This was written before the 2016 NHL draft.
2016 NHL Draft – The Top 10 Overage Players Available
Looking forward to the 2016 NHL draft, I ran the DEV numbers for all draft eligible overage players. One player in particular that I want to discuss is Adam Brooks. Brooks is relatively undersized at 5’10, but in his 3rd year of draft eligibility DEV suggests he’s worth selecting with a pick from 28 – 33 overall. Brooks was valued as a pick from 55 - 82 last year, demonstrating two things: 30 NHL teams passed over a prospect worth selecting in the 3rd round with their late round picks last year, and Brooks has improved considerably since last year. Some of Brooks’ successful comparables include players like Claude Giroux, Derek Roy, Ondrej Palat, Patrick O’Sullivan, Martin Erat & Jordan Eberle. I suspect he will not be selected as high as DEV values him, but if he’s available in the mid-rounds, Brooks seems like the obvious candidate to draft if a team is looking for a value selection. Obviously Brooks is not a lock to be a successful NHL player, but DEV indicates that he’s just as likely to be an impact NHL player as any other player who is optimally selected in the top of the 2nd round.
These are the top 10 overage CHL forwards according to DEV:
Conclusion
If you view the NHL as a marketplace, the most undervalued commodity is legitimate NHL prospects who were passed over in their first year of draft eligibility, otherwise known as overage players. Thus, the natural way to game the NHL draft is to exploit the aforementioned inefficiency. DEV exclusively compares players with other prospects in the same year of draft eligibility. As a result, perhaps the most practical usage of DEV is for identifying overage draft eligible prospects and quantifying where they should be selected.
By Zac Urback