002-03 | Pittsburgh | 33 | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| 2003-04 | Minnesota | 78 | 20 | 31 | 51 |
| 2005-06 | Minnesota | 46 | 5 | 23 | 28 |
| Total | 616 | 129 | 198 | 327 |
Figures are from Hockey-Reference. He did not play in the NHL in 2000-01, 2001-02, or the canceled 2004-05 season.
Daigle is one of several former top picks and NHL names whose second acts we have followed, alongside Alexei Yashin, the Ottawa captain of the same era, Jason Bonsignore, the fourth pick a year later, and Ken Baumgartner. For how other first overall picks turned out, see our list of NHL first overall picks by team, and the channels for every Senators game are in our guide to how to watch the Ottawa Senators.
