Best & Worst of the Panthers Draft History

[coopdaloop123]

Did some research and took a look back at the history of the Panthers at the NHL Draft. Some interesting notes include:

-Of their 188 total draft picks, only 74 have made it to the NHL, and just 17 managed to skate in 400 NHL games.

-The 303 (and counting) games played from Tallon's 2010 draft class are already more than the Panthers' 2008, 2005 and 2000 classes combined.

Check it out!

http://msn.foxsports.com/florida/story/best-and-worst-of-the-panthers-picks-in-the-nhl-draft-062014

Click to read more...

 

[EnforceTheLaus]

Did you get hired by Fox?

 

[coopdaloop123]

Did you get hired by Fox?

Doing some freelance and editing for them currently, might take over as their Panthers guy next season, but we'll see!

 

[EnforceTheLaus]

Doing some freelance and editing for them currently, might take over as their Panthers guy next season, but we'll see!

Great to hear dude! If you need a reference just mention HF

 

[WESEERED]

Doing some freelance and editing for them currently, might take over as their Panthers guy next season, but we'll see!

Good luck!

 

[coopdaloop123]

Good luck!

Thanks!

 

[iam76]

still a great stat coop nice job

 

[FlaPnthrsPunk]

Doing some freelance and editing for them currently, might take over as their Panthers guy next season, but we'll see!

Good luck! That would be an amazing job if you get it

Quite an interesting stat to read. I know plenty of people don't like many of Tallon's decisions which might be questionable, but that shows that he has made some very positive decisions thus far as well.

 

[Ekblast]

Can we hence forth refer to the entire 2000's as the "Panther's Draft Bust Era" ?

 

[coopdaloop123]

Can we hence forth refer to the entire 2000's as the "Panther's Draft Bust Era" ?

Hopefully everything from 2010 on will make people forget the past!

 

[JP Mick]

Olive, is that your stage name Cooper?

 

[coopdaloop123]

Olive, is that your stage name Cooper?

Jameson Cooper Olive ... I mix and match names since no one ever lets me use my full name ha

 

[Dr Beinfest]

Very conservatively written and well done article. Doesn't push too many buttons on questionable choices, which I think is important for this type of article!

 

[coopdaloop123]

Very conservatively written and well done article. Doesn't push too many buttons on questionable choices, which I think is important for this type of article!

Ha, most of the numbers speak for themselves! Looks like things are on an upswing though which is good to see!

 

[Acadmus]

Did some research and took a look back at the history of the Panthers at the NHL Draft. Some interesting notes include:

-Of their 188 total draft picks, only 74 have made it to the NHL, and just 17 managed to skate in 400 NHL games.

-The 303 (and counting) games played from Tallon's 2010 draft class are already more than the Panthers' 2008, 2005 and 2000 classes combined.

Check it out!

http://msn.foxsports.com/florida/story/best-and-worst-of-the-panthers-picks-in-the-nhl-draft-062014

I did an analysis like this in this forum some years ago. Frankly, the Panthers' draft record is slightly above average for the NHL, I believe, in terms of players reaching the NHL. But they're decidedly subpar in picking star players, and many who did play over 400 games played most of those on other teams. Weiss is probably the most successful Panthers draft pick to date.

 

[coopdaloop123]

I did an analysis like this in this forum some years ago. Frankly, the Panthers' draft record is slightly above average for the NHL, I believe, in terms of players reaching the NHL. But they're decidedly subpar in picking star players, and many who did play over 400 games played most of those on other teams. Weiss is probably the most successful Panthers draft pick to date.

Yep, in reaching the NHL they aren't as terrible as others, but as far as what their players do when they get there they have a very poor track record, especially for high picks. For example, as bad as the Lightning drafting has been prior to a few years ago, they still hit on superstars like Lecavalier and Stamkos ... FL has never had that go their way.

 

[Acadmus]

Yep, in reaching the NHL they aren't as terrible as others, but as far as what their players do when they get there they have a very poor track record, especially for high picks. For example, as bad as the Lightning drafting has been prior to a few years ago, they still hit on superstars like Lecavalier and Stamkos ... FL has never had that go their way.

To be fair, the issue there is that the Panthers never seem to get the #1 overall pick in years where there's a clear-cut #1. When they took Bouwmeester in '02 he was their top pick, but they were able to take him third overall after trading down and swinging a minor deal to make sure he'd be there, passing over Nash and Lehtonen - and in all fairness, neither of them has really accomplished much despite some individual success, and Lehtonen isn't even in the league anymore. In '03 Horton was supposedly their guy and Duds traded down again, but again it wasn't a clear-cut #1 situation, and Horton was eclipsed by Fleury and Staal...granted a big part of that is that Horton was a Keenan type of player, and the NHL changed after a lockout the following year making Staal's particular bag of skills more valuable. Meanwhile the Panthers had Luongo and didn't think they'd need another goalie, hence passing up on two high-ranked goaltending prospects in consecutive years.

When Tampa got #1 overall in 1998, Lecavalier was the undisputed top prospect. Same again with Stamkos. Tampa has been less successful when picking later in the first round. In '92, entering the league, they had the top pick and took Hamrlik over Yashin, Kasparaitis, Stillman, Gonchar, and Straka. In '93 they took Gratton #3. Jason Wiemer #8 in '94. Daymond Langkow #5 in '95. Their pick in '96 missed the mark completely and played 5 NHL games. Paul Mara in '97 at #7 played 734 games but was a mediocre player...'98 seems to have been their best draft when they grabbed Vinnie and Brad Richards #1 and #64. Other than Stamkos and I think the jury's still out on Hedman, their drafting has been atrocious. I'd take the Panthers' drafts, with their lack of stars, over the Lightning's any day. Hell, in '01 we got Weiss because they took Svitov right before him...where's Svitov these days?

And this year, again the Panthers have the top overall pick, but there's a little debate about who the top prospect is...so again, it'll be a crap shoot whether they truly get the best prospect at #1. Yet again they lost out last year when there was no doubt who to take. In the lockout draft when Crosby was #1, the Panthers lost out because the league decided to screw them because they'd already had the #1 pick for two years straight and gave them the least chance to get #1 that year.

I'd overall just blame the Panthers' drafting on bad luck...same thing that seems to plague them everywhere. If they get a good player (Niedermeyer for instance) something happens to ruin him (Lindros blind-side check and concussion).

But here's a list of substantial players the Panthers drafted:
'93 - Niedermayer, Weekes
'94 - Jovonovski, Warrener, Ryan Johnson
'95 - Dvorak, Worrell (borderline, 391 games played), Kuba
'96 - Kvasha
'97 - Huselius
'98 - Spacek
'99 - Auld, Hagman
'00 - no one
'01 - Weiss, Krajicek (328 games), Majesky (202 games, borderline but he was a 9th round pick)
'02 - Bouwmeester, Campbell
'03 - Horton, Stewart (262 games, admittedly poor for a 1st rounder), Kreps (232 games), Glass (265th overall, played 377 games to date and still active)
'04 - Olesz (365 games), Booth
'05 - no one
'06 - Frolik
'07 - Ellerby (207 games)
using a lower threshhold for the remaining years:
'08 - Markstrom
'09 - Kulikov, Shore, Knight (only 7 NHL games but still promising), Timmins (only 24 games with Panthers, but potentially a good checking line guy)
'10 - Gudbranson, Bjugstad, Howden, Petrovic all have seen NHL minutes, Brickley is likely to, and McFarland, Brittain and Hyman are still on the radar
'11 - Huberdeau, Trochek, Racine have all seen the NHL already, Grimaldi and Rau still have good potential.
'12 - Matheson, Hodges still solid prospects
'13 - Barkov in the NHL, McCoshen had a solid NCAA debut, and Weegar stood out in QMJHL.

You stated that the 2010 class has more NHL games than three years combined, but you've cherry picked three of the team's worst draft years in which the Panthers had no real standouts at all and almost all the players have come and gone and compare it to the one season where they had the most outstanding draft. It's a meaningless comparison.

A better comparison will be a few years from now, to see if the 2009-2013 drafts are significantly better than the team's first five drafts, 1993-1997, or 2001-2005. Those are the best stretches in team history, granted each of those periods has one or two bomb years at the end, so hopefully the most recent period will eclipse them both. Be nice if they were eclipsed COMBINED.

 

[coopdaloop123]

You stated that the 2010 class has more NHL games than three years combined, but you've cherry picked three of the team's worst draft years in which the Panthers had no real standouts at all and almost all the players have come and gone and compare it to the one season where they had the most outstanding draft. It's a meaningless comparison.

A better comparison will be a few years from now, to see if the 2009-2013 drafts are significantly better than the team's first five drafts, 1993-1997, or 2001-2005. Those are the best stretches in team history, granted each of those periods has one or two bomb years at the end, so hopefully the most recent period will eclipse them both. Be nice if they were eclipsed COMBINED.

I don't think it's a meaningless comparison. The fact that the 2010 class has already played more than 3 previous classes combined is a pretty meaningful stat imo. And as for looking ahead in the future to see how 2009-2013 stacks up against 1993-1997 I am sure we will all do that when the time comes.

 

[Acadmus]

I don't think it's a meaningless comparison. The fact that the 2010 class has already played more than 3 previous classes combined is a pretty meaningful stat imo. And as for looking ahead in the future to see how 2009-2013 stacks up against 1993-1997 I am sure we will all do that when the time comes.

Well, what I'm saying is there's always going to be bad years. If we compare 2012 to 2008 someday, 2005 may end up not looking so bad in comparison, who knows?

As I said, to be a meaningful comparison of quality, you take one GMs drafting and compare to another's. Or pick a range of years to stack up to another range. We already know 2000 and 2005 were the worst drafts in Panthers' history, and they didn't even have a 1st round pick in 2008 and only 5 overall whereas they had 3 first rounders, 3 2nds, and 13 overall in 2010. In fact, they only had 1 first round pick total all three of the drafts you selected, and almost all of the NHL games played by the 2010 draft are from their 3 first rounders, and most of those just by Gudbranson, the #3 overall pick, vs. the only 1st rounder in those other drafts, McArdle in 2005, who was drafted #20 overall.

It would be far better to compare 2010 to 2001 or 2003, years in which the Panthers had a comparable number of picks, though they only had 2 first in either of those drafts.

Here's a real comparison of 2010 vs. 2000+2005+2008
2010:
picks - 13
1st round - 3
2nd round - 3
3rd round - 1
4th round - 3
5th round - 1
6th round - 1
7th round - 1
NHL games by 1st round picks: 169+87+34 = 290
NHL games by 2nd round picks: 13
NHL games by all other picks: 0

2000+2005+2008
picks - 21
1st round - 1
2nd round - 4
3rd round - 4
4th round - 5
5th round - 1
6th round - 2
7th round - 2
8th round - 2
9th round - 0
NHL games by 1st round pick: 42
NHL games by 2nd round picks: 39+35=74
NHL games by all other picks: 104 (most of those are Matt Bartkowski)

That's comparing apples to apples, and so far those three horrible years are winning in draft quality because they got more out of their 2nd - 8th round picks than 2010 has thus far gotten out of their 2nd - 7th rounders. McArdle's games played fall between Howden and Bjugstad, though he's done so likely Howden will prove to be a better pick...that said the Panthers had to trade up to get McArdle, and in doing so Keenan missed some much better players, so clearly that draft was pretty bad, but frankly it was Keenan so we know he sucks at everything he does. He passed up on Rask, Cogliano, Niskanen, and Downie. But Tallon passed up on a few players with better records than Gudbranson thus far too.

I'm not denying 2010 is one of the team's better drafts - 4 of 13 have already seen the NHL, another 2 are likely to, and it's not out of the question a couple more could someday as well.

I'm just saying your surface comparison doesn't quite hold water Call it constructive criticism to get you to work a little harder next time

As I've said before, though - analyzing Panthers drafts only results in the conclusion they're very good at picking NHL talent but suck at picking NHL stars and have never selected a legitimate superstar.

 

[Ekblast]

Yeah but Tampa already has something we don't...