Devils European Draft History 1999-2014

[Team Concept]

Who was our chief European draft scout during this period?
How much money did we spend to produce this?
Is this the reason why we haven't drafted a European in 2013 and 2014?
Is this the reason why we are in the predicament that we are in now?

2012 Entry 6-180 Artur Gavrus C
2011 Entry 1-4 Adam Larsson D 159 5 32 37 58
2010 Entry 7-204 Mauro Jorg F
2009 Entry 1-20 Jacob Josefson C 147 9 21 30 30
2009 Entry 3-73 Alexander UrbomD 34 3 1 4 28
2008 Entry 1-24 Mattias TedenbyR 120 10 20 30 42
2007 Entry 6-177 Vili Sopanen W
2006 Entry 2-58 Alexander VasyunovL 18 1 4 5 0
2006 Entry 3-67 Kirill Tulupov D
2006 Entry 3-77 Vladimir ZharkovR 82 2 12 14 10
2005 Entry 1-23 Nicklas BergforsR 173 35 48 83 20
2005 Entry 7-218 Alexander Sundstrom C
2004 Entry 5-155 Alexander Mikhailishin D
2004 Entry 9-282 Valeri Klimov D
2003 Entry 2-42 Petr Vrana C 16 1 0 1 2
2003 Entry 3-93 Ivan Khomutov C
2003 Entry 9-292 Arseny Bondarev L
2002 Entry 2-51 Anton Kadeykin D
2002 Entry 3-84 Marek Chvatal D
2002 Entry 5-184 Krisjanis Redlihs D
2002 Entry 7-218 Ilkka Pikkarainen R 31 1 3 4 10
2001 Entry 2-44 Igor Pohanka C
2001 Entry 2-48 Tuomas Pihlman L 15 1 1 2 12
2001 Entry 2-60 Victor Uchevatov D
2001 Entry 4-128 Andrei Posnov F
2001 Entry 5-163 Andreas Salomonsson L 71 5 9 14 36
2001 Entry 8-257 Evgeny Gamalei
2000 Entry 2-39 Teemu Laine F
2000 Entry 2-56 Alexander Suglobov R 18 1 0 1 4
2000 Entry 5-164 Matus Kostur G
1999 Entry 1-27 Ari Ahonen G
1999 Entry 4-100 Teemu Kesa D

Click to read more...

 

[MichaelJ]

Who was our chief European draft scout during this period?
How much money did we spend to produce this?
Is this the reason why we haven't drafted a European in 2013 and 2014?
Is this the reason why we are in the predicament that we are in now?

2012 Entry 6-180 Artur Gavrus C
2011 Entry 1-4 Adam Larsson D 159 5 32 37 58
2010 Entry 7-204 Mauro Jorg F
2009 Entry 1-20 Jacob Josefson C 147 9 21 30 30
2009 Entry 3-73 Alexander UrbomD 34 3 1 4 28
2008 Entry 1-24 Mattias TedenbyR 120 10 20 30 42
2007 Entry 6-177 Vili Sopanen W
2006 Entry 2-58 Alexander VasyunovL 18 1 4 5 0
2006 Entry 3-67 Kirill Tulupov D
2006 Entry 3-77 Vladimir ZharkovR 82 2 12 14 10
2005 Entry 1-23 Nicklas BergforsR 173 35 48 83 20
2005 Entry 7-218 Alexander Sundstrom C
2004 Entry 5-155 Alexander Mikhailishin D
2004 Entry 9-282 Valeri Klimov D
2003 Entry 2-42 Petr Vrana C 16 1 0 1 2
2003 Entry 3-93 Ivan Khomutov C
2003 Entry 9-292 Arseny Bondarev L
2002 Entry 2-51 Anton Kadeykin D
2002 Entry 3-84 Marek Chvatal D
2002 Entry 5-184 Krisjanis Redlihs D
2002 Entry 7-218 Ilkka Pikkarainen R 31 1 3 4 10
2001 Entry 2-44 Igor Pohanka C
2001 Entry 2-48 Tuomas Pihlman L 15 1 1 2 12
2001 Entry 2-60 Victor Uchevatov D
2001 Entry 4-128 Andrei Posnov F
2001 Entry 5-163 Andreas Salomonsson L 71 5 9 14 36
2001 Entry 8-257 Evgeny Gamalei
2000 Entry 2-39 Teemu Laine F
2000 Entry 2-56 Alexander Suglobov R 18 1 0 1 4
2000 Entry 5-164 Matus Kostur G
1999 Entry 1-27 Ari Ahonen G
1999 Entry 4-100 Teemu Kesa D

They just sound like generic Europeans. I'd be interested to see what Euros we passed up to draft these winners. Tangible proof that the Devils have almost no clue when it comes to international players.

 

[Brodeur]

I wouldn't spend too much energy about mid-round guys. And in general, 1999 is considered to be one of the worst draft classes ever. We were hardly the only team to whiff on a bunch of picks. Similarly, 2000-02 weren't particularly deep. We had a bunch of picks in 2000 and we didn't do particularly well with the North American picks either.

Petr Vrana was playing in Quebec during his draft year. Vasyunov (RIP) was ranked as a late first rounder in Bob McKenzie's pre-draft survey.

 

[schoenfeld]

thats a long list of a lot of soft players.

 

[Devils Dominion]

They just sound like generic Europeans. I'd be interested to see what Euros we passed up to draft these winners. Tangible proof that the Devils have almost no clue when it comes to international players.

Great point.
Scouting & drafting gaffes are the root cause of 4 out of 5 seasons.

 

[Zelmo]

Awful. Just awful.

 

[Team Concept]

You guys are going to kill me for saying the following but here goes:

In the 2001 draft instead of taking Igor Pohanka at #44 (who Lou must have thought was the next Patrick Elias) or taking Tuomas Pihlman at #48 we should have taken Mike Cammalleri at #49.

2002 draft instead of Anton Kadeykin at #51 should have taken Duncan Keith who was taken at #54. We actually also took Barry Tallackson at #53!

In the 2003 draft instead of taking Petr Vrana at #42 we should have taken Patrice Bergeron at #45.

Instead of taking Nicklas Bergfors at #23 in the 2005 draft we should have taken T.J. Oshie with the next pick out of Minnesota.

Should have taken John Carlson at #27 in the 2008 draft instead of Mattias Tedenby at #24.

Should have taken Kyle Palmieri at #20 instead of Jacob Joesefson. Palmieri went to Anaheim at #26 in the 2009 draft.

Should have taken Doug Hamilton in the 2011 draft instead of Adam Larsson.

 

[R8Devs]

You guys are going to kill me for saying the following but here goes:

In the 2001 draft instead of taking Igor Pohanka at #44 (who Lou must have thought was the next Patrick Elias) or taking Tuomas Pihlman at #48 we should have taken Mike Cammalleri at #49.

2002 draft instead of Anton Kadeykin at #51 should have taken Duncan Keith who was taken at #54. We actually also took Barry Tallackson at #53!

In the 2003 draft instead of taking Petr Vrana at #42 we should have taken Patrice Bergeron at #45.

Instead of taking Nicklas Bergfors at #23 in the 2005 draft we should have taken T.J. Oshie with the next pick out of Minnesota.

Should have taken John Carlson at #27 in the 2008 draft instead of Mattias Tedenby at #24.

Should have taken Kyle Palmieri at #20 instead of Jacob Joesefson. Palmieri went to Anaheim at #26 in the 2009 draft.

Should have taken Doug Hamilton in the 2011 draft instead of Adam Larsson.

this is ridiculous and I'm a critic of Lou and conte. you could do it for everyone of the teams in the league. larsson was the right pick and most teams in the NHL would have picked him if the Devils were in that spot(he was ranked #2 in Mckenzie's rankings and that uses every team's scouts).

Bergfors was a major piece in getting Kovalchuk.

And Gavrus was a NA pick and not from European scouting even though he is European.
They have picked 5 guys from Europe in their past 45 picks and that's a really really small sample size. And 2 of those guys are in the NHL. hard to really judge them recentely because almost 90% of the picks the Devils had since 2008 have been spent on guys from North America. I could see the criticism in not getting more guys from that area but it's really hard to go against the guys they have picked from that area.


I don't really see the point in going back at looking at the drafts in the early 2000's either-that's more than a decade ago. And they won 2 cups and went to three in that time so are you actually going to criticize their moves during that era?


I could see more of a criticism for NA scouting since those are the guys the Devils pick most of the time. And we have a whopping 4 guys on the roster from recent NA scouting right now(Henrique, Gelinas, Severson, and Merrill).

 

[njdevils1982]

You guys are going to kill me for saying the following but here goes:

In the 2001 draft instead of taking Igor Pohanka at #44 (who Lou must have thought was the next Patrick Elias) or taking Tuomas Pihlman at #48 we should have taken Mike Cammalleri at #49.

2002 draft instead of Anton Kadeykin at #51 should have taken Duncan Keith who was taken at #54. We actually also took Barry Tallackson at #53!

In the 2003 draft instead of taking Petr Vrana at #42 we should have taken Patrice Bergeron at #45.

Instead of taking Nicklas Bergfors at #23 in the 2005 draft we should have taken T.J. Oshie with the next pick out of Minnesota.

Should have taken John Carlson at #27 in the 2008 draft instead of Mattias Tedenby at #24.

Should have taken Kyle Palmieri at #20 instead of Jacob Joesefson. Palmieri went to Anaheim at #26 in the 2009 draft.

Should have taken Doug Hamilton in the 2011 draft instead of Adam Larsson.

time will tell

 

[Team Concept]

this is ridiculous and I'm a critic of Lou and conte. you could do it for everyone of the teams in the league. larsson was the right pick and most teams in the NHL would have picked him if the Devils were in that spot(he was ranked #2 in Mckenzie's rankings and that uses every team's scouts).

Bergfors was a major piece in getting Kovalchuk.

And Gavrus was a NA pick and not from European scouting even though he is European.
They have picked 5 guys from Europe in their past 45 picks and that's a really really small sample size. And 2 of those guys are in the NHL. hard to really judge them recentely because almost 90% of the picks the Devils had since 2008 have been spent on guys from North America. I could see the criticism in not getting more guys from that area but it's really hard to go against the guys they have picked from that area.


I don't really see the point in going back at looking at the drafts in the early 2000's either-that's more than a decade ago. And they won 2 cups and went to three in that time so are you actually going to criticize their moves during that era?


I could see more of a criticism for NA scouting since those are the guys the Devils pick most of the time.

Well you do make some valid points, but let me get this straight we should draft Bergfors because we know in the future we can flip him to Atlanta to get Kovy when we could have had T.J. Oshie the whole time. And going back to the Stanley Cup years it is important to continue to draft well if you want to maintain excellence. If we had drafted Keith back in 2002 perhaps he would still be on our first defensive pairing.

 

[R8Devs]

Well you do make some valid points, but let me get this straight we should draft Bergfors because we know in the future we can flip him to Atlanta to get Kovy when we could have had T.J. Oshie the whole time. And going back to the Stanley Cup years it is important to continue to draft well if you want to maintain excellence. If we had drafted Keith back in 2002 perhaps he would still be on our first defensive pairing.

No I'm just saying they got good value out of him but whatever bad pick.

I never said the scouting is good but if you think the Devils were going to be competitive every year they play you are just being unrealistic. I don't like the scouting either but if anything it's NA scouting coming to bite us hard, not Euro scouting(not that I"m happy with it). The more annoying issue to me is the volume of picks from Europe, they ought to start getting more guys from there.

It's also hard to look at these situations in a vacuum, I'm sure Hamilton would have developed differently if he had the Devils forward core and no Zdeno Chara. Larsson was always going to be the first defenseman picked in that draft and he looks pretty good in a top pair role now.

Duncan Keith was passed up in the draft 53 times. Like I said you could do that for every team in the league.



If you want to look at NA scouting it's pretty bad too so I don't know how you're placing the devils drafting woes on just the european scouting. it's just drafting in general that's bad.

 

[MadDevil]

European scouting has been an issue, but I'm sick of the "we should have drafted this guy instead" argument. 29 other teams passed on Duncan Keith and Shea Weber (some teams multiple times). Are they all idiots as well? I don't think anybody would say our scouting has been great. For much of the 2000's it was pretty damn bad. I do think we've started to turn it around in recent years though.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Well, if we're being entirely fair, the same folks discovered Brian Rafalski rotting in a random Finnish outback.

So there is that....

 

[Bleedred]

Tallackson and Tedenby.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Ahonen was a good goalie though, he just happened to have the misfortune of existing at the same time Marty Brodeur did.

 

[New Jersey Devils]

Yeah, I think unless they are sure-fire blue chip prospects, we need to stay far away from drafting Euros.

Salomonsson. Damn that brings me back.

 

[Tretyak 20]

Tallackson and Tedenby.

At the time, both were decent prospects who projected well. The thing I have a problem with is that we seem to be the only team that still drafts enforcers (Baddock?!) and we still draft a lot of guys who only project as bottom 6.

Yeah, I think unless they are sure-fire blue chip prospects, we need to stay far away from drafting Euros.

Salomonsson. Damn that brings me back.

Salomonsson was an overager Lou took because he was hoping to add depth. You can certainly disagree with the methodology, but he did actually play a significant amount of NHL games.

 

[Tretyak 20]

Should have taken Doug Hamilton in the 2011 draft instead of Adam Larsson.

I've heard several Boston fans say Hamilton's defensive game is suspect, and that he benefits heavily from his teammates and system.

If we had drafted Hamilton, he would have been paired with someone like Slugvador, would have received the same sink or swim treatment from DumBoer, would have had to play through idiotic match ups like CBGB against Ovechkin in the last minutes of games, etc...

Meanwhile, Larsson would at minimum be playing 20 minutes a night, looking steady and probably putting up some points while playing for our division rival across the river.

...and of course in that scenario, no one around here would be moaning about "why did our dumb scouts reach instead of taking the clean BPA????".

 

[Devils Dominion]

Ahonen was a good goalie though, he just happened to have the misfortune of existing at the same time Marty Brodeur did.

He may have been a fair goalie, but if he was good we would have been able to acquire some sort of value for him via a trade.

Kaydeykin was the worst off that list.
Off the board craziness from Conte.
He was out of hockey altogether two seasons later.

It's absurd that Conte drafted both Kadeykin and Tallackson over Duncan Keith & Jiri Hudler, absurrrd.

 

[Zippy316]

You guys are going to kill me for saying the following but here goes:

In the 2001 draft instead of taking Igor Pohanka at #44 (who Lou must have thought was the next Patrick Elias) or taking Tuomas Pihlman at #48 we should have taken Mike Cammalleri at #49.

2002 draft instead of Anton Kadeykin at #51 should have taken Duncan Keith who was taken at #54. We actually also took Barry Tallackson at #53!

In the 2003 draft instead of taking Petr Vrana at #42 we should have taken Patrice Bergeron at #45.

Instead of taking Nicklas Bergfors at #23 in the 2005 draft we should have taken T.J. Oshie with the next pick out of Minnesota.

Should have taken John Carlson at #27 in the 2008 draft instead of Mattias Tedenby at #24.

Should have taken Kyle Palmieri at #20 instead of Jacob Joesefson. Palmieri went to Anaheim at #26 in the 2009 draft.

Should have taken Doug Hamilton in the 2011 draft instead of Adam Larsson.

You can't do this.

You really can't. Like I've said before, teams have players ranked on their own charts. We have no idea where the Devils had a player ranked in those drafts. Also, there's a lot more factors that go into getting those players where they are today. If the Devils drafted Duncan Keith, there's no guarantee he would've been developed into the Duncan Keith of today. If the Blackhawks drafted Tallackson, for all we know, he could've developed into the forward he was projected to be.

The drafting, especially of Europeans, was pretty bad, but you can't look at it retrospectively. You can say this for every team, but you have no idea what they were considering all the time. There's just way too many factors that go into this to do this.

Now if you for whatever reason knew the Devils were down to Tallackson and Keith and took Duncan Keith, then I can see an argument like this. Then you can firmly say the Devils made a poor decision. But there's no guarantee, or likeliness, that the Devils would have drafted any of these players instead.

 

[Team Concept]

Here is the problem I have with the Tallackson pick which the Devils have continued to do for some odd reason. He was drafted coming off of a 19 year old season instead of an 18 year old season. He could have been drafted in 2001, but instead Lou drafts him coming out of a 19 year old season and freshman at Minnesota where he earned 23 points in 44 games.

Now I could be wrong about this, but I would bet that most of your effective bottom 6 forwards put up big time statistics whether if they were in juniors, college ranks, or Europe. When they get to the pros they can't cut it as a top 6 player so they move down to play on the 3rd and 4th lines and do well.

But Lou takes 3rd and 4th line players in juniors, college, and Europe who do not have great statistics so when they get to the pro game they do absolutely nothing.

If I were a scout I would do 3 things:

1. Draft players with tremendous statistics (i.e. goals, assists, etc...)
2. Draft character players (something as fans we are not privy to (interviews))
3. Only draft players who are actually in an 18 year old season 9/16/14 to 9/15/15.
No overagers!

Lou and Conte's philosophy:

1. 5 on 5 play
2. Draft a player no matter what their age is 19 or even 20 year olds
3. Character team guy

 

[Better Call Sal]

He may have been a fair goalie, but if he was good we would have been able to acquire some sort of value for him via a trade.

Kaydeykin was the worst off that list.
Off the board craziness from Conte.
He was out of hockey altogether two seasons later.

It's absurd that Conte drafted both Kadeykin and Tallackson over Duncan Keith & Jiri Hudler, absurrrd.

The power of hindsight.

 

[Brodeur]

Here is the problem I have with the Tallackson pick which the Devils have continued to do for some odd reason. He was drafted coming off of a 19 year old season instead of an 18 year old season. He could have been drafted in 2001, but instead Lou drafts him coming out of a 19 year old season and freshman at Minnesota where he earned 23 points in 44 games.

Before 2004, college players had to wait an extra year in order to retain their amateur status/college eligibility. Ie, Zach Parise and Ryan Suter were '83s while the bulk of the 2003 class was '84s.

1. Draft players with tremendous statistics (i.e. goals, assists, etc...)
2. Draft character players (something as fans we are not privy to (interviews))
3. Only draft players who are actually in an 18 year old season 9/16/14 to 9/15/15.
No overagers!

The Kings have done very well with overagers since Mike Futa took over their drafting in 2007. Their list includes: Wayne Simmonds, Alec Martinez, and Tanner Pearson. Tampa plucked Ondrej Palat as an overager. To put it simply, not every player is going to have the chance to shine as an 18 year old.

 

[OmNomNom]

the draft is a crapshoot, and you never know - hamilton could've been terrible in our system, and larsson really good in theirs, i mean the way a player develops also depends on the system. theres too many unknown variables. i do agree the euro track record is pretty bad though

 

[ForeverJerseyGirl]

I agree about the Devils track record with Europeans being pretty cringe-worthy. We seem to do better drafting North Americans out of the National Development Team Program and the Canadian junior leagues, so I think the organization should stick to that and maybe try to improve European scouting if that is a priority to them.

About Larsson, though, I'm willing to give him more time to show us what he can do at the NHL level before I believe that we should have taken Hamilton over him. Larsson has been playing very well for us lately and if he continues to progress like this, I'm not going to regret the pick.