Devils European Draft History 1999-2014

[Zippy316]

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

It's easy to say this sitting behind a computer. The real question is do you go for the surefire guys or boom or bust? After the third round, is it more worth it to go for a home run pick like Gavrus or go for a guy like Thomson who if anything can be a bottom six grinder. If a guy like Thomson put together all his tools, he could be a pretty formidable player.

It's all a matter of perspective though. I would have to think (and hope to think) the Devils know what they are doing and statistically taking a guy like Thomson works out more often then Gavrus. But I still think after the third round or so it's a crapshoot.

 

[MadDevil]

I know I've read a couple of different articles about how draft success after the first two rounds is basically a crap shoot. Yes, sometimes you pick up a Henrique, or a Nyquist, but those guys are pretty rare when you take into account all the players that don't pan out. I think our bigger issue for a long time was our picks in the first two rounds. Particularly from 2001-2008. Our picks in the first two rounds...

2001 - Foster, Pohanka, Pihlman, Uchevatov
2002 - Kadeykin, Tallackson
2003 - Parise, Vrana
2004 - Zajac
2005 - Bergfors, Frazee
2006 - Corrente, Vasyunov
2007 - Hoeffel
2008 - Tedenby, Burlon, Cormier

That's basically an entire generation that is just missing from this team, and is a large reason for our decline. I do however think it's gotten better the last few years. If we can continue to improve I think we'll be okay. It just might take another couple years to get there.

 

[Brodeur]

I know I've read a couple of different articles about how draft success after the first two rounds is basically a crap shoot. Yes, sometimes you pick up a Henrique, or a Nyquist, but those guys are pretty rare when you take into account all the players that don't pan out. I think our bigger issue for a long time was our picks in the first two rounds. Particularly from 2001-2008. Our picks in the first two rounds...

2001 - Foster, Pohanka, Pihlman, Uchevatov
2002 - Kadeykin, Tallackson
2003 - Parise, Vrana
2004 - Zajac
2005 - Bergfors, Frazee
2006 - Corrente, Vasyunov
2007 - Hoeffel
2008 - Tedenby, Burlon, Cormier

That's basically an entire generation that is just missing from this team, and is a large reason for our decline. I do however think it's gotten better the last few years. If we can continue to improve I think we'll be okay. It just might take another couple years to get there.

2000 was the rough one for me. Seven picks in the top 76 [22, 39, 56, 57, 62, 67, 76]. We had lost a lot of depth because of the Expansion Drafts, so I was really hoping those picks would have been a major shot in the arm.

2001 wasn't considered a great year. I don't know if we'd ever get an honest answer, but I'd love to ask Lou/Conte why they chose that year to take St. Louis' first round pick.

As part of the compensation for their previous ownership tampering with Scott Stevens, we had a five year window [1999-2003] to take a 1st rounder from the Blues. We also had the option of swapping 1st rounders (which was used in 2003). If I recall correctly, the Blues had a one time veto and the Devils weren't allowed to use both provisions in back-to-back years.

In hindsight swapping in 1999 would have been great (moving up from #27 to #17), but perhaps the Devils didn't want to use the first year option and/or the Blues vetoed it. In 2000, the Blues had the #30 pick, so it didn't make sense to take that one. So I suppose, they had to use one of the options in 2001 since they couldn't use both in 2002 and 2003. But why not use the swap option instead?

2002 was another average draft. Jiri Hudler dropping as far as he did was the guy that most fans were outraged about teams passing up.

Obviously we would have loved to have done better than Vrana with the Holik compensation pick in 2003, but I think we should be happy enough that we had Parise.

We didn't have many picks in 2004. We used our 3rd to move up for Zajac which was fine. Our 4th was used the previous year on Grant Marshall and that inexplicably worked out. Our 2nd was used on Jan Hrdina since we badly needed a #2 center to defend the title.

 

[MadDevil]

I think the draft is also a cyclical thing. Our drafting in the early 90's was just ridiculous. From 1990-95 we had 21 draft picks go on to play at least 300 games, 15 of which went on to play at least 500 games, and 7 that went on to play over 1,000 games. That's incredible. Even through the late 90's it was still pretty solid. Then for about 7-8 years it was pretty bad. Now it seems to be on the upswing again.

 

[Brodeur]

3. Only draft players who are actually in an 18 year old season 9/16/14 to 9/15/15.
No overagers!

I'm listening to a podcast about the Beanpot which reminded of a trio of Boston area prospects in the 2012 Draft.

Brian Hart (53rd overall - 11/93) - 11 points in 19 games for Harvard
Sam Kurker (56th overall - 4/94) - Left BU as a sophomore, currently playing in the USHL
Jimmy Vesey (66th overall - 5/93) - 33 points in 19 games for Harvard

If there was a redraft today, I think Vesey goes ahead of them for sure despite not being drafted until his 2nd time around. Seems unfortunate to not draft somebody just because they didn't break out as an 18 year old.

 

[CerebralGenesis]

I think the draft is also a cyclical thing. Our drafting in the early 90's was just ridiculous. From 1990-95 we had 21 draft picks go on to play at least 300 games, 15 of which went on to play at least 500 games, and 7 that went on to play over 1,000 games. That's incredible. Even through the late 90's it was still pretty solid. Then for about 7-8 years it was pretty bad. Now it seems to be on the upswing again.

We've been bottoming out hard for awhile then. We're living off of our forwards from the 90s and FAs which is why we are about to miss the playoffs for another year with no prospects in sight.

 

[Bleedred]

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.

He wasn't really that good. It probably had more to do with Marty, being the reason why he washed out than not being good.

He really wasn't that special though, Clemmensen was even better than him for a couple of the years they both played in the AHL together in Albany.

There's a possibility he could have been a decent NHL backup I guess. At least the JF Damphousse and Ari Ahonen picks don't look so bad next to the two top 10 goalies the Rangers struck out with. Not that it's really hurt them at this point though, they did get Lundqvist in the 5th (?) round I think? That was the ONLY draft pick worth a damn for quite a while with the Rangers through those years.

Blackburn got injured (though he wasn't looking promising during his short NHL career) and Montoya became a journeyman backup that never even played a game for the Rangers in the NHL. I think they were both top 8 picks too.

 

[MadDevil]

We've been bottoming out hard for awhile then. We're living off of our forwards from the 90s and FAs which is why we are about to miss the playoffs for another year with no prospects in sight.

If you look at the ages of our players they're almost all either 30+ years old, or are younger than 25. There's very little in the 25-30 range, which is when most players are in their prime. The drafting has gotten better with defensemen the last 4-5 years. Now we just need to do the same with forwards.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

My biggest beef with complaints like this is that saying "Devils scouting is bad" and "Devils drafting is bad" are two completely different things. We know next to nothing about Devils scouts other than their names. We don't which players they like best, we don't know whose opinions are valued more, we don't know how often they are or aren't listened to, and we don't ever know when they're right or wrong about a pick Lou and Conte did or didn't make.

For example, the Canucks could be looking back and crying in the near future for taking Virtanen over Nylander and Ehlers. You might think the Canucks european scouting was bad, or that they really screwed up their rankings. But we found out later that the Canucks' head Euro scout LOVED Nylander and thought passing on him would be a huge mistake. But it wasn't up to him.

 

[Zippy316]

2000 was the rough one for me. Seven picks in the top 76 [22, 39, 56, 57, 62, 67, 76]. We had lost a lot of depth because of the Expansion Drafts, so I was really hoping those picks would have been a major shot in the arm.

2001 wasn't considered a great year. I don't know if we'd ever get an honest answer, but I'd love to ask Lou/Conte why they chose that year to take St. Louis' first round pick.

As part of the compensation for their previous ownership tampering with Scott Stevens, we had a five year window [1999-2003] to take a 1st rounder from the Blues. We also had the option of swapping 1st rounders (which was used in 2003). If I recall correctly, the Blues had a one time veto and the Devils weren't allowed to use both provisions in back-to-back years.

In hindsight swapping in 1999 would have been great (moving up from #27 to #17), but perhaps the Devils didn't want to use the first year option and/or the Blues vetoed it. In 2000, the Blues had the #30 pick, so it didn't make sense to take that one. So I suppose, they had to use one of the options in 2001 since they couldn't use both in 2002 and 2003. But why not use the swap option instead?

2002 was another average draft. Jiri Hudler dropping as far as he did was the guy that most fans were outraged about teams passing up.

Obviously we would have loved to have done better than Vrana with the Holik compensation pick in 2003, but I think we should be happy enough that we had Parise.

We didn't have many picks in 2004. We used our 3rd to move up for Zajac which was fine. Our 4th was used the previous year on Grant Marshall and that inexplicably worked out. Our 2nd was used on Jan Hrdina since we badly needed a #2 center to defend the title.

2003 was hyped up as a ridiculously deep draft.

It's likely that they had so many picks in 2000 (which was a weak draft). 99' was also a notoriously bad draft. It's likely that the Devils were preparing to switch (or take the first round pick) from the Blues in 2003 the entire time.

 

[Tretyak 20]

My biggest beef with complaints like this is that saying "Devils scouting is bad" and "Devils drafting is bad" are two completely different things. We know next to nothing about Devils scouts other than their names. We don't which players they like best, we don't know whose opinions are valued more, we don't know how often they are or aren't listened to, and we don't ever know when they're right or wrong about a pick Lou and Conte did or didn't make.

For example, the Canucks could be looking back and crying in the near future for taking Virtanen over Nylander and Ehlers. You might think the Canucks european scouting was bad, or that they really screwed up their rankings. But we found out later that the Canucks' head Euro scout LOVED Nylander and thought passing on him would be a huge mistake. But it wasn't up to him.

True. I remember hearing a few years ago the Rangers head euro scout threatened to resign at the draft table if they didn't take the goalie he was high on. Sather gave in, and that's how they got Lundqvist.

 

[R8Devs]

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.

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.

They seem to do better because they have had way more NA picks than Euro picks.

From 2008-2012(in the NHL):
NA: Henrique, Gelinas, Merrill, Severson
Euro: Larsson, Josefson

NA picks: 4/29
Euro picks: 2/5

Obviously it can still change for the 2012 and 2011 drafts if Matteau and Boucher make it but you have to take in context when looking at the drafts. And the volume of Euro picks aren't that high.