Answering for the past

[Gin and tonic]

I am growing awfully tired of how this team is being allowed to skate on the main issue that has gotten it into trouble.

Get on Hockeydb.com. Review the Sens draft from as far back as 2004. Focus primarily on first and second rounds. Those are typically where your elite players come from...Yes, I know...Mark Stone...yes, terrific talent, but one guy. You have 6 forwards and 4 defense-men and a starting goalie to worry about. Where do the other 10 guys come from.. So, take a look at the Sens and see the misses. Way more than the hits.. So the team starts trying the trade route, giving up futures for short term relief. That buys them some time..Well, the bill came due..That is why a 30th and 31st finishes and the prediction of another 31st finish.

Go back and do a look, 2004 to 2014, 11 years. Erik Karleson and no one else. One guy....11 years...that should have meant 22 picks..Not only did they trade a ton of picks, but of the nearly 15 they had, 14 ended up complete failures or marginal players.

Now the team wants you to pay for their poor management. Has anyone with the Sens ever explained the Mat Pumpel, the Shane Prince, the stefan Noesen. All we get is, those players simply get included as throw in in trades, or late Friday Waivers and no one is called to explain. Those 3 were all part of the rebuild when the team jettisoned Fisher, et-all. Where are they? They should today be ~ 26 years old and at the core of this team.

Click to read more...

 

[Alf Silfversson]

Welp. This thread is off to a rollicking start.

Zibanejad
Foligno
Silfverberg
Lehner
Karlsson
Ceci


are all 1st or second rounders who are smack dab in the middle of productive NHL careers.

It's also interesting to note that for some reason the cutoff is 2014 when in 2015 the Sens took the 18th and 21st overall and turned them into a top 20 (league-wide) D and a burgeoning #2C.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Interesting topic.. Not a simple one to analyze fully including prospects, trades, opportunity cost in a few minutes. There are quite a few articles on analyzing NHL draft results by team for a decade or so. Those articles won't take into account things particular to the Sens ownership and management and their objectives over the years. There are also articles on how teams have to have success drafting outside the 1st round and in some ways that is where the strength of your scouting team shows up.

 

[saskriders]

It seems to me that even in the 1st two rounds there are more misses than hits. I seem to remember someone posting a chart at some point that used games played and draft position to show how well each team performed and we were one of the better ones. Although the Muckler years were not good.

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

I think your theory falls through with the most basic research and the onus falls far more on mismanagement than it does lackluster drafting, most visible at the 2009 draft and especially after the 2011 draft.

2004: D Andrej Meszaros. Priced himself out of Ottawa as an RFA and still led to acquiring Filip Kuba and a 2009 first.
2005: D Brian Lee. Well-established bust, not seemingly on anyone's radar at the time. Bad pick with hindsight.
2006: F Nick Foligno. Effective foot soldier while here, traded straight up for Marc Methot who was by far and away Karlsson's most effective D partner.
2007: F Jim O'Brien. Not a great pick, but late first rounders are far from a slam dunk. Nobody picked within the next ten picks had a better career.
2008: D Erik Karlsson. Nuff said.
2009: D Jared Cowen. Injury and lack of hockey IQ derailed him, but team fell victim to the sunken cost theory, refused to move him while he still had value and eventually were glad to be rid of him for scraps. Bad pick with hindsight, but was widely regarded as a top ten pick by most scouts.
2010: No pick. Traded for D David Rundblad, who was traded for Turris, who was traded for Duchene, who was traded for Abramov, Davisson and a first. Far from horrible asset management in the long view.
2011: F Mika Zibanejad. Traded for Brassard, traded for Gustavsson. Could squeak out a minor win in Gustavsson, but I think we'd all rather have a big-bodied top-six centre right now. Team sold before knowing what they had.
2011: F Stefan Noesen. Traded for Ryan while his value was at its highest. No harm here, though Ryan's lackluster play speaks more to a lack of pro scouting skill than it does amateur scouting.
2011: F Matt Puempel. Effective in Binghamton, always left us wanting more at the pro level. Especially considering the careers of players following him in the draft, bad pick.
2012: D Cody Ceci. Replace 'Injury' with 'Rushed into the NHL' and you can copy-paste the descriptor for Cowen.
2013: F Curtis Lazar. Bust. Bad pick with hindsight, but mid-first was the widely accepted range for him.
2014: No pick. Traded to Anaheim in the Bobby Ryan deal. Poor asset management.
2015: D Thomas Chabot and F Colin White. The future.
2016: F Logan Brown. Up-and-coming, too early to categorize one way or another.
2017: F Shane Bowers. Traded for Duchene. Too early to call, still hasn't played a game in the NHL.
2018: F Brady Tkachuk and D Jacob Bernard-Docker. The future, and too early to call, respectively.
2019: D Lassi Thompson. Too early to call, though losing our own first to Colorado was poor asset management.

In all, striking out on Lazar, a 2014 first round pick and selling too soon on Zibanejad are three big reasons why we aren't farther along than we are. But as far as the core of our team, without meaning to beat a dead horse: Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, Erik Karlsson were all home-grown talents, at or near the peak of their careers, and surrounded by up-and-coming players. Busted first round picks were more or less made up by shrewd later round picks. The drafting is not on trial here nearly as much as the questionable player assessments, questionable trades and behind-the-scenes implosions.

 

[slamigo]

It seems like the OP only wants everyone to join him in being angry and assigning blame. It is a unproductive mindset. There is no point in lashing out. Here is an interesting chart from a few years ago from TSN. Most players drafted in the 2nd to 4th rounds DO NOT make it to the NHL. The clear majority never have an NHL career. Adding to that is the cherry picking of the data set to end at 2014 (right before the team had some successful drafts) which IMHO is quite the omission. This is a strange thread because the Sens are one of the teams that have had a lot of drafted players make it to the NHL. They are considered a team that generally drafts well.

 

[Gin and tonic]

Welp. This thread is off to a rollicking start.

Zibanejad
Foligno
Silfverberg
Lehner
Karlsson
Ceci


are all 1st or second rounders who are smack dab in the middle of productive NHL careers.

It's also interesting to note that for some reason the cutoff is 2014 when in 2015 the Sens took the 18th and 21st overall and turned them into a top 20 (league-wide) D and a burgeoning #2C.

Productive career! you have low standrds. 1) noen are left 2) Zibo is teh most productivem but on a Rangers team almost as bad as the Sens.. The others have enjoyed life in anonymity. None have tasted any significant success...Ceci will not be a leaf by years end.

 

[BondraTime]

Productive career! you have low standrds. 1) noen are left 2) you have low standards,,, Zibo is on a Rangers team, dong worse than the Sens.. The others have enjoyed life in anonymity. None have tasted any significant success...Ceci will not be a leaf by years end.

Rangers finished 14 points higher than the Sens, Zib led them in scoring with 30 goals and 74 points, and they are the most improved team this offseason by a gigantic, gigantic margin.

Lehner won the Jennings and was nominated for the Vezina this year

Silf has 3 20 goal seasons, 3 40 point seasons, and has been a monster in the playoffs, as one of the best defensive wingers in the league

Foligno is captain of an NHL team, has eclipsed the 70 point and 30 goal plateau, and is a career 0.5+ppg player

Karlsson is a 2 time Norris winner with the best stats of a defender in 30 years

Ceci is Ceci

 

[Micklebot]

It seems like the OP only wants everyone to join him in being angry and assigning blame. It is a unproductive mindset. There is no point in lashing out. Here is an interesting chart from a few years ago from TSN. Most players drafted in the 2nd to 4th rounds DO NOT make it to the NHL. The clear majority never have an NHL career. Adding to that is the cherry picking of the data set to end at 2014 (right before the team had some successful drafts) which IMHO is quite the omission. This is a strange thread because the Sens are one of the teams that have had a lot of drafted players make it to the NHL. They are considered a team that generally drafts well.

Here is a similar but more granular chart from SN...

The take away that this chart adds is that by the middle of the 1st round, odds are about 50% that a player drafted will play 200 games.

Now, consider that a chart like this likes picks such as Ceci, Cowen and Lazar while many here consider them busts. To account for that, they made two more charts. One that identified the average pts per game for a draft spot.

And another chart that multiplied the probability of success of each draft position by the average production (PTS/GP) for a skater selected there,

By pick 5, the value has fallen off a cliff. By picks 10-60, the value difference isn't as big as one might think.

Flipping a coin and losing on picks 9 (Cowen), 15 (Ceci), 17 (Lazar) are balanced out by hitting homeruns on 15 (Karlsson), 18 (Chabot) along with a solid pick in White. We probably still fall a touch behind on 1st round picks because of Noesen and Puempel, but expectations for those picks were probably too high in the first place

It's also worth mentioning 1st round picks probably look better than the are in charts like this because teams give their first round pick the benefit of the doubt, and are likely to play them more before giving up when compared to a later round pick.

 

[Gin and tonic]

I think your theory falls through with the most basic research and the onus falls far more on mismanagement than it does lackluster drafting, most visible at the 2009 draft and especially after the 2011 draft.

2004: D Andrej Meszaros. Priced himself out of Ottawa as an RFA and still led to acquiring Filip Kuba and a 2009 first.
2005: D Brian Lee. Well-established bust, not seemingly on anyone's radar at the time. Bad pick with hindsight.
2006: F Nick Foligno. Effective foot soldier while here, traded straight up for Marc Methot who was by far and away Karlsson's most effective D partner.
2007: F Jim O'Brien. Not a great pick, but late first rounders are far from a slam dunk. Nobody picked within the next ten picks had a better career.
2008: D Erik Karlsson. Nuff said.
2009: D Jared Cowen. Injury and lack of hockey IQ derailed him, but team fell victim to the sunken cost theory, refused to move him while he still had value and eventually were glad to be rid of him for scraps. Bad pick with hindsight, but was widely regarded as a top ten pick by most scouts.
2010: No pick. Traded for D David Rundblad, who was traded for Turris, who was traded for Duchene, who was traded for Abramov, Davisson and a first. Far from horrible asset management in the long view.
2011: F Mika Zibanejad. Traded for Brassard, traded for Gustavsson. Could squeak out a minor win in Gustavsson, but I think we'd all rather have a big-bodied top-six centre right now. Team sold before knowing what they had.
2011: F Stefan Noesen. Traded for Ryan while his value was at its highest. No harm here, though Ryan's lackluster play speaks more to a lack of pro scouting skill than it does amateur scouting.
2011: F Matt Puempel. Effective in Binghamton, always left us wanting more at the pro level. Especially considering the careers of players following him in the draft, bad pick.
2012: D Cody Ceci. Replace 'Injury' with 'Rushed into the NHL' and you can copy-paste the descriptor for Cowen.
2013: F Curtis Lazar. Bust. Bad pick with hindsight, but mid-first was the widely accepted range for him.
2014: No pick. Traded to Anaheim in the Bobby Ryan deal. Poor asset management.
2015: D Thomas Chabot and F Colin White. The future.
2016: F Logan Brown. Up-and-coming, too early to categorize one way or another.
2017: F Shane Bowers. Traded for Duchene. Too early to call, still hasn't played a game in the NHL.
2018: F Brady Tkachuk and D Jacob Bernard-Docker. The future, and too early to call, respectively.
2019: D Lassi Thompson. Too early to call, though losing our own first to Colorado was poor asset management.

In all, striking out on Lazar, a 2014 first round pick and selling too soon on Zibanejad are three big reasons why we aren't farther along than we are. But as far as the core of our team, without meaning to beat a dead horse: Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, Erik Karlsson were all home-grown talents, at or near the peak of their careers, and surrounded by up-and-coming players. Busted first round picks were more or less made up by shrewd later round picks. The drafting is not on trial here nearly as much as the questionable player assessments, questionable trades and behind-the-scenes implosions.

Of your list
1) Maszaros..a few good seasons, then became a journey man and out of the league relatively young
2) Foligno...His prime years were/are in Columbus..other than last seasons mild run, relatively little to show for it. Yes, it led to Methot, but that reflects on Columbus bad management, not Ottawa good
3) Cowan was out of the league at 25-26 years old and was playing poorly for the 2 years prior!!
4) ZIBO,,playing well,,,on a Rangers team almost as bad as the Sens!!! when the Rangers improve, he will be gone
5) Noesen..26 years old and has ~160 NHL games..is a comfortable 4th liner on a BAD Devils team..remember where they drafted this year
6) Chabot, White and outwards..way too soon.That is why I left them off.

So, by my count one star in Karlsson, 2 - 3 iffy's and in 11 years (04-14), 6 or 7 busts. Which does not include the 2 years with no pick. Repeat for round 2 and you get an even higher number of busts/marginal players.

I respect your post..tell me where the Stanley cup parade is and has been the last 12 or so years. The 2007 cup run was on the back of players drafted pre 2004. Since 2007, check average finish, playoff appearance, playoff successes, etc. and they are all poor.

 

[Gin and tonic]

Here is a similar but more granular chart from SN...

The take away that this chart adds is that by the middle of the 1st round, odds are about 50% that a player drafted will play 200 games.

Now, consider that a chart like this likes picks such as Ceci, Cowen and Lazar while many here consider them busts. To account for that, they made two more charts. One that identified the average pts per game for a draft spot.

And another chart that multiplied the probability of success of each draft position by the average production (PTS/GP) for a skater selected there,

By pick 5, the value has fallen off a cliff. By picks 10-60, the value difference isn't as big as one might think.

Flipping a coin and losing on picks 9 (Cowen), 15 (Ceci), 17 (Lazar) are balanced out by hitting homeruns on 15 (Karlsson), 18 (Chabot) along with a solid pick in White. We probably still fall a touch behind on 1st round picks because of Noesen and Puempel, but expectations for those picks were probably too high in the first place

It's also worth mentioning 1st round picks probably look better than the are in charts like this because teams give their first round pick the benefit of the doubt, and are likely to play them more before giving up when compared to a later round pick.

VALID STUFF..but I need an answer. By your theory they have done well...so where has the Stanley Cup parade been the last 12 years. Check out their average finish. Number of time sin the playoffs. Series wins in the playoffs, etc. All put them in the bottom half of the league. And all coincide with the 2004 start of poor drafts. The 07 cup run was thanks to earlier draft, by 08, the team needed the 04 and forward drafts to kick in..They never did.

 

[BondraTime]

VALID STUFF..but I need an answer. By your theory they have done well...so where has the Stanley Cup parade been the last 12 years. Check out their average finish. Number of time sin the playoffs. Series wins in the playoffs, etc. All put them in the bottom half of the league. And all coincide with the 2004 start of poor drafts. The 07 cup run was thanks to earlier draft, by 08, the team needed the 04 and forward drafts to kick in..They never did.

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

Productive career! you have low standrds. 1) noen are left 2) Zibo is teh most productivem but on a Rangers team almost as bad as the Sens.. The others have enjoyed life in anonymity. None have tasted any significant success...Ceci will not be a leaf by years end.

Anominty? There's multiple major trophy winners there and a productive top 6 forward who's a long time captain of his NHL team outside of Zibanejad on that list.

The Sens drafting in those rounds wasnt great for a long time but you aren't helping your argument by downplaying players like Karlsson, Lehner, Silfverberg and Foligno .

 

[Micklebot]

Of your list
1) Maszaros..a few good seasons, then became a journey man and out of the league relatively young
2) Foligno...His prime years were/are in Columbus..other than last seasons mild run, relatively little to show for it. Yes, it led to Methot, but that reflects on Columbus bad management, not Ottawa good
3) Cowan was out of the league at 25-26 years old and was playing poorly for the 2 years prior!!
4) ZIBO,,playing well,,,on a Rangers team almost as bad as the Sens!!! when the Rangers improve, he will be gone
5) Noesen..26 years old and has ~160 NHL games..is a comfortable 4th liner on a BAD Devils team..remember where they drafted this year
6) Chabot, White and outwards..way too soon.That is why I left them off.

So, by my count one star in Karlsson, 2 - 3 iffy's and in 11 years (04-14), 6 or 7 busts. Which does not include the 2 years with no pick. Repeat for round 2 and you get an even higher number of busts/marginal players.

I respect your post..tell me where the Stanley cup parade is and has been the last 12 or so years. The 2007 cup run was on the back of players drafted pre 2004. Since 2007, check average finish, playoff appearance, playoff successes, etc. and they are all poor.

Where are Pouliot, Morrow, Kapanen Bennett, Despres, Esposito again? This isn't a Sens thing, Pens have been a great team since drafting their two headed monster, but have just as many if not more 1st round misses once you get past their slew of top 3 picks.

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

Of your list
1) Maszaros..a few good seasons, then became a journey man and out of the league relatively young
2) Foligno...His prime years were/are in Columbus..other than last seasons mild run, relatively little to show for it. Yes, it led to Methot, but that reflects on Columbus bad management, not Ottawa good
3) Cowan was out of the league at 25-26 years old and was playing poorly for the 2 years prior!!
4) ZIBO,,playing well,,,on a Rangers team almost as bad as the Sens!!! when the Rangers improve, he will be gone
5) Noesen..26 years old and has ~160 NHL games..is a comfortable 4th liner on a BAD Devils team..remember where they drafted this year
6) Chabot, White and outwards..way too soon.That is why I left them off.

So, by my count one star in Karlsson, 2 - 3 iffy's and in 11 years (04-14), 6 or 7 busts. Which does not include the 2 years with no pick. Repeat for round 2 and you get an even higher number of busts/marginal players.

I respect your post..tell me where the Stanley cup parade is and has been the last 12 or so years. The 2007 cup run was on the back of players drafted pre 2004. Since 2007, check average finish, playoff appearance, playoff successes, etc. and they are all poor.

Right, but...

1) Meszaros – traded at his highest value. Good pick, good asset management.
2) Foligno – above-average player traded for above-average player. Good pick, good asset management.
3) Cowen – Probably my most controversial opinion in that list, granted. But he still had value after it became obvious that he was what he'd shown to that point and no more. I put the onus on the team for not recognizing they had a rapidly depreciating asset and not maximizing the return for him. Questionable pick for sure with the power of hindsight, but size can mask a lot of deficiencies in a player's game at the junior levels. It's why the Hugh Jessimans and Lawson Crouses and Luke Schenns of the world continue to be first round picks.
4) Zibanejad – our opinions on him just don't line up and I don't think I'll be able to change your mind. Agree to disagree, but I think Zibanejad is a good player we got rid of too soon. Speaks well to our drafting, not our pro scouting.
5) Noesen – agreed, never lived up to the hype. But we traded him while his hype was near its highest, so if the trade was made after the scouts realized what we had in him, that's a win to the asset management category and, at worst, he falls in the Puempel category with a slight edge because he brought back a vaguely useful piece in Ryan.

I'd be interested in a comparison of star players drafted by teams in similar ranges as we've been. We're talking about a group of players that only includes four top-10 picks in the past 15 years. Is there another team that has drafted in similar spots with an abundance of star players? That seems to be the root of your argument and I'm not sure there's a reasonable comparable in which we're significantly worse off.

RE: the Stanley Cup parade comment, that's not a debate worth getting into. Great players fall short of the Cup all the time. Erik Karlsson doesn't have a Stanley Cup but you can't make a rational argument that he's a worse defenceman than Jakub Jerabek, who played two games in the playoffs for the Capitals and won a Cup.

 

[Gin and tonic]

Anominty? There's multiple major trophy winners there and a productive top 6 forward who's a long time captain of his NHL team outside of Zibanejad on that list.

The Sens drafting in those rounds wasnt great for a long time but you aren't helping your argument by downplaying players like Karlsson, Lehner, Silfverberg and Foligno .

I acknowledge Karlsson in the opening post. I regard him as a giant star.
-Folignio is a good/solid NHLr, who when he was here was on the 3rd line. Even though his last year or two, he was 22 and 23 and should have ascended the ranks in the line up. He is traded to Columbus and has had good personal success, but limited team success. On poor teams, there is an "entertain, don't worry about results mentality" and so, your productivity goes up and your wins do not. His best year , the 73 point year. Out of the Playoffs. In this year's playoff run..35 points, 3 in the playoffs...He has played a grand total of 14 playoff games with Colombus... He is a rock star as a solid 3rd line, robust 2-way player. He is not a top 6 forward on a top caliber team.
-Silfverberg has been partnered up with Corey Perry or Ryan Getzlaf, for much of his career. These are players that have won everything you can win and where team Canada Olympians twice. This past season, when Getzlaf and Perry faded, the Ducks plummeted. Silfverberg, who was mere 27 and was looked upon to lead them,,,led them into the toilet. Moving forward, I believe his career will slow even more.
-Lehner did recover to win. Have we forgotten the past. He was not exactly a Vezina candidate in his time in the league previously. And his one playoff appearance a 4 game whitewash one way , followed up by a 4 game whitewash the other. He may have an excellent last 1/3 of a career, but he led to Collin white. A player, I personally have misgivings about, but it is too early to tell.

Since 08, the Sens have finished in the bottom half of the league. More often than not, out of the playoffs. By 08, they were starting to rely on 04 and outwards picks..well!!!!

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

I acknowledge Karlsson in the opening post. I regard him as a giant star.
-Folignio is a good/solid NHLr, who when he was here was on the 3rd line. Even though his last year or two, he was 22 and 23 and should have ascended the ranks in the line up. He is traded to Columbus and has had good personal success, but limited team success. On poor teams, there is an "entertain, don't worry about results mentality" and so, your productivity goes up and your wins do not. His best year , the 73 point year. Out of the Playoffs. In this year's playoff run..35 points, 3 in the playoffs...He has played a grand total of 14 playoff games with Colombus... He is a rock star as a solid 3rd line, robust 2-way player. He is not a top 6 forward on a top caliber team.
-Silfverberg has been partnered up with Corey Perry or Ryan Getzlaf, for much of his career. These are players that have won everything you can win and where team Canada Olympians twice. This past season, when Getzlaf and Perry faded, the Ducks plummeted. Silfverberg, who was mere 27 and was looked upon to lead them,,,led them into the toilet. Moving forward, I believe his career will slow even more.
-Lehner did recover to win. Have we forgotten the past. He was not exactly a Vezina candidate in his time in the league previously. And his one playoff appearance a 4 game whitewash one way , followed up by a 4 game whitewash the other. He may have an excellent last 1/3 of a career, but he led to Collin white. A player, I personally have misgivings about, but it is too early to tell.

Since 08, the Sens have finished in the bottom half of the league. More often than not, out of the playoffs. By 08, they were starting to rely on 04 and outwards picks..well!!!!

By this rationale, Connor MacDavid is a bad player because he's never played in the playoffs. It's not reasonable to judge an individual player's merits in the context of a team sport.

 

[Gin and tonic]

Where are Pouliot, Morrow, Kapanen Bennett, Despres, Esposito again? This isn't a Sens thing, Pens have been a great team since drafting their two headed monster, but have just as many if not more 1st round misses once you get past their slew of top 3 picks.

I don't know what Pens did. I do know, that 3 Cups. And Sid, Gino, et-all where all drafted by them. Including the 2 goalies that led them to 4 appearances and 3 wins. The Sens don't hold a candle to them.

 

[Gin and tonic]

Right, but...

1) Meszaros – traded at his highest value. Good pick, good asset management.
2) Foligno – above-average player traded for above-average player. Good pick, good asset management.
3) Cowen – Probably my most controversial opinion in that list, granted. But he still had value after it became obvious that he was what he'd shown to that point and no more. I put the onus on the team for not recognizing they had a rapidly depreciating asset and not maximizing the return for him. Questionable pick for sure with the power of hindsight, but size can mask a lot of deficiencies in a player's game at the junior levels. It's why the Hugh Jessimans and Lawson Crouses and Luke Schenns of the world continue to be first round picks.
4) Zibanejad – our opinions on him just don't line up and I don't think I'll be able to change your mind. Agree to disagree, but I think Zibanejad is a good player we got rid of too soon. Speaks well to our drafting, not our pro scouting.
5) Noesen – agreed, never lived up to the hype. But we traded him while his hype was near its highest, so if the trade was made after the scouts realized what we had in him, that's a win to the asset management category and, at worst, he falls in the Puempel category with a slight edge because he brought back a vaguely useful piece in Ryan.

I'd be interested in a comparison of star players drafted by teams in similar ranges as we've been. We're talking about a group of players that only includes four top-10 picks in the past 15 years. Is there another team that has drafted in similar spots with an abundance of star players? That seems to be the root of your argument and I'm not sure there's a reasonable comparable in which we're significantly worse off.

RE: the Stanley Cup parade comment, that's not a debate worth getting into. Great players fall short of the Cup all the time. Erik Karlsson doesn't have a Stanley Cup but you can't make a rational argument that he's a worse defenceman than Jakub Jerabek, who played two games in the playoffs for the Capitals and won a Cup.

I have been a fan since day one. from 93-97, they were poor and drafted high. We cannot hold them to a ridicules standard. From 97-03, they were good. In fact very good. They drafted pretty well. Then 04 hits...the 07 team was still made up principally of 93-03 drafts, trades, etc. By 08, the team was now relying on 04 and outward picks.. Check the records...the numbers speak for themselves. Unless they return to their old selves, they will be near the bottom each year.

 

[YouGotAStuGoing]

I don't know what Pens did. I do know, that 3 Cups. And Sid, Gino, et-all where all drafted by them. Including the 2 goalies that led them to 4 appearances and 3 wins. The Sens don't hold a candle to them.

Pittsbrugh also benefited from Crosby and Fleury as first overall picks, Jordan Staal and Evgeni Malkin as second overall picks. Since then... Angelo Esposito, Simon Despres, Beau Bennett, Joe Morrow, Derrick Pouliot, Olli Maatta, Kasperi Kapanen. Hardly a murderer's row. BUT they did trade for Phil Kessel, Justin Schultz, Patric Hornqvist, Nick Bonino, Matt Cullen, Ian Cole, Ron Hainsey... once again, pro scouting rears its ugly head and, in that department, Pittsburgh has us consistently beaten.

 

[stempniaksen]

I don't know what Pens did. I do know, that 3 Cups. And Sid, Gino, et-all where all drafted by them. Including the 2 goalies that led them to 4 appearances and 3 wins. The Sens don't hold a candle to them.

The Penguins built up the core of their cup teams with 4 straight top-three picks (including having the good fortune of bottoming out in years where they got a generational talent at #1 and the best #2 pick to ever come around). Bit of an unfair comparison to Ottawa, who haven't drafted that high since 1996, imo.

 

[starling]

This is the kind of metric that can be easily quantified and compared to other teams. I'm sure there had been a few articles written. Go check them out.

 

[Gin and tonic]

By this rationale, Connor MacDavid is a bad player because he's never played in the playoffs. It's not reasonable to judge an individual player's merits in the context of a team sport.

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no, what I am suggesting is, you win cups with Sid, Gino, and Ovi, et-all. Mid range players are needed to complete the team. Star players are needed to do the heavy lifting. Connor's issue, he does not have the full complement to reach that magic top 11 number. Cups are won by globally talented players, in their prime, with lots of them. Top 6 forwards, top 4 defencemen, a starting goalie. 11 players that must come to you principally via the draft. So at one first round and one second round per year, you have about 15 years to get 11 players. That is 11 out of 30, or slightly over 33%...The Sens have been at closer to 10% and not 33%. Eleven years of batting 0.10 and no one took them out of the lineup!!!! With Karlsson, they hot a Grand Slam. With Folignio a double..the rest of the time, they were striking out or hitting isolated singles.

 

[Micklebot]

There seem to be a couple things going on here.

1. Draft evaluation in the 1st two rounds only, between 2004 and 2014.

2. Recent Team Results evaluation and how we got there.

The former were looking at what, 18 picks? 11 first round picks with an average slot of 18th'ish, and 7 2nd round picks with an average slot of 50th'ish overall? What's the historical expected return on those picks? The reality is we've been pretty average in therms of drafting in the first 2 rounds. Average doesn't win cups, and without those top 3 can't miss type picks thrown into the mix that teams like Chicago and Pittburgh had, you need to do significantly better than average. Had this team full out tanked in 2009 and 2013, our average draft position wouldn't have changed much but instead of Cowen and Lazar, we'd potentially have Tavares or Hedman, and McKinnon or Barkov. Things likely look very different with two of those four added to our 2014 and forward lineup. Point is, evaluating drafting without looking at the draft position and the available players in that given year will lead you down a pointless path to nowhere.

Wrt point 2, well I don't think many are defending the way the team has been managed. They've done some things well and others not, but have been handicapped since about 2010 in terms of their budget. When you view their moves through a lens that includes those constraints, the analysis becomes more nuanced, and measuring success as winning the cup might not be realistic.

 

[BonkTastic]

what I am suggesting is, you win cups with Sid, Gino, and Ovi, et-all.

You win with 1st ballot Hall of Fame, generationally talented players that are so much better than their peers in their respective draft years that they are 1st overall draft picks (or picked 2nd behind Crosby) by such a huge, indisputable margin that teams could legit be forgiven for tanking their entire seasons for them?

...who would have thunk it!?!