What's considered a good draft pick? (A look back)

[ChadS]

Good input chad. I guess that’s the data the thread was missing.

Could probably nail down some expectations of each pick using this info.

I’d say the expectation or goal of a 1st round pick would be the second column (top6 /4).

Second and 3rd round, third column (4th line or BETTER? (You typed worse?).

And any other picks past round 3 would use the 100 Games played target.

Grouping picks into 3 categories and results into 3 categories. I might go back through this some other time applying that simple process. So a pick that hits it’s target is good (4). Surpasses expectations is great (5). Etc.

Anyway. Good info.

No that one was for 4th line or worse. I guess it's just their way of describing the "extras" or unimportant players.

Nice job with the lists btw, good stuff.

 

[Leadzedder]

Abdelkader is a good pick. but 5 stars?
He's only a core piece if your core sucks.
And how do you give Lofberg more stars than Ryno? Lofberg barely had a career in Europe. Ryno was picked lower and made it North America and he's had a very good career in Sweden while Lofberg retired years ago.

I was always suprised Jeff May didn't get a contract.

I didn’t put much thought in but from what I remember Hakan sold Lofberg as a super prospect / gem. It never came to be. But it was a good swing.

 

[Leadzedder]

I'd give Sheahan a 2.5 to 3 stars.
Guy is a regular NHLer.

Fair I guess. Hard to give him a 3. Maybe some of that reflects just how bad we needed to hit on our Kindl and Sheahan picks.

 

[Leadzedder]

Good topic of discussion Leadzedder. There's so much more that goes into whether a draft pick was good or not than simply the end result.

For example, there's an outcry for us to draft a lot of boom/bust players right now. Considering most of those players will actually bust, most of those picks would look really bad in hindsight if you only use NHL games/points to judge them. But of course it could be worth it if just one of those boom/bust kids turn into a superstar.

Hampus Melen was a good 7th round pick that got his career derailed. Holmstrom is still a very good looking 7th round pick. Johan Ryno and Dick Axelsson were great picks imo. Sproul and Jurco were good picks. Pulkkinen has to be seen as a good pick, and Mrazek a great one. In the end most boom/bust picks look bad statistically though.

Thanks PDog. That’s my take as well. It’s not just about results. Picks like Axelsson and McKee get a bump for what they could have been, as an example. Maybe I bumped them too high, but they were better picks than player X that didn’t make it, never developed at all and didn’t have much apparent upside.

 

[Leadzedder]

You're being much too forgiving of picks just because they're pro-worthy. It's not actually that hard to pick players who can be AHLers or even fringe NHLers, imo. They shouldn't get 3 stars for that. That's a bust to me anywhere but the late rounds. Lofberg, for example, is a 0.

The other thing is, if there was a drastically better player at that position drafted within about 10 picks, I expect my scouting team to have been able to know that. Not being able to tell that one of the guys we're looking at is going to be a lot better is a failure to me.

That’s tough critique. In most cases you step to the podium with 100 players available. To choose the player that ends up having the best career out of all those names is setting the bar way too high.

I know that’s not exactly what you said. I stretched it a bit.

That goes to the theme of the discussion though. What’s success? A top 3 player career of all the options available? I don’t know.

 

[Leadzedder]

Nice look back. Inspired me to take a look with slightly different methodology as hindsight regarding other available players is 20/20 and nobody has a crystal ball on draft day to tell that a guy like Anton Stralman became what he did. I used the same time period - 2005 through 2014

Great post. My original post was full of loose grades. Probably the best approach was a more structured system like this. Group all the late round whiffs together and clean it up.

Good stuff.

 

[Flowah]

As far as I'm concerned, only 3 factors should be considered with regards to evaluating draft picks:

1. Historical expectation: What have players taken at that draft position historically done.
2. Extreme circumstances: If your promising draft pick gets seriously injured and it stunts development, I'm not going to hold that against you. Things happen. As long as you control your end of it and do your part, that's all I can reasonably expect.
3. Averages: If you strike out on every single 5th, 6th, 7th round pick for 5 years straight, I think something is wrong. Sure, each individual pick from those rounds are more likely than not to fail, but it's like rolling heads 20 times in a row. Things are really damn sketchy if it happens. And if you can't find a *single* NHL level player for 3 rounds in 5 years, I'm going to ask questions.

I have no idea how anything else could be considered. You can talk about swinging for the fences, or high risk picks, but that's all subjective. Some scouts can see "home run" potential in a player that doesn't actually have any. And you could reward him some points for courage if you agree that player had potential. I'm not a fan of subjectivity. As long as you meet or beat historical expectations, I'll be happy with your drafting and whatever pick you make.

There is a 4th pseudo factor. Opportunity cost. If you went for another player and missed out on a greater player, that's a bad thing. But as I've said many times, I don't think you can really tell this past the 1st round. After the 1st round, the draft is very crapshooty in terms of even finding an NHL regular, much less an impact player. Hell, after the first 5 picks it gets pretty spotty very damn quick. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to do that outside of a very narrow range of picks.

 

[Leadzedder]

As far as I'm concerned, only 3 factors should be considered with regards to evaluating draft picks:

1. Historical expectation: What have players taken at that draft position historically done.
2. Extreme circumstances: If your promising draft pick gets seriously injured and it stunts development, I'm not going to hold that against you. Things happen. As long as you control your end of it and do your part, that's all I can reasonably expect.
3. Averages: If you strike out on every single 5th, 6th, 7th round pick for 5 years straight, I think something is wrong. Sure, each individual pick from those rounds are more likely than not to fail, but it's like rolling heads 20 times in a row. Things are really damn sketchy if it happens. And if you can't find a *single* NHL level player for 3 rounds in 5 years, I'm going to ask questions.

I have no idea how anything else could be considered. You can talk about swinging for the fences, or high risk picks, but that's all subjective. Some scouts can see "home run" potential in a player that doesn't actually have any. And you could reward him some points for courage if you agree that player had potential. I'm not a fan of subjectivity. As long as you meet or beat historical expectations, I'll be happy with your drafting and whatever pick you make.

There is a 4th pseudo factor. Opportunity cost. If you went for another player and missed out on a greater player, that's a bad thing. But as I've said many times, I don't think you can really tell this past the 1st round. After the 1st round, the draft is very crapshooty in terms of even finding an NHL regular, much less an impact player. Hell, after the first 5 picks it gets pretty spotty very damn quick. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to do that outside of a very narrow range of picks.

Yeah. All that’s fair man. Only thing I’d say is...

You can grade a scouting staff on averages but not a single pick. I’ve come around on... a player was picked at X position. The historical outcome is Y. Therefore pick was good, average, bad.

But the other factors that I don’t think that should be ignored are... what else was available in hindsight? Did the prospect not even come close to a contract? Was there hope for him as a prospect? Do we look back at the circumstances of that pick? Or just group all the fails as fails?

As for #2. Right. Grigorenko. Awesome pick.

 

[Leadzedder]

2006
41. Emmerton - 3
47. Matthias - 3
62. Hat Trick Dick - 3
92. Larsson - 4
182. Mursak - 4
191. Oslund - 2
212. Pyett - 2

Let’s focus on the 2006 draft. What would your rankings be? If the 1-5 meant... Great. Good. Average. Bad. Brutal.

2,2,1,1,1,1,1?

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

That’s tough critique. In most cases you step to the podium with 100 players available. To choose the player that ends up having the best career out of all those names is setting the bar way too high.

I know that’s not exactly what you said. I stretched it a bit.

That goes to the theme of the discussion though. What’s success? A top 3 player career of all the options available? I don’t know.

I suppose that opens up the line of questioning of: how much can we expect scouts to know? My thought process is that if we're going to put a lot of credence into their recommendations, they have to be reliable. If you're reliable, I won't question your conclusions. What bothers me about the Wings is it appears like the scouting group isn't very reliable, and yet they still put a ton of credence into their predictions. You have them going all Babe Ruth-mode and "calling" their picks by promoting a certain kind of draft strategy and working to set a trend. I think that's inappropriate for what they get out of their draft picks.

Really, I'd just rather they treat themselves as completely fallible. This kid might be a good pick, but he might not. We should try to grade how sure we are, and compare that to outside sources. Maybe they picked up something we didn't. But in every draft situation I've seen, that's not how it goes. They make a list based on who they've seen (and what they saw in their limited viewings of those kids), they draft by the list, and that's it. They give themselves far more credit than they deserve. When they hit, they call it scouting ability. When they fail, they call it bad luck. There's no real attempt to course correct.

 

[Leadzedder]

I suppose that opens up the line of questioning of: how much can we expect scouts to know? My thought process is that if we're going to put a lot of credence into their recommendations, they have to be reliable. If you're reliable, I won't question your conclusions. What bothers me about the Wings is it appears like the scouting group isn't very reliable, and yet they still put a ton of credence into their predictions. You have them going all Babe Ruth-mode and "calling" their picks by promoting a certain kind of draft strategy and working to set a trend. I think that's inappropriate for what they get out of their draft picks.

Really, I'd just rather they treat themselves as completely fallible. This kid might be a good pick, but he might not. We should try to grade how sure we are, and compare that to outside sources. Maybe they picked up something we didn't. But in every draft situation I've seen, that's not how it goes. They make a list based on who they've seen (and what they saw in their limited viewings of those kids), they draft by the list, and that's it. They give themselves far more credit than they deserve. When they hit, they call it scouting ability. When they fail, they call it bad luck. There's no real attempt to course correct.

Oops. Looks like you posted this in the wrong thread.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

2006
41. Emmerton - 3
47. Matthias - 3
62. Hat Trick Dick - 3
92. Larsson - 4
182. Mursak - 4
191. Oslund - 2
212. Pyett - 2

Let’s focus on the 2006 draft. What would your rankings be? If the 1-5 meant... Great. Good. Average. Bad. Brutal.

2,2,1,1,1,1,1?

Emmerton - 1 or 2. Completely mediocre to trash player. AHL level player. He held down any hope at an NHL job because he was a center. He's the LOOGY of the NHL. Got by on positional scarcity more than talent.
Matthias - 3. Completely replacement level talent. Was traded for Bertuzzi which helped the Wings out. But as a 2nd round pick, he was very underwhelming as an NHL roster player.
Dick Axelsson - 2. Trash. All the potential in the world means nothing if you have a ten cent head. It's not a 1 because he did have hype surrounding him so home run attempt at a pick, but he played 17 games in the AHL and was done. It's a wasted pick at 62.
Larsson - 2. He looked like he was in line to be Howard's backup and then he up and went back to Sweden. Again, you don't get credit for a good draft pick if the first sign of adversity they sulk and jump ship out of the country. It's this same kind of thing that led them not to mess with Kuznetsov who gave strong signals he wasn't gonna come over if it wasn't with Ovi.
Mursak - 4. I actually agree with this one. For pick 182, he was damn close to being on the roster at a very difficult time for a young player to make the Wings roster and really was derailed by injury moreso than talent.
Oslund - 1. Who the **** is Oslund? Shot in the dark pick with little chance of success.
Pyett - 1. Longshot with little NHL promise. Sure it's late, but did you ever think Logan Pyett had a chance in hell in making it to Detroit?

Emmerton was taken in the middle of the 2nd round. You can't take a good AHL player at that spot.

 

[Redder Winger]

Emmerton - 1 or 2. Completely mediocre to trash player. AHL level player. He held down any hope at an NHL job because he was a center. He's the LOOGY of the NHL. Got by on positional scarcity more than talent.
Matthias - 3. Completely replacement level talent. Was traded for Bertuzzi which helped the Wings out. But as a 2nd round pick, he was very underwhelming as an NHL roster player.
Dick Axelsson - 2. Trash. All the potential in the world means nothing if you have a ten cent head. It's not a 1 because he did have hype surrounding him so home run attempt at a pick, but he played 17 games in the AHL and was done. It's a wasted pick at 62.
Larsson - 2. He looked like he was in line to be Howard's backup and then he up and went back to Sweden. Again, you don't get credit for a good draft pick if the first sign of adversity they sulk and jump ship out of the country. It's this same kind of thing that led them not to mess with Kuznetsov who gave strong signals he wasn't gonna come over if it wasn't with Ovi.
Mursak - 4. I actually agree with this one. For pick 182, he was damn close to being on the roster at a very difficult time for a young player to make the Wings roster and really was derailed by injury moreso than talent.
Oslund - 1. Who the **** is Oslund? Shot in the dark pick with little chance of success.
Pyett - 1. Longshot with little NHL promise. Sure it's late, but did you ever think Logan Pyett had a chance in hell in making it to Detroit?

Emmerton was taken in the middle of the 2nd round. You can't take a good AHL player at that spot.

Emmerton 1.5 to 2.
Matthias - 3.
Axelsson 2.5-3. Guy has talent. Should have found a way to keep him in North America. He's among the best forwards in Sweden today.
But you know, in 2009-10, the Red Wings were too damn good to risk a job on an unproven talent like Dick Axelsson. We needed to give icetime to Maltby, and Leino, and Jason Williams, and Todd Bertuzzi etc. etc. etc.
Larsson - 2 to 2.5
Mursak - Another guy who got busted by Babcock's need for size. Guy could flat out play. 3.5 to 4.
Oslund - 1 or 0.
Pyett - 2 - Kid earned a contract and played well in GR. to his credit he's still paying today with the Tokohu Free Blades in the Asia League.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Emmerton 1.5 to 2.
Matthias - 3.
Axelsson 2.5-3. Guy has talent. Should have found a way to keep him in North America. He's among the best forwards in Sweden today.
But you know, in 2009-10, the Red Wings were too damn good to risk a job on an unproven talent like Dick Axelsson. We needed to give icetime to Maltby, and Leino, and Jason Williams, and Todd Bertuzzi etc. etc. etc.
Larsson - 2 to 2.5
Mursak - Another guy who got busted by Babcock's need for size. Guy could flat out play. 3.5 to 4.
Oslund - 1 or 0.
Pyett - 2 - Kid earned a contract and played well in GR. to his credit he's still paying today with the Tokohu Free Blades in the Asia League.

Should have found a way to keep a guy who sulked about PT while scoring 5 points in 17 games at the AHL level. Good call. On a contending team, I would much rather have a plugger who does dirty work like Kirk Maltby than a talented kid who will complain about not getting PT. Bertuzzi was one of like two or three guys with any overt physicality on those 2009-2010 teams. Leino and Williams, were garbage, sure... but if you think I'm going to bench a guy in the NHL to hurry up a prospect who's scoring .33 PPG in the AHL, you're crazy. You really think that Hat Trick Dick would have been happy with 12 mins at the NHL level on a bottom line mucking it up? That's how he would have been used. He certainly would not have any prayer of sniffing the top 6.

Mursak got ruined because he got hurt. If he "could flat out play", then why did he leave the NHL in 2013 after he rehabbed his injury? If he was so good and Babcock just chased him out of town... why did he go overseas? Clearly some other team would have jumped on him if he were anything but a dime a dozen bottom six guy, right?

All else I agree on. Maybe knock Larsson down another half grade because he clearly wasn't right mentally to be a backup and maybe develop into a starter. He lost the goalie comp to Howard and then ran back to Sweden. That's not the response I'd want from a player I'd consider a good draft pick.

 

[Konnan511]

Do we still own HTD rights to an NHL contract?

 

[Redder Winger]

Should have found a way to keep a guy who sulked about PT while scoring 5 points in 17 games at the AHL level. Good call. On a contending team, I would much rather have a plugger who does dirty work like Kirk Maltby than a talented kid who will complain about not getting PT. Bertuzzi was one of like two or three guys with any overt physicality on those 2009-2010 teams. Leino and Williams, were garbage, sure... but if you think I'm going to bench a guy in the NHL to hurry up a prospect who's scoring .33 PPG in the AHL, you're crazy. You really think that Hat Trick Dick would have been happy with 12 mins at the NHL level on a bottom line mucking it up? That's how he would have been used. He certainly would not have any prayer of sniffing the top 6.

Mursak got ruined because he got hurt. If he "could flat out play", then why did he leave the NHL in 2013 after he rehabbed his injury? If he was so good and Babcock just chased him out of town... why did he go overseas? Clearly some other team would have jumped on him if he were anything but a dime a dozen bottom six guy, right?

All else I agree on. Maybe knock Larsson down another half grade because he clearly wasn't right mentally to be a backup and maybe develop into a starter. He lost the goalie comp to Howard and then ran back to Sweden. That's not the response I'd want from a player I'd consider a good draft pick.

Maltby was too slow for the NHL. He was -34 his last five years in the NHL..

The reason Chicago was able to keep a core good enough to win multiple times in the cap era was because they used young guys.
Brandon Saad had played 31 AHL games when he got called up at the age of 19.
Nick leddy was a rookie straight out of college.
Andrew Shaw was a fifth round pick who played 38 games in the AHL and was in the NHL just 7 months playing for a cup contender 7 months after getting drafted.

The last few years we've seen Conor Sheary, an undrafted 5'8 nobody come into the NHL and help Pittsburgh win.
Jake Guentzel, a third round pick, played all of 44 games in the AHL before coming to Pittsburgh and helping them win a cup, scoring 13 goals in 25 playoff games.

THis is how you rebuild on the fly, Sweeney.
You give kids opportunities to sink or swim.

This isn't 2002, where you have 10 Hall of Famers in the lineup and you can have a payroll 240 percent higher than the league average. You don't have the time to make your players jump through hoops at every level.

Nor do you even want to.

It's to your benefit to give players on entry level contracts the opportunity to win jobs.

If you look at the teams that have been able to win multiple times in the salary cap era, you'd understand that.

 

[Henkka]

Maltby was too slow for the NHL. He was -34 his last five years in the NHL..

The reason Chicago was able to keep a core good enough to win multiple times in the cap era was because they used young guys.

Yes they used young guys, and young guys who were enough good. They had drafted just better than others, players were ready at young age. Thanks to Dale Tallon, one of greatest drafters on our time.

Now other organizations have signed their assistant managers and scouting directors, and Hawks are losing their success... not a surprise. Tallon went to Florida and Kevin Chevaldayoff, for example, is building a new contender at Winnipeg. He was also lucky, like Chicago a decade ago, winning the lottery on right year and getting Laine.

Hawks greatest builder Tallon has been rebuilding for almost decade at Florida, and helping his best friend Bowman to take all bad contracts out from his hands. That connection for a BAD CONTRACT JUNKYARD, was the biggest help Hawks ever has had on their existence. Superior advantage. Huet was sent there, so was Brian Campbell. They were signed for Hawks with 5M and 7M.

I hope Holland would have had same kind of JUNKYARD on certain time. Just dump all former bad contracts there and sign new ones or bring kids in. Kenny had same possibilities with Yzerman or Jim Nill, but Stevie had some real visions to build his own team not taking any JUNK there, or Nill has taken only his own draftees back. Not anything significant.

It's not just giving an opportunity. You can't give opportunities for bad prospects. It has to benefit the team. This is one of the most flawest religion in here, that Wings have lost some success not giving a chance to prospect on young a age. Nyquist would not have been any better than he currently is, or Tatar. They reached their maximum potentials are what they are.

Our weaker prospects were just crap or weren't ready, and good guys will push through when they are enough good. These Mursaks/Emmertons etc. weren't. Our drafting wasn't probably enough good, like it had been, because other organizations did get more competitive also on draft board when salary cap was implemented, after 2004. The edge was gone which still existed in the 90's.

 

[MikeyDee]

Not to be a smarta**, but to answer the question: What's considered a good draft pick?... A CRYSTAL BALL.

Soooo many times in history, has a GM picked what seems to be the obvious "best pick" just to be a future disappointment. You can say the same in reverse (ala Zetterberg or Datsyuk).

I guess my answer is based on what is needed to make a good pick.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

First, to support what Henkka is saying and point out how it would have been rushing HTD and not those other guys as much

Guntzel had 6 points in 11 and then 42 points in 33 in the AHL.
Conor Sheary had 45 in 58
Shaw had 23 in 38... and was more inclined to be the bottom six C a team like Chicago would need.
Saad had 20 in 31.

I mean, every one of the guys that you listed scored at DOUBLE the rate that Hat Trick Dick did in similar AHL time. He was a promising player at the draft, but you have to have a modicum of results to justify bringing up a kid to the roster. He scored .29 PPG

And with just a quick peek at the Griffins roster... HTD was going to be at best the fifth forward option to come up and #3 in terms of left wings.

On that roster, you had Mattias Ritola, Justin Abdelkader, Tomas Tatar, Cory Emmerton, and Jan Mursak all in that prospect age group all with vastly superior statlines. Tatar and Abby were held in much higher regard in the system. Abby so much so that he got called up for good in that year. They should have gone Tatar or Mursak for Leino if they wanted to give a kid a shot. And Leino went on to have a very nice season for Philadelphia that next year, so even that complaining is pretty nonsense. If you wanted to "sink or swim" a kid, Tatar at 19 could have been an option.

Also... Kirk Maltby was +1 in 2009-10. So even though he tanked it in the next year or two... 2009-10 was not the time to bury him for dead. Further, we still had Draper and used the pair along with a grinder to be a semblance of the grind line. I mean, the Grind Line's individual components in the late 90s were clearly less talented than any other players that could have played, but they were quintessential role players. Lunch pail guys who did so much of the dirty work. It's a bit like Helm nowadays. That yes, he's overpaid for what he is, but he's also just a good hockey player who with the right line makes it more than the sum of its parts. I think it would have drastically weakened the Wings roster to jettison Maltby in 2009-10 to toss in HTD or Tatar or any other young kid du jour.

Lastly, the Wings in 2009-2010 (coming off a Cup Finals appearance) had the following "young guys they gave a chance to"

Justin Abdelkader - 22
Darren Helm - 23
Jonathan Ericsson - 25 (first full season. Was drafted at 22 y.o)
Jimmy Howard - 25 (first full season, done mostly cause Ozzie sucked bad)