This post is on the long side, but some of you may enjoy it. I had fun putting it together.
I did a little study looking at CHL forwards who were drafted in the top 10 from the years 1995-2004. I chose that decade because many of us will be familiar with those players, yet their careers are either complete or well on their way. This allows us to make a hindsight judgment about how good they turned out to be.
I divided players into four subjective categories: Great Career, Good, Respectable, Disappointing. I just went with my gut feeling. I have no quarrel if you wish to categorize the players differently. I just want a rough sense.
Note that for most of us "Respectable" is a disappointing outcome for a top 10 pick since we're hoping for something more than a solid player. But respectable is a
lot better than Disappointing.
I am not trying to make any grand conclusions. This study is too limited in scope to give us any ability to generalize. Any attempt to do so amounts to magical thinking- for instance, we can't assume that because Player 'A' has similar qualities to Player 'B', therefore their career trajectories are likely to be similar.
The reason I chose CHL forwards is because we have several in our wheelhouse this year: Strome, Marner, Crouse, Baral, Zacha, and maybe even Konecny and Merkley (who certainly have their fans around here).
I wanted to get a realistic sense of what a typical top ten picks look like (compared to draft year performance), once we have the luxury of looking back on their career. I limited it to CHL forwards for simplicity and ease of comparison.
10 notes and reflections (not to be confused with "facts" ):
1. Almost all the "great" players were selected 1st or 2nd.
2. The best players selected after #2 were guys like Doan, Horton, Legwand (actually went 2nd), Hartnell, etc.
3. 20 out of 34 were either "Respectable" or "Disappointing". That's 58.8%! The percentage shoots up to 74% if you remove 1st and 2nd picks! 74% of CHL forwards picked between 3-10 had, at best, a respectable career. (Remember, this sample size is too small and the scope too selective to make very useful comments on
specific players available in 2015).
4. It would make a HUGE difference to our odds of success, if we could win the lottery.
I would be willing to believe that the difference between the top two picks and the rest of the draft is significant (this little study certainly doesn't prove it, but I'm willing to make the leap).
5. Be cautious about assuming guys like Marner, Strome, and Barzal are going to be amazing NHLers. The odds are against them. I will still be pleased to get one of them, but be prepared for them to be just a solid depth player.
6. Lawson Crouse- perhaps the issue not that "anti-Crouse" posters are underrating him so much as they are overrating the competition. If Crouse has good odds to be a 2nd/3rd line two-way player with goal scoring ability, then I think you can see that would be a better than average return on a pick in the 5-10 range.
7. I have no desire to trade our first pick (I enjoy the draft too much) but I think you might see from this that being willing to trade our pick for Ryan O'Reilly (say) is really not insane given what we know about RO'R already, and what picks in the 5-10 range typically return. I don't want to do it, but it's not insane.
8. Obviously the draft turns out star players almost every year (even after the first couple of picks), but to get them you have to get lucky. Maybe two or three out of a couple hundred will hit the high level- maybe 1.5% (just pure guessing, here). What's interesting to me is how low the odds
seem to be even after the first two picks. I think I personally have overrated the importance of top ten picks.I wonder if people hoping to tank are hoping something that doesn't increase our odds of success very much- say picking 5th instead of 8th.
9. That said, the odds are pretty decent that you'll get an NHL'er of some sort in the top ten. That's nothing to sneeze at. A thorough analysis of drafting requires an appreciation for the ability to find those respectable players. I suspect there is less luck involved here, though that's purely a guess.
10. Picks in other round are important because we're sure to find
some solid NHLers and, just maybe (once a decade or so) we'll be the team who strikes lightning and finds a legit star in the later rounds. Still, individual picks will have a low rate of return.
CHL Forwards Drafted Top 10 1995-2004 (Note: this is not a ranking. Players are listed in order of draft year)
Format: Name (draft position) Draft year stats
Great Career (7 players)
Shane Doan (7) 71-37-57-94
Joe Thornton (1) 59-41-81-122
Patrick Marleau (2) 71-51-74-125
Vincent Lecavalier (1) 58-44-71-115
Jason Spezza (2) 56-43-73-116
Rick Nash (1) 54-32-40-72
Eric Staal (2) 66-39-59-98
Good Career (7 players)
Daymond Langkow (5) 72-67-73-140
J.P. Dumont (3) 68-48-57-105
David Legwand (2) 59-54-51-105
Scott Hartnell (6) 62-27-55-82
Joffrey Lupul (7) 72-56-50-106
Nathan Horton (3) 54-33-35-68
Andrew Ladd (4) 71-30-45-75
Respectable Career (9 players)
Chad Kilger (4) 65-42-53-95
Boyd Deveraux (6) 66-20-38-58
Manny Malhotra (7) 57-16-35-51
Mark Bell (8) 55-34-26-60
*Mike Rupp (9) 26-7-3-10
Tim Connolly (5) 46-34-34-68
Taylor Pyatt (8) 68-37-38-75
Raffi Torres (5) 68-43-48-91
Scottie Upshall (6) 61-32-51-83
Pierre-Marc Bouchard (8) 69-46-94-140
*Mike Rupp was drafted a second time after going unsigned. I call his career “respectable” given that he played 610 games and more or less delivered on the kind of player he looked to be.
Disappointing Career (11 players)
Steve Kelly (6) 68-31-41-72
Terry Ryan (8) 70-50-60-110
Alexandre Volchkov (4) 47-36-27-63
Daniel Tkaczuk (6) 62-45-48-93
Rico Fata (6) 64-44-33-76
Pavel Brendl (4) 68-73-61-134
Kris Beech (7) 68-26-41-67
Jamie Lundmark (9) 70-40-51-91
Nikita Alexeev (8) 64-24-29-53
Petr Taticek (9) 60-21-42-63
Alexandre Picard (8) 69-39-41-80