Grandpabuzz
Registered User
As some of you know, for the past couple of years I’ve modeled out my projections determined completely through statistical analysis of who the best players are for the upcoming draft. The prospect stats are then regressed against established NHLers (over 3000 minutes played in the NHL) that play the same position and are from the same junior league level. So for example defensemen Aaron Ekblad’s performance in the OHL will be compared to how defensemen Alex Pietrangelo and other OHL defensemen performed as a junior player. The method strips out noise such as age differences to give the best comparison possible. If Ekblad’s OHL performance is similar to Pietrangelo’s, then Ekblad will be rated similarly to what Pietrangelo is currently rated in the NHL (63).
This is not necessary a traditional mock draft based on specific team needs, but more at an attempt to determine which players exhibit the best reward potential, given their risk. Ekblad would be rated higher than Jack Dougherty due to Ekblad’s consistent play in the OHL (a league which sends a lot of players to the NHL) versus a prospect who played excellent high school hockey in New York but still is still considered a risk. So For those who understand finance, the players are ranked based on an algorithm very similar to that of a Sharpe Ratio.
And you can also find a more detailed explanation of my entire rating system
Here
In a nutshell, a score of 60 or above is first line/pair talent, 57-60 is second line/pair talent, 54-57 is third line/pair talent, and below are fringe/fourth line players.
For your reference, the top forwards, defensemen and goalies for this past season are shown below. You can make your own judgment as to whether you agree if the ratings match what your perception of the player’s performance is.
And the overall best players (using data since 2006) and current respective scores are shown below
As a another exhibit, the chart below shows the current best prospects (players that have played less than 1,500 minutes in the NHL) based on my methodology
Before getting into this year’s draft I wanted to show a comparison of how last year’s draft went against my ratings. Please note that every year I’m given more data, so the comparison between seasons is not entirely apples to apples. However, the general ranking of the draft is fairly consistent with the previous year excluding of some players (Jones falling after a poor last half of the season, Compher/Mantha having great years, etc)
This year I’m only showing the first four rounds as after that the variance between players is not that significant. Again, please understand that this is not a mock draft, but just a list of player based on statistical analysis.
I will try to justify some of the biggest surprises compared to most other rankings:
Kasperi Kapanen – Really not sure why so many people are high on him; didn’t contribute too much a weak team in Finland; stats were worse than Lehkonen who was drafted in round two last year; performance not near Granlund, Teravainen and Barkov
Dylan Larkin - Scored 31 goals this year; but Tuch and especially Milano have outperformed him consistently throughout the U17, U18 and USHL
Brendan Lemieux – Lots of hype because of his name and size; this season was decent and had a great playoffs but still had one of the worst plus/minus on the team; took a lot of penalty minutes
Adrian Kempe – Pretty meh appearance in Modo despite his size; having guys like Pahlsson and Richie Regher outscore isn’t great; played at same level like Edwin Hedberg who is undrafted (although I know there is a 2 year age difference); junior performance wasn’t great either
Kevin Fiala – Played well in brief games at the SHL, but his junior stats were pretty lackluster; guys like Nylander, Vrana and Pastrnak all outperformed him
Robert Fabbri – First year wasn’t great with Guelph and height is a concern. Nonetheless, he looked very good in the playoffs (this is me qualitatively speaking) and is probably the pick I’m least confident about with the model.
Brandon Montour / Mark Friedman – Montour is on the older side but both players were able to dish the puck out extremely well on a Green Bay team which lost Cammarta, Stepan, Kloos and McCoshen this year; both also outperformed Zach Sanford which was a 2nd round pick last year; Montour had the best plus minus on the team
Antti Kalapudas – Don’t know why more attention isn’t on him instead of Kapanen; he and Aho (who will probably be a top pick next year) dominated the junior team
Gavin Bayreuther – Is an older player, but played extremely well first year at college despite having pretty meh stats in the USHL; led all defensemen in plus/minus on the team
Cody Donaghey – He is the another player where my methodology may show some flaws. He put decent numbers as a defensemen for Quebec (best on team), offense was great during playoffs, and body is okay; however played with top offensive guys like Erne, Duclair and Girgorenko which inflates his score (but can’t be picked up too well with my algorithm)
Pick
|
Player
|
Position
|
Rating
1 | Sam Reinhart | F | 66.1
2 | Nikolaj Ehlers | F | 62.9
3 | Leon Draisaitl | F | 62.4
4 | Michael Dal Colle | F | 62.3
5 | Aaron Ekblad | D | 60.9
6 | William Nylander | F | 60.0
7 | Nick Schmaltz | F | 59.8
8 | Antti Kalapudas | F | 59.4
9 | Anthony DeAngelo | D | 59.2
10 | Nikolay Goldobin | F | 59.0
11 | Ivan Barbashev | F | 58.9
12 | Jake Virtanen | F | 58.4
13 | Samuel Bennett | F | 58.4
14 | Brandon Montour | D | 58.3
15 | Nicholas Ritchie | F | 58.3
16 | Pavel Kraskovsky | F | 58.2
17 | Sonny Milano | F | 58.0
18 | Nikita Scherbak | F | 57.9
19 | Haydn Fleury | D | 57.9
20 | Cody Donaghey | D | 57.9
21 | Gavin Bayreuther | D | 57.7
22 | Lucas Wallmark | F | 57.6
23 | Roland McKeown | D | 57.5
24 | Thatcher Demko | G | 57.3
25 | Mark Friedman | D | 57.2
26 | Axel Holmstrom | F | 57.1
27 | Kasimir Kaskisuo | G | 57.0
28 | Julius Honka | D | 57.0
29 | Brandon Hickey | D | 57.0
30 | Brendan Perlini | F | 56.9
| Round 2 | |
31 | Conner Bleackley | F | 56.9
32 | Alexis Vanier | D | 56.8
33 | Kelly Summers | D | 56.8
34 | Jared McCann | F | 56.7
35 | Justin Kirkland | F | 56.7
36 | Jack Glover | D | 56.7
37 | Dakota Joshua | F | 56.7
38 | Alex Nedeljkovic | G | 56.6
39 | Kyle Wood | D | 56.5
40 | Dysin Mayo | D | 56.5
41 | Kasperi Kapanen | F | 56.5
42 | Brycen Martin | D | 56.5
43 | Nikita Tryamkin | D | 56.4
44 | Pierre Engvall | F | 56.3
45 | Travis Sanheim | D | 56.3
46 | Carl Neill | D | 56.3
47 | Michael Prapavessis | D | 56.3
48 | Vladislav Kamenev | F | 56.2
49 | Mattias Goransson | D | 56.2
50 | Roman Khalikov | D | 56.2
51 | Kyle Jenkins | D | 56.2
52 | Ben Thomas | D | 56.1
53 | Julius Bergman | D | 56.1
54 | Alex Tuch | F | 56.1
55 | John Quenneville | F | 56.0
56 | Dexter Weber | D | 56.0
57 | Joshua Ho-Sang | F | 56.0
58 | Kevin Fiala | F | 56.0
59 | Ville Husso | G | 56.0
60 | Sebastian Aho | D | 55.9
| Round 3 | |
61 | Blake Siebenaler | D | 55.9
62 | Louis-Philip Guindon | G | 55.8
63 | Joe Hicketts | D | 55.8
64 | Eetu Sopanen | D | 55.8
65 | Joni Tuulola | D | 55.8
66 | Ville Vainola | D | 55.8
67 | Brett Beauvais | D | 55.8
68 | Adrian Kempe | F | 55.7
69 | Mathias Linnarud | D | 55.7
70 | Jeff Wight | F | 55.7
71 | Sebastian Moberg | D | 55.7
72 | Yegor Korshkov | F | 55.7
73 | Joshua Jacobs | D | 55.7
74 | August Gunnarsson | F | 55.7
75 | Stefan LeBlanc | D | 55.7
76 | Jakub Vrana | F | 55.7
77 | Artur Lauta | F | 55.6
78 | Logan Halladay | G | 55.6
79 | William Lagesson | D | 55.6
80 | Vladislav Gavrikov | D | 55.6
81 | Matthew Murphy | D | 55.6
82 | Jason Pawloski | G | 55.5
83 | Zachary Nagelvoort | G | 55.5
84 | Ryan Mantha | D | 55.5
85 | Rourke Chartier | F | 55.5
86 | Alexander Peters | D | 55.5
87 | Ken Appleby | G | 55.4
88 | Kevin Laliberte | D | 55.4
89 | Maxim Letunov | F | 55.4
90 | Lukas Ekestahl Jonsson | D | 55.3
| Round 4 | |
91 | Brayden Point | F | 55.3
92 | Lukas Bengtsson | D | 55.3
93 | David Pastrnak | F | 55.3
94 | Robert Fabbri | F | 55.3
95 | Chase De Leo | F | 55.2
96 | Stephen Desrocher | D | 55.2
97 | Joonas Lyytinen | D | 55.2
98 | Eric Cornel | F | 55.2
99 | Anton Ohman | D | 55.2
100 | Igor Shesterkin | G | 55.2
101 | Jack Dougherty | D | 55.1
102 | Olivier LeBlanc | D | 55.1
103 | Rinat Valiev | D | 55.0
104 | Aaron Irving | D | 55.0
105 | Yegor Orlov | D | 55.0
106 | Riley Stadel | D | 54.9
107 | Nicholas Magyar | F | 54.9
108 | Guillaume Beaudoin | D | 54.9
109 | Brett Pollock | F | 54.9
110 | Alexander Sharov | F | 54.9
111 | Oskar Lindblom | F | 54.9
112 | Sebastian Repo | F | 54.9
113 | Aleksandr Mikulovich | D | 54.9
114 | Dylan Chanter | D | 54.9
115 | Andrei Mironov | D | 54.9
116 | Luke Philp | F | 54.8
117 | Matthew Mancina | G | 54.7
118 | Scott Savage | D | 54.7
119 | Rinat Valiyev | D | 54.7
120 | Matt Mistele | F | 54.6
Given prior year comments, I know a lot of you don’t agree with my method, and that is fine. I just wanted to provide an alternative, purely statistical ranking.
This is not necessary a traditional mock draft based on specific team needs, but more at an attempt to determine which players exhibit the best reward potential, given their risk. Ekblad would be rated higher than Jack Dougherty due to Ekblad’s consistent play in the OHL (a league which sends a lot of players to the NHL) versus a prospect who played excellent high school hockey in New York but still is still considered a risk. So For those who understand finance, the players are ranked based on an algorithm very similar to that of a Sharpe Ratio.
And you can also find a more detailed explanation of my entire rating system
Here
In a nutshell, a score of 60 or above is first line/pair talent, 57-60 is second line/pair talent, 54-57 is third line/pair talent, and below are fringe/fourth line players.
For your reference, the top forwards, defensemen and goalies for this past season are shown below. You can make your own judgment as to whether you agree if the ratings match what your perception of the player’s performance is.
And the overall best players (using data since 2006) and current respective scores are shown below
As a another exhibit, the chart below shows the current best prospects (players that have played less than 1,500 minutes in the NHL) based on my methodology
Before getting into this year’s draft I wanted to show a comparison of how last year’s draft went against my ratings. Please note that every year I’m given more data, so the comparison between seasons is not entirely apples to apples. However, the general ranking of the draft is fairly consistent with the previous year excluding of some players (Jones falling after a poor last half of the season, Compher/Mantha having great years, etc)
This year I’m only showing the first four rounds as after that the variance between players is not that significant. Again, please understand that this is not a mock draft, but just a list of player based on statistical analysis.
I will try to justify some of the biggest surprises compared to most other rankings:
Kasperi Kapanen – Really not sure why so many people are high on him; didn’t contribute too much a weak team in Finland; stats were worse than Lehkonen who was drafted in round two last year; performance not near Granlund, Teravainen and Barkov
Dylan Larkin - Scored 31 goals this year; but Tuch and especially Milano have outperformed him consistently throughout the U17, U18 and USHL
Brendan Lemieux – Lots of hype because of his name and size; this season was decent and had a great playoffs but still had one of the worst plus/minus on the team; took a lot of penalty minutes
Adrian Kempe – Pretty meh appearance in Modo despite his size; having guys like Pahlsson and Richie Regher outscore isn’t great; played at same level like Edwin Hedberg who is undrafted (although I know there is a 2 year age difference); junior performance wasn’t great either
Kevin Fiala – Played well in brief games at the SHL, but his junior stats were pretty lackluster; guys like Nylander, Vrana and Pastrnak all outperformed him
Robert Fabbri – First year wasn’t great with Guelph and height is a concern. Nonetheless, he looked very good in the playoffs (this is me qualitatively speaking) and is probably the pick I’m least confident about with the model.
Brandon Montour / Mark Friedman – Montour is on the older side but both players were able to dish the puck out extremely well on a Green Bay team which lost Cammarta, Stepan, Kloos and McCoshen this year; both also outperformed Zach Sanford which was a 2nd round pick last year; Montour had the best plus minus on the team
Antti Kalapudas – Don’t know why more attention isn’t on him instead of Kapanen; he and Aho (who will probably be a top pick next year) dominated the junior team
Gavin Bayreuther – Is an older player, but played extremely well first year at college despite having pretty meh stats in the USHL; led all defensemen in plus/minus on the team
Cody Donaghey – He is the another player where my methodology may show some flaws. He put decent numbers as a defensemen for Quebec (best on team), offense was great during playoffs, and body is okay; however played with top offensive guys like Erne, Duclair and Girgorenko which inflates his score (but can’t be picked up too well with my algorithm)
1 | Sam Reinhart | F | 66.1
2 | Nikolaj Ehlers | F | 62.9
3 | Leon Draisaitl | F | 62.4
4 | Michael Dal Colle | F | 62.3
5 | Aaron Ekblad | D | 60.9
6 | William Nylander | F | 60.0
7 | Nick Schmaltz | F | 59.8
8 | Antti Kalapudas | F | 59.4
9 | Anthony DeAngelo | D | 59.2
10 | Nikolay Goldobin | F | 59.0
11 | Ivan Barbashev | F | 58.9
12 | Jake Virtanen | F | 58.4
13 | Samuel Bennett | F | 58.4
14 | Brandon Montour | D | 58.3
15 | Nicholas Ritchie | F | 58.3
16 | Pavel Kraskovsky | F | 58.2
17 | Sonny Milano | F | 58.0
18 | Nikita Scherbak | F | 57.9
19 | Haydn Fleury | D | 57.9
20 | Cody Donaghey | D | 57.9
21 | Gavin Bayreuther | D | 57.7
22 | Lucas Wallmark | F | 57.6
23 | Roland McKeown | D | 57.5
24 | Thatcher Demko | G | 57.3
25 | Mark Friedman | D | 57.2
26 | Axel Holmstrom | F | 57.1
27 | Kasimir Kaskisuo | G | 57.0
28 | Julius Honka | D | 57.0
29 | Brandon Hickey | D | 57.0
30 | Brendan Perlini | F | 56.9
| Round 2 | |
31 | Conner Bleackley | F | 56.9
32 | Alexis Vanier | D | 56.8
33 | Kelly Summers | D | 56.8
34 | Jared McCann | F | 56.7
35 | Justin Kirkland | F | 56.7
36 | Jack Glover | D | 56.7
37 | Dakota Joshua | F | 56.7
38 | Alex Nedeljkovic | G | 56.6
39 | Kyle Wood | D | 56.5
40 | Dysin Mayo | D | 56.5
41 | Kasperi Kapanen | F | 56.5
42 | Brycen Martin | D | 56.5
43 | Nikita Tryamkin | D | 56.4
44 | Pierre Engvall | F | 56.3
45 | Travis Sanheim | D | 56.3
46 | Carl Neill | D | 56.3
47 | Michael Prapavessis | D | 56.3
48 | Vladislav Kamenev | F | 56.2
49 | Mattias Goransson | D | 56.2
50 | Roman Khalikov | D | 56.2
51 | Kyle Jenkins | D | 56.2
52 | Ben Thomas | D | 56.1
53 | Julius Bergman | D | 56.1
54 | Alex Tuch | F | 56.1
55 | John Quenneville | F | 56.0
56 | Dexter Weber | D | 56.0
57 | Joshua Ho-Sang | F | 56.0
58 | Kevin Fiala | F | 56.0
59 | Ville Husso | G | 56.0
60 | Sebastian Aho | D | 55.9
| Round 3 | |
61 | Blake Siebenaler | D | 55.9
62 | Louis-Philip Guindon | G | 55.8
63 | Joe Hicketts | D | 55.8
64 | Eetu Sopanen | D | 55.8
65 | Joni Tuulola | D | 55.8
66 | Ville Vainola | D | 55.8
67 | Brett Beauvais | D | 55.8
68 | Adrian Kempe | F | 55.7
69 | Mathias Linnarud | D | 55.7
70 | Jeff Wight | F | 55.7
71 | Sebastian Moberg | D | 55.7
72 | Yegor Korshkov | F | 55.7
73 | Joshua Jacobs | D | 55.7
74 | August Gunnarsson | F | 55.7
75 | Stefan LeBlanc | D | 55.7
76 | Jakub Vrana | F | 55.7
77 | Artur Lauta | F | 55.6
78 | Logan Halladay | G | 55.6
79 | William Lagesson | D | 55.6
80 | Vladislav Gavrikov | D | 55.6
81 | Matthew Murphy | D | 55.6
82 | Jason Pawloski | G | 55.5
83 | Zachary Nagelvoort | G | 55.5
84 | Ryan Mantha | D | 55.5
85 | Rourke Chartier | F | 55.5
86 | Alexander Peters | D | 55.5
87 | Ken Appleby | G | 55.4
88 | Kevin Laliberte | D | 55.4
89 | Maxim Letunov | F | 55.4
90 | Lukas Ekestahl Jonsson | D | 55.3
| Round 4 | |
91 | Brayden Point | F | 55.3
92 | Lukas Bengtsson | D | 55.3
93 | David Pastrnak | F | 55.3
94 | Robert Fabbri | F | 55.3
95 | Chase De Leo | F | 55.2
96 | Stephen Desrocher | D | 55.2
97 | Joonas Lyytinen | D | 55.2
98 | Eric Cornel | F | 55.2
99 | Anton Ohman | D | 55.2
100 | Igor Shesterkin | G | 55.2
101 | Jack Dougherty | D | 55.1
102 | Olivier LeBlanc | D | 55.1
103 | Rinat Valiev | D | 55.0
104 | Aaron Irving | D | 55.0
105 | Yegor Orlov | D | 55.0
106 | Riley Stadel | D | 54.9
107 | Nicholas Magyar | F | 54.9
108 | Guillaume Beaudoin | D | 54.9
109 | Brett Pollock | F | 54.9
110 | Alexander Sharov | F | 54.9
111 | Oskar Lindblom | F | 54.9
112 | Sebastian Repo | F | 54.9
113 | Aleksandr Mikulovich | D | 54.9
114 | Dylan Chanter | D | 54.9
115 | Andrei Mironov | D | 54.9
116 | Luke Philp | F | 54.8
117 | Matthew Mancina | G | 54.7
118 | Scott Savage | D | 54.7
119 | Rinat Valiyev | D | 54.7
120 | Matt Mistele | F | 54.6
Given prior year comments, I know a lot of you don’t agree with my method, and that is fine. I just wanted to provide an alternative, purely statistical ranking.