Best Drafting Team - first decade of the Cap Era

[bookboy007]

OC has taken to calling the Bruins the best drafting team of the last 15 years. Last 3-4 you can never really tell how well a team has done, but you could probably look post-lockout (so the 2006 draft) to 2016 and have a reasonable sense of which teams have made hay at the draft. So - quick and dirty by division, and I'll have to break it up a bit. Grade for the first round is out of 4, grade for the 2-4 is out of 4, and grade for hail mary picks after that out of 2. Aggregate of the three as a score out of 10.

Atlantic:

Bruins: First rounders, the good: Kessel, Seguin, Hamilton, Pastrnak, DeBrusk, McAvoy. The bad: Hamill, Colborne, Caron, Subban, Senyshyn. Meh: Frederic, Zboril. 6 top line players in 11 years. Two hits after pick 15. Traded away a number of firsts but also acquired the picks for half of those 6 via trade. Score: 3.2. Would be higher but have you heard about their 2015 draft?

Rounds 2-4: Lucic, Marchand, Grz, Donato, Heinen, Carlo, Lauzon, Vladar, Lindgren. Inclined to give them a very good score based on those first two players. Two of their current middle pairing D, and the backstop who lets Adam Fox roam in NY. Four other established NHLers (though maybe that's a stretch with Vladar still?). Score: 3.

Round 5+: Anders Bjork. Matt Benning. Bjork raised his profile with a huge final NCAA season, and Benning was good enough to sign as an NCAA UFA. Both are NHL fringe players today. Grade: 0.3.

Overall: 6.5/10. Excellent at the top of the results, some good value 2-4, but a lot of missed opportunities.

Buffalo: Firsts: Myers, Ennis, Kassian, Armia, Girgensons, Ristolainen, Zadorov, Reinhart, Eichel, Alex Nylander. Bad? Persson, Grigorenko. Underwhelming as a group with every last one traded away. Eichel and Reinhart and Myers keep this from being a negative number. Score: 1.5.

Rounds 2-4: McNabb, Marcus Foligno, McCabe, Compher. 11 years, 33 rounds, 4 players worthy of being on an NHL roster and no bona fide top half of the roster players. Score: 1.0.

Round 5+: Byron, Ullmark, Cal Peterson, Olofsson, Hagel. Surprisingly good. If Buffalo was any good at anything else in terms of building their roster... Byron is a two time 20 goal guy and defensive whiz. Ullmark and Peterson are part of goaltending tandems for playoff teams. Olofsson has two 20 goal seasons. Hagel broke out last year. Again...all with other clubs, but this is about drafting: 1.7.

Overall: 4.2/10. Just awful. Although many of these players were shipped away and have had decent careers, it's hard to imagine Buffalo being much better if they'd have kept them all.

Detroit: Firsts: Brendan Smith, Riley Sheahan, Mantha, Larkin. At the beginning of this era, the Wings didn't make many first round picks - four years without one. Tom McCollum and Sheahan to a lesser extent may make them wish they'd made more trades. The fact they only have Larkin and Mantha as high value guys from this 11 year stretch explains why they're picking top 5 regularly now. Score: 1.0.

Rounds 2-4: Matthias, Nyqvist, Tatar, Jarnkrok, Athanasiou, Bertuzzi, Janmark, Hronek. That's a lot of 20 goal seasons. Remember when Matthias was considered a desired asset? Healthy and paying attention, Athansiou makes the group look even better. Two of those guys hit 30 goals; Tatar hit 29. That's solid, but there are no reliable top liners coming out of that group - no one who compares to Lucic or Marchand, but overall better than the Bruins as a group. Score 3.3.

Round 5+: Nick Jensen. Petr Mrazek. Both long gone now. Mrazek still has some convinced he can play a lot in the NHL. Jensen is a fringe D. Score: 0.4.

Overall: 4.7/10. They've done surprisingly well in the middle rounds, which is partly why they were able to look competitive with the addition of two super rooks last year. But a long stretch of not hitting on the few first rounders hurts, and there have been no Datsyuks or Zetterbergs in the later rounds for this generation. 

Florida: Firsts: Frolik, Kulikov, Gudbranson, Bjugstad, Huberdeau, Matheson, Barkov, Ekblad, Crouse. Uninspiring "hits" early but the top 5 was good to them. The flier on Crouse at 10 overall's a little questionable but he's now a 20 goal guy. For now. Score: 3.3.

Rounds 2-4: Dadonov, Markstrom, Trochek, Malgin. Not a lot in numbers, but a Vezina level goalie and a reliable mid-roster scorer. Dadonov had good times on the top line. But not much for volume, and all these guys are gone. Score: 2.

Round 5+: Bartkowski, Hyman, Weegar. Bart never quite landed a full-time gig. I think it broke him to never score a goal in 127 games as a Bruin. Hyman, though, has made a living playing with the game's very best players, and Weegar is now probably over-rated but massively over-performing for a 7th rounder. Score: 1.2.

Overall: 6.5/10. Good value in every phase, but not a ton of volume. First round score is like figure skating - I have to leave room for other teams that have a number of big scores in the first round like the Oil and the Laffs...gawd the Laffs might be at the top of the first round performance with Kadri, Reilly, Nylander, Marner and Matthews.

[bookboy007]

PART 2

Montreal: First round - McDonagh, Pacioretty, Beaulieu, Galchenyuk, Sergachev. Ouch. Of these 5, one reached his potential with Montreal, two were part of horrible trades (Gomez, Drouin), and two probably don't really belong on here but they've played a lot of NHL hockey. But three of them were good picks at least, and this is about the picking, so: Score: 1.3 using Buffalo as a comparable.

Rounds 2-4: Ryan White, Subban, Yannick Weber, Lehkonen, Mete. Again...Ouch. Points for PK's Norris, but he went downhill quickly after the trade to Nashville, and Lehkonen was solid but unspectacular. The rest are fringe players who managed to hang around - judgment call on whether to name them at all. Score: 0.7. As good as PK was for Montreal, two players in 33 rounds?

Round 5+: Gallagher and Jake Evans. That's it. Gallager alone probably deserves one of the two points with two 30 goal seasons. Evans's claim to fame is getting blown up and getting Winnipeg's leader out of the playoffs. Score: 1.1.

Overall: 3.1/10. There's a reason they cleaned house. There's a reason they are chasing Bedard.

Ottawa: First round - Nick Foligno, Erik Karlsson, Zibanejad, Ceci, Lazar, Chabot. Karlsson's two Norrises are the highlight here, and Zibanejad has become a #1C. Not a lot of hits, but impressive that they got Foligno and his 1000+ NHL games at 28, Karlsson at 15, and Chabot at 18. There are some misses that hurt like Cowen at 9, Brown at 11, though. Not a ton of volume. Score: 2.8.

Rounds 2-4: Zack Smith, Silfverberg, Lehner, Pageau, Dreidger, Hogberg. Goalie heavy for whatever reason. No real standouts, and literally nothing on the blueline in these rounds over 11 years is crazy. Score: 1.2.

Round 5+: Condra, Borowiecki, Hoffman, Stone, Dzingel. I don't know what you'd have to do to get the full 2 points here, but 16 20 goal seasons and two really solid, physical contributors may be hard to beat. Score: 1.8.

Overall: 5.8/10. There's good here but not enough of it, though you wonder how much better Ottawa might have been if not for all the weird bullshit in a three year period. Squandering two players of Stone and Hoffman's quality when you found them on the beach is crazy when you consider that all they have to show is Erik Brannstrom. 

[sandogbrewin]

With Ottawa as an example. Its seems they stay horrible for awhile until they finally get all there 1st round picks right.

But then blow it up again when they become the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NHL. But at the Sens were good when Erik Karlsson was on his prime.

Teams like Florida, until recently, always a bunch of 1st round picks. Where as Tampa, Boston and Toronto dispense top picks for a playoff run.

Its tough to measure at times when winning teams are constantly picking low in the 1st round.

[bookboy007]

Part 3

Tampans: Firsts - Stamkos, Hedman, Connolly, Namestnikov, Vagisilievsky, DeAngelo. #1C, #1D, #1G and top of chart for each position with Stamkos winning a Richard, Hedman a Norris and Vas a Vezina. So that's the good. But the fact that Connolly, Namestnikov and DeAngelo are the next three in terms of quality is a bit of a surprise. Compared to the Bruins, Pastrnak and Stamkos, Hedman and McAvoy both have to skew to the Bolts players due to achievements and rings, but as an evaluation of drafting, I think it skews Bruins given that the picks for the Bolts players add up to 3 and for the Bruins 41. Then Hamilton>DeAngelo, Segzy >> over Connolly, and DeBrusk > Namestnikov. Score: 3.0.

Rounds 2-4: Killorn, Panik, Gudas, Kucherov, Paquette, Point, Cirelli, Joseph, Colton. I submit that if the Bolts only had players drafted outside the first round, they still have the framework for a very good team up front. Interesting to look at this and think what they might look like if they hadn't been able to acquire D through trades - McDonagh, Sergachev and Cernak were all acquired in trades. You've got Hart/Conn type players here. Score 3.5.

Round 5+: Palat. That's it. That's pretty good, but it's also luck in the absence of any other successes even as 4th liners and 6th D. Score: .5.

Overall: 7/10. Great at the top end. Elite core all drafted, with players in each of the three categories playing vital roles in two Championships. Sure, they only get 70% as an eval of their drafting, but in terms of the results produced by the guys they did get when they hit, they'll be hard to beat.

Leaves: Firsts - Luke Schenn, Kadri, Reilly, Nylander, Marner, Matthews. Trade Kadri for a goalie and that's a pretty solid six man unit, though Schenn flatlined quickly. All picks at the very top of the draft, though, where the biggest influence of luck is who was making babies 18 years before the draft. Nylander is the lowest pick at 8 overall, and they traversed this window drafting 5th and 7th in 2008 and 2009, then 5th in 2012, then 4th and 1st overall in the last two years, which means not much changed until #Buston arrived. That group of players is hard to beat; the drafting gifts to pick them? Not all that special, especially if you look at Schenn and realize two of the next three defensemen taken were Tyler Myers and Erik Karlsson. Score: 3.3.

Rounds 2-4: Kulemin, Jimmy Hayes, Greg McKegg, Josh Leivo, Reimer, Verhaeghe, Dermott. OK, I included Hayes and McKegg because of the Bruins connections, and Kulemin was part of the Laff team that stunk badly to give the Bruins Segzy and Lin-Manuel, but he had a 30 goal campaign in there and squeezed out 669 NHL games. The only guy there you would mention positively, really is Verhaeghe and that's because 7 years after he was drafted, he found a home in Florida. Maybe Reimer who flirted with being a starter. Score: 1.1.

Round 5+: Komarov, Gunnarson, Connor Brown, Andreas Johnsson, Engvall. Komarov, Brown and Johnsson have been good in varying ways as bottom six players with Brown showing flashes of better. Gunnarson's had a good career, all things considered. Good finds...or maybe the Laffs have played their late rounders because they gambled and lost higher in these drafts? Score: 1.2.

Overall: 5.6/10. You don't get a lot of credit for potato picks at the top of the draft, though you still get some for not taking Hanifin or Crouse over Marner even though that's what Central Scouting said to do, and while Kadri has his flaws, you'd have to go all the way down to Kreider at 19 to find a player who has been anywhere close to his quality over the years. Failure in the mid rounds has hurt them and continues to hurt them now that they're paying those top 8pick players top salaries.

[bookboy007]

Sept 1, 2022 14:26:32 GMT sandogbrewin said:

With Ottawa as an example. Its seems they stay horrible for awhile until they finally get all there 1st round picks right.

But then blow it up again when they become the Pittsburgh Pirates of the NHL. But at the Sens were good when Erik Karlsson was on his prime.

Teams like Florida, until recently, always a bunch of 1st round picks. Where as Tampa, Boston and Toronto dispense top picks for a playoff run.

Its tough to measure at times when winning teams are constantly picking low in the 1st round.

That's the hardest part of this, and I'm trying to factor it in as best I can (for example, I can see someone arguing that you'd be better with Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Kadri and Reilly than Pastrnak, McAvoy, Seguin, Hamilton and DeBrusk, but I give the Bruins an edge because of how late they found Pastrnak and McAvoy).  I've already re-scored the Bruins first round once as I go through the Atlantic and realize that yeah...that's a pretty solid group bolstered as it is by the Kessel return.

The Sens were a mirage after the Spezza/Alfredsson era, but Karlsson was briefly just that good, and Craig Anderson really is the most under-rated goaltender of his generation - maybe the most under-rated player.

[bookboy007]

Now for the Met.

Whalercanes: First rounders - Brandon Sutter, Skinner, Lindholm, Hanifin. Really? Ouch. Skinner has at times been an elite goalscorer, and Lindholm had a great season this year, but he's only been close to last year's production once before and who knows what his numbers look like without the Cabbage Patch and Tkachuk around. Hanifin is a good player but hasn't really lived up to his billing. Sutter's claim to fame is really being the guy they swapped for Staal. Score: 1.3

Rounds 2-4: McBain, Dumoulin, Faulk, Rask, McGinn, Slavvin, Pesce, Nejdelkovic, Foegele, Aho, Nicholas Roy. Yeah...that's right...the foundation of the team that knocked out the Bruins last year is mostly a group of 2-4 rounders. They have piled it both high and deep in these rounds, with a real focus on the blueline, but Aho is a terrific find, and Roy is rounding into a good secondary scorer in Vegas. If you think the Canes are a team to beat, you love this group, and I give them bonus points fro Slavvin in the fourth and Pesce in the third. And more points for repeat success in finding excellent defenders late, which suggest for that position group, they had some insight or strategy that helped them hit multiple times vs. luck into one. Score: 3.7.

Round 5+: Andersen. 7th round in 2010, never signed, drafted by Anaheim in 2012, finally re-acquired from Toronto and now their #1. Weird. But not much else. Score: .4.

Overall: 5.4/10. Imagine if they had hit on their first round fails. In 2011, they took Ryan Murphy three spots ahead of JT Miller. In 2007, they took Sutter one pick ahead of McDonagh, three ahead of Shatnerkirk. Both at 11. Boychuk in '08 was 14th, one pick ahead of Erik Karlsson. Phillippe Paradis 5 picks ahead of Ryan O'Reilly. And while many like Haydn Fleury's chances of still panning out, he was picked at 7 with Nylander at 8, Ejhlers 9 and Fiala 11.

Columbus: First Rounders - Brassard, Voracek, Johansen, Murray, Moore Wenberg, Werenski, PLDubois. Voracek was a Flyer for so long, it's easy to forget he was a BJ from the start. There's a lot of failed promise in there. Brassard with two 60 pointish season then went in the tank. Johansen looked like a horse but has been disappointing for years. Murray's twin claims to fame are being a better choice for #1 overall than Yakupov and being a healthy scratch for the Avs Cup team. Considering how many top 10s they've had, this is even more underwhelming - 6, 7, 6, 4, 2, 8, 3 overall. And I threw John Moore in because he seems to specialize at being included places where he's not good enough to be. Score: 1.6.

Rounds 2-4: Steve Mason, David Savard, Mike Reilly, Korpisalo, Josh Anderson, Bjorkstrand, Merzlikins. Three decent goalies if you consider Mason won the Calder before losing his mojo. Anderson and Bjorkstrand are good players. Reilly and Savard might have overachieved as 4-6D. Score: 1.6.

Round 5+: Dorsett, Calvert, Atkinson, Prout, Anton Forsberg, Gavrikov, Nutivaara. That's a tough group keyed by the tragic Dorsett story, and Prout. Forsberg's become a viable goalie, Gavrikov and Nutivaara have waaay overperformed as decent NHL defensemen, and Atkinson's a gem. That's pretty good value out of those picks. Score: 1.4.

Overall: 4.6/10. Fail. 7 top 10 picks, 11 years of drafting, and the best you still have to show is Laine from the Dubois trade, an old version of Voracek, and the prospects from trading Jones after you won the Johansen/Jones deal?

[bookboy007]

New Jersey: First rounders - Adam Larsson, Pavel Zacha, Michael McLeod. Seriously? No wonder they cratered.  Let's hope this isn't a reflection on Pav. Score: 0.3.

Rounds 2-4: Henrique, Coleman, Severson, Wood, Blackwood, Bastien. It's like their scouts woke up late for work and missed the first round. Good players but no true stars. Score: 2.1.

Round 5+: Kerfoot, Bratt. Lost Kerfoot as a college UFA, so that almost negates the positive of drafting him. But here's the dilemma - how do you score their late round performance when the players they got are better than anyone they drafted in the first round in 11 years? Score: 1.

Overall: 3.4/10. Easily the quickest way to explain why NJ keeps picking top 5 is to look at their draft history. Hischier was the first overall next year.

Isles: First rounders - Okbozo, Bailey, Tavares, Neiderreiter, Ryan Strome, Nelson, deHaan, Pulock, Barzal, Beauvillier. Like Toronto, you look at the talent and think wow, that's pretty good. Tavares was a true #1C for a long time, Okbozo was a good power forward, Pulock is an excellent D. Barzal, Neiderreiter, Nelson, Strome and Beauvillier have been high and low. But then you look at the fact that they had a LOT of top tens. Score 2.9.

Rounds 2-4: Hamonic, Czikas, Koskinen, Nilsson, Mayfield, Pelech, Toews, Sorokin. Strong performance here with four really good D, two journeyman goalies and one Vezina level, and a player who has been a key to their identity line for years. Score: 3.

Round 5+: Andy MacDonald, Spurgeon, Martin, Anders Lee. Nice when your captain is some sixth round pronk who became a 40 goal scorer. Martin's forged a unique career for this era, and Spurgeon and MacDonald have both had good niche careers. Score: 1.4.

Overall: 7.3/10.  Volume. Players in every segment of the draft. Yeah, they had some high pick years, but like Carolina, you have to look at them finding multiple good D in later rounds and multiple goalies and say they had more than luck. But they're a little cursed for never being able to consolidate and have the parts become more than their sum.

[islamorada]

Nice work Book, knowing the players is one aspect but scaling the performance is another. Reading the Athletic evaluations of the Bs system currently as compared to the other teams finds the Bs last. A combination of reasons of why has been written rather extensively. The comments made by fans on evaluation of the current Bs system has been rather brutal. Yet compared to other teams the same negative reactions can be found. Most knowledgeable fans view the drafting as a matter of poor UFA signings while acknowledging the clunker draft of 2015. You were able to go back to the beginning of the Cap era to evaluate which must be done to view the effectiveness of the Bs drafting. One question though is the research based upon your recollection or do you find sources for the evaluations. Noah Hannifin in 2015 was a hope, what if he was acquired for those three picks. I think the Bs did well not to do so. Senyshen seems to be the achilles heel of that draft year. Cheers, and thanks.

[bookboy007]

Sept 2, 2022 12:54:59 GMT islamorada said:

Nice work Book, knowing the players is one aspect but scaling the performance is another. Reading the Athletic evaluations of the Bs system currently as compared to the other teams finds the Bs last. A combination of reasons of why has been written rather extensively. The comments made by fans on evaluation of the current Bs system has been rather brutal. Yet compared to other teams the same negative reactions can be found. Most knowledgeable fans view the drafting as a matter of poor UFA signings while acknowledging the clunker draft of 2015. You were able to go back to the beginning of the Cap era to evaluate which must be done to view the effectiveness of the Bs drafting. One question though is the research based upon your recollection or do you find sources for the evaluations. Noah Hannifin in 2015 was a hope, what if he was acquired for those three picks. I think the Bs did well not to do so. Senyshen seems to be the achilles heel of that draft year. Cheers, and thanks.

Thanks, Isla. Feeling the lack of real news to discuss, so throwing this all out into the void for future reference when someone talks about how lousy the Bruins drafting is. It's kind of funny to do as I go because I am constantly thinking I need to push the Bruins' scores up to make room for some of these other teams. I think wow, that's pretty good, and then compare to the Bruins and think huh...actually...the Bruins are better. Though the challenge is the recency side of things. The 2-4 score is strong because Marchand and Lucic came through in 2006; it's a lot weaker if Swayman's the only big hit there, though.

I'm not systematically looking at other evaluations. I am occasionally looking at the CSS rankings etc. in some cases, but for the most part, it's not that scientific.

[bookboy007]

Rangers: First rounders - Del Zotto, Kreider, Miller, Skjei. Ouch. Kreider and Miller are top marks, and Skjei has settled in in Carolina, but not much there to look at. They traded a lot of first away in this era with no first after 2012. But you can't give them too much of a pass for that since Bobby Sanguinetti, Cherepanov (rip), and McIlrath didn't exactly pan out. Score: 1.8.

Rounds 2-4: Anisimov, Stepan, Buchnevich, Duclair, Graves, Shesterkin. Pretty solid group highlighted by the Vez. Stepan had a lot of good years, Buchnevich was 30g and point/game with the Blues, and Graves has established a solid rep. Buchnevich, Duclair and Graves were all the same year. Score: 3.3.

Round 5+: Hagelin, Fast. Two decent mid-roster players. Score: .8.

Overall: 5.9/10. An elite goalie, a top scoring wing, a guy who grew into a #1 with his third team - pretty good - but not as much beyond that as I expected.

Philadelphia: First rounders - Giroux, van Riemsdyk, Sbisa, Couturier, Laughton, Sanheim, Provorov, Konecny. Solid talent, but there's some up and down in there, too. Giroux was a great get late in the round. JVR had a good run but never topped 61 points and that was in Toronto. That 2007 draft (Hamill) was rough on a lot of teams, though. Sbisa is one of those guys who always seemed to be in transactions, but it's not clear why. Couturier has been a solid two way C in the Jordan Staal mould when healthy. The later guys have looked alternately like dynamic players and potential flamouts with Provorov even being rumoured as trade bait. Score: 3.2.

Rounds 2-4: Cousins, Gostisbehere, Hagg, Hart. Thin... Nothing that stands out pending Hart turning into the goalie he has the talent to be. Score: 0.7.

Round5+: Frat Platoon, Rinaldo, Lindblom. Slightly better than the mid-rounds with ring vulture in there. But not much. Score: 0.3.

Overall 4.2/10. Fail. And that's why the Flyers are where they are right now, trading away Voracek and Giroux and potentially cutting bait with Provorov and Konecny. But this is also an instructive case because part of the fail isn't that they took the wrong player in many cases; it's that the players available, even with high picks, are underwhelming. In 2014 they took Travis Sanheim at 17. The next D taken was DeAngelo two picks later - a much smaller, very different player, and then there wasn't another D taken for 18 picks, and the next D picked who actually plays went at 38. The only 3 guys in the 2012 draft's first two rounds who were taken after Scott Laughton have more points: Tierney, Skjei and Severson. You have to go 19 picks to find a better pick than Sbisa at 19 - and that's Roman Josi at 38, so it's not like they were side by side on the board.  

[bookboy007]

Pittsburgh: First rounders - Jordan Staal, Olli Maatta, Kasperi Kapanen. That's it? There's a lot of ugly in the Penguins' drafing in the first round, and while some of that is certainly being in contention with Crosby and Co., I think those who still cling to the idea that the Bruins got "stuck" with cheap PC rather than superstar Shero should pay close attention. Staal's been a horse, but ahead of Toews and Backstrom and Kessel.... He sits right between Marchand and Lucic in scoring from that year, just 56 points ahead of Looch. Maatta and Kapanen are NHL players but there's not a lot more to say there. This is as close to a complete whiff as I can imagine and it's not just trading firsts away. They made 8 first round picks. They took Angelo Esposito, who is one of only a few first round picks that year to have the distinction of being worse than Zach Hamill. They took Simon Despres at the very end of the 2009 first round when the second round produced a number of good players. Beau Bennet and Joe Morrow were fringe NHL players. Fair that they were drafting #20 and beyond most of the time, but they whiffed at 8 with Derek Pouliot, too. Score: 1. I can only give them so much leeway for drafting in the bottom third.

Rounds 2-4: Bortuzzo, Rust, Kuhnhackel, Sundqvist, Murray, Guentzel. High marks for Rust, Murray and Guentzel. Big part of them rebounding quickly. Score: 3.

Round 5+: Reacharound Johnson, Jake Muzzin, Josh Archibald. Point for Muzzin, I guess.... Score: 0.3.

Overall: 4.3/10 Fail. Obviously the Pens were handicapped at the draft table like any competitive team, but it would be nearly impossible to be worse in first round making 8 picks, and the few good players they found later don't overshadow that.

Washington: First rounders - Backstrom, Varlamov, Alzner, Carlson, Johansson, Kuznetsov, Forsberg, Wilson, Burakovsky, Vrana, Samsonov. Like the Pens, came into the period at the tail end of picking top 5 and got Ovi's C in 2006. But the really impressive stuff is after that - Carlson, Johansson, Kuznetsov, Burakovsky and Samsonov are all in the 20s, Forsberg and Wilson in the teens. That good ROI to my eyes even if there's not a "best X,Y,Z" contender like some other teams with a similar number of unquestioned hits. Score: 3.3.

Rounds 2-4: Neuvirth, Holtby, Orlov, Eakin, Grubauer, Stephenson, Sanford, Vanecek, Siegenthaler. Five goalies? That's insane. One top half F, two bottom half and a D? So more goalies than skaters? Right. Score: 1.8.

Round 5+: Perreault, Boyd. Two guys who have surprised with offense at times. Score: .7.

Overall: 5.8/10. I am probably not giving them enough credit in the middle rounds and for finding really good first rounders in the latter parts of the round. The volume of success in round one really is impressive, but failing to support those guys with middle rounds has hurt, and they've basically been scattering goalies around the league like they're feeding ducks. Backstrom, Kuznetsov, Forsberg, Wilson, Carlson is about as good as any top five regardless of round, but it's so thin after that...other than goalies.

[bookboy007]

So to summarize the East:

In the Cap era, only Carolina, Pitt, Boston, Washington and Tampa have won Cups in the East. Carolina doesn't really factor here because they won before the first draft I considered, so it had no impact. Pitt won their three largely because of drafting they did just prior to the period with Crosby and Malkin in the two years previous and Fleury the year before that, but they don't win the later two if they don't rely on drafted players to change the way they played from the plodding team that the Bruins skunked in 2013 and give themselves a plan B in goal. Boston was really the first team from the Cap era to see a Cup in part because of players they drafted in the era with Lucic and Marchand key players in 2011 and Seguin having an impact in a couple of playoff games. Washington definitely can look at the draft for their Cup with Kuznetsov, Backstrom, Carlson, Wilson and Holtby all drafted and all core contributors to the Cup run, and so can Tampa with Vagisil, Kucherov, Point, Cirelli, Hedman and Stamkos. So the draft does seem to be pretty important...[duh]....

But in terms of sheer draft success, it's Isles for the combination of volume and quality and ability to get players outside of the top 10, then the Bolts for similar reasons, and then a tie between Detroit and Boston at 6.5. Only 4 teams were over 6, with a couple on the cusp at 5.8 and 5.9. And you can see a lot in the fails, too. Philly, NJ, Columbus, Montreal and Detroit are where they are because they failed to do much more than pick the gimmes at the draft table for over a decade.

If this was a school assignment with a letter grade (because it's not a straightforward and easily quantifiable thing*), you'd have to grade on the curve with A+ for the Isles, A+/A for the Bolts, A/A- for the Bruins, B/B+ for the Rangers and Senators. Montreal and Jersey would be the Fails - I'd probably set the fail bar at 4. So with half the league done, I think I would say the Bruins have been ONE OF the best teams at the draft table, and only TB has a better mix of success at the draft and success on the ice. You could quibble with the Bruins' score given that Kessel turned into Seguin and Hamilton, so it's almost like double counting, and that really pushes the value in the first round, but it's tough to beat getting two major trophy candidates since 2014 and in the second half of the round. There's definitely a dry spell between 2006 and 2010, though, and if not for the Kessel trade, it would go pretty much all the way to 2014. But they made the Kessel trade, and if I started trying to unpack how picks were acquired, I think this loses whatever interest it has.

On to the West!



*you could do something like that - number of picks in each round, weighted by the average success rate for that round to create expected number of players plus games/points metrics by position to identify a level of performance vs. the mean for each pick etc. etc. but even I don't have that much time)

[sandogbrewin]

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

[kelvana33]

Sept 6, 2022 16:59:30 GMT sandogbrewin said:

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

There are a few teams, Bruins included who havent had a pick from that draft play an NHL game yet. B's only had 3 picks though I think. Maybe Covid shutdown has effected that draft class who knows/ 

[bookboy007]

Sept 6, 2022 16:59:30 GMT sandogbrewin said:

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

I think 2018 is too recent to say el busto, though. At a glance, some of the guys under the 50 game mark will absolutely get there. NYR pick Kravtsov is talented but he's an issues baby. They'll deal him and he'll mature. I think Dallas expects Dellandrea to make the jump as early as this year, and you would have thought Liam Foudy was a lock not long ago. Won't displace Johnny in the lineup....  Ryan Merkley will play in SJ with Burns gone. Bernard-Docker just made the jump from the NCAA last year. Nils Lundqvist is one year since coming over from Svee-din. StL is high on Perunovich. I'm sure others will follow.

I did a little test to see just how bad that number is. 4 years after the 2014 draft, 35 players had played 50 or more games. 8 player difference. Only 61 players had played even 1 NHL game by the end of the 2017-18 season, which is 6 fewer than 2018.

The much vaunted 2010 draft? Only 25 players had played 50+ games after 4 years, and 61 players had played 1 game or more.

2006 was worse again - just 24 with 50+ and 55 with at least one game.

So maybe 2018 isn't really that much of an outlier? Maybe 2001 is - 55 players played 50+ games after 4 years - more than double! And it was 42 in the vaunted 2015 draft, but back down to 30 in 2016.

All in all, 27 doesn't seem as awful now. And I don't think you're really off topic because part of this is rewriting our expectations of the draft and just how rare it is to hit consistently not just because scouts are bad at their jobs and GMs have brain tumours but because not that many kids are actually good enough to play in the NHL. If 27-30 players have played 50+ games after 4 years, that means at minimum a couple of teams completely whiffed; that the average after 4 years is to have one drafted player who has played 50+ games; and that 2 or 3 on the same team is 200-300% overperforming the league average.

[bookboy007]

Sept 6, 2022 18:28:47 GMT kelvana33 said:

Sept 6, 2022 16:59:30 GMT sandogbrewin said:

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

There are a few teams, Bruins included who havent had a pick from that draft play an NHL game yet. B's only had 3 picks though I think. Maybe Covid shutdown has effected that draft class who knows/ 

5 picks, no first, and the first guy they chose, at #57, is Anaheim's problem now. Lauko is the highest drafted kid from that draft still in the org.

[bookboy007]

Sept 6, 2022 16:59:30 GMT sandogbrewin said:

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

It is true that some drafts are el busto, though! Ottawa was awful at the wrong time. 1992 draft, they get Yashin at #2 as the franchise's first ever pick, and based on what happened over the next 20+ years, he was about right - second highest scoring player from that draft but a total space cadet. Gonchar is first. Only 6 players from that draft went over 500 points for their career, and two were D. Gonchar's the only guy over 800 points. Yashin tops in goals at 337. Gonchar, Aucoin and Hamrlik highlight the D and Khabibulin is the top goalie by games and probably most other real measures. I don't think there's a HOFer in there anywhere.

1993 the Senators get Daigle, but the rest of the draft is pretty good - just cut short by injury (Kariya) and disease (Koivu).

1994 was an awful first round, but the draft overall is salvaged by Alfredsson, Elias, Hejduk, Sullivan, Drury and Holmstrom. Ryan Smyth was the top player taken in the first 50 picks.

1995 wasn't great either but salvaged a bit by Iginla and Doan. Another really rough first round. 

and then the coal standard for draft years 1996. Chris Phillips at #1. No player over 731 points. Matt Cullen leading scorer. One saving grace: the big man in the third round will be a first ballot HoFer.

[sandogbrewin]

Sept 7, 2022 1:24:54 GMT bookboy007 said:

Sept 6, 2022 16:59:30 GMT sandogbrewin said:

A little off topic. Only 27 players from 2018 have played 50+ games in the NHL. There were 217 players selected in the 2018 draft. That means 4yrs after being draft, only 12.4% of players have played at least 50 NHL games. No to mention that of those 27 players, 66% were 1st round picks.

Some whole drafts el busto!

I think 2018 is too recent to say el busto, though. At a glance, some of the guys under the 50 game mark will absolutely get there. NYR pick Kravtsov is talented but he's an issues baby. They'll deal him and he'll mature. I think Dallas expects Dellandrea to make the jump as early as this year, and you would have thought Liam Foudy was a lock not long ago. Won't displace Johnny in the lineup....  Ryan Merkley will play in SJ with Burns gone. Bernard-Docker just made the jump from the NCAA last year. Nils Lundqvist is one year since coming over from Svee-din. StL is high on Perunovich. I'm sure others will follow.

I did a little test to see just how bad that number is. 4 years after the 2014 draft, 35 players had played 50 or more games. 8 player difference. Only 61 players had played even 1 NHL game by the end of the 2017-18 season, which is 6 fewer than 2018.

The much vaunted 2010 draft? Only 25 players had played 50+ games after 4 years, and 61 players had played 1 game or more.

2006 was worse again - just 24 with 50+ and 55 with at least one game.

So maybe 2018 isn't really that much of an outlier? Maybe 2001 is - 55 players played 50+ games after 4 years - more than double! And it was 42 in the vaunted 2015 draft, but back down to 30 in 2016.

All in all, 27 doesn't seem as awful now. And I don't think you're really off topic because part of this is rewriting our expectations of the draft and just how rare it is to hit consistently not just because scouts are bad at their jobs and GMs have brain tumours but because not that many kids are actually good enough to play in the NHL. If 27-30 players have played 50+ games after 4 years, that means at minimum a couple of teams completely whiffed; that the average after 4 years is to have one drafted player who has played 50+ games; and that 2 or 3 on the same team is 200-300% overperforming the league average.

Those few players, that will make the jump, are still a ways away from playing to 50 games, let alone 200, Its not going to move the needle much.

Its going to stay a bad overall draft no matter how much its dressed up.

[bookboy007]

Sept 7, 2022 11:08:51 GMT sandogbrewin said:

Sept 7, 2022 1:24:54 GMT bookboy007 said:

I think 2018 is too recent to say el busto, though. At a glance, some of the guys under the 50 game mark will absolutely get there. NYR pick Kravtsov is talented but he's an issues baby. They'll deal him and he'll mature. I think Dallas expects Dellandrea to make the jump as early as this year, and you would have thought Liam Foudy was a lock not long ago. Won't displace Johnny in the lineup....  Ryan Merkley will play in SJ with Burns gone. Bernard-Docker just made the jump from the NCAA last year. Nils Lundqvist is one year since coming over from Svee-din. StL is high on Perunovich. I'm sure others will follow.

I did a little test to see just how bad that number is. 4 years after the 2014 draft, 35 players had played 50 or more games. 8 player difference. Only 61 players had played even 1 NHL game by the end of the 2017-18 season, which is 6 fewer than 2018.

The much vaunted 2010 draft? Only 25 players had played 50+ games after 4 years, and 61 players had played 1 game or more.

2006 was worse again - just 24 with 50+ and 55 with at least one game.

So maybe 2018 isn't really that much of an outlier? Maybe 2001 is - 55 players played 50+ games after 4 years - more than double! And it was 42 in the vaunted 2015 draft, but back down to 30 in 2016.

All in all, 27 doesn't seem as awful now. And I don't think you're really off topic because part of this is rewriting our expectations of the draft and just how rare it is to hit consistently not just because scouts are bad at their jobs and GMs have brain tumours but because not that many kids are actually good enough to play in the NHL. If 27-30 players have played 50+ games after 4 years, that means at minimum a couple of teams completely whiffed; that the average after 4 years is to have one drafted player who has played 50+ games; and that 2 or 3 on the same team is 200-300% overperforming the league average.

Those few players, that will make the jump, are still a ways away from playing to 50 games, let alone 200, Its not going to move the needle much.

Its going to stay a bad overall draft no matter how much its dressed up.

50 games is half a season. Last year's NCAA players who started their NHL careers after their college season ended will hit 50 before the trade deadline.

But the rest of what I posted suggests that 27 after 4 years isn't as bad as it seems - just randomly going back in 4 year increments, I found two other years with fewer than 27 and one that was only 8 players different (though that's about 40% better...). So calling it a "bad draft overall" might be misleading. It seems about average, to be honest, or the low side of average.

[sandogbrewin]

2018 most definitely is not an average draft.

[kelvana33]

Sept 7, 2022 15:18:46 GMT sandogbrewin said:

2018 most definitely is not an average draft.

Looking at it now, Dahlin was the clear cut number one, and for a while too it seemed. Hindsight is 20/20 but how does anybody look at Tkachuk and not take him first. Size, even then, hands, pedigree etc..I'm sure he was raw and gangly, but even still. 

[sandogbrewin]

Sept 7, 2022 16:51:49 GMT kelvana33 said:

Sept 7, 2022 15:18:46 GMT sandogbrewin said:

2018 most definitely is not an average draft.

Looking at it now, Dahlin was the clear cut number one, and for a while too it seemed. Hindsight is 20/20 but how does anybody look at Tkachuk and not take him first. Size, even then, hands, pedigree etc..I'm sure he was raw and gangly, but even still. 

Re-drafts are fun. Where would Pasta be now ?

[NAS]

I'm really looking forward to reading all of this. I can't imagine how much fun it was to research and write.

Awesome job, Book.

TL...but will read!

[The OC]

Sept 8, 2022 0:21:14 GMT NAS said:

I'm really looking forward to reading all of this. I can't imagine how much fun it was to research and write.

Awesome job, Book.

TL...but will read!

Nerd!

[The OC]

Lotta content here, good stuff. I generally disagree with the scoring system as, like you often say, if a team really knows the players why don't they take them in the first round? IE, nailing late first rounders should get as much "value" as 2-4 rounders. Maybe more, since it shows they really identified a player. Also, I give entirely 0 value to potato picks, picks like both McDavid (first rated, first pick) or even Kessel (undisputed 5th rated with 5th pick). I DO give value to high picks that go against consensus (Drysaddle instead of either Sam, Barkov) even if it's just a small reach. I give points on both quality and quantity but don't really care what round they player comes from beyond the autopicks at the very top.

On that criteria when I looked at this some time ago, I found that Boston was around top-5 in terms of total drafting (total value of picks taken INCLUDING the potatoes) but a likely first in the league if you remove potatoes. Teams that have drafted a tonne of talent wit Potatoes include Edmonton, COL, TOR, TB, and Boston coming up probably just behind. Removing potatoes had them at #1 for quality and quantity, though I didn't go back as far in time. Probably stays the same though, since it brings in guys like Marchie. Looking at your evals a couple jump out:

BOS 2-4: Lucic, Marchand, Grz, Donato, Heinen, Carlo, Lauzon, Vladar, Lindgren
Isles 2-4: Hamonic, Czikas, Koskinen, Nilsson, Mayfield, Pelech, Toews, Sorokin.

I just don't see how they both get 3 points. Machand has scored a hundred fucking points in a season. No one on that list is even close. None have scored even as well as Lucic, the second best scorer. And while Pelech is great and Toews and Hamonic are good, Carlo, Lingren and Gryz are all top-4 D, and Lauzon is good too. Boston has volume and star value here. Marchand is an absolute grand slam of a pick, a guy who could be a first overall. Similar for the first round, Isles get huge cred for Pullock and Barzal, but are they really anywhere close to Pasta and CMac, guys who would be top-2 picks in a redraft for their year? I just don't see how NYI can be rated higher.

The team that really does stand out on par with Boston is Tampa though. TBL 2-4: Killorn, Panik, Gudas, Kucherov, Paquette, Point, Cirelli, Joseph, Colton. Wow. You'd swear they had Marty's Almanac. Two franchise players and a bunch of other good ones. But they come up short in the first when you take away potatoes. Connolly, Namestnikov, Vagisilievsky, DeAngelo are solid, but again it's really hard to match the Pasta-CMac franchise cornerstones taken outside the top-10.