How to draft well

[Sticks and Pucks]

Not comparing Doughty to Bogosian, nor saying Bogosian is better or even equal to Doughty. I totally think Doughty is better than him and it's not even close. That said, when the worst pick you could have made at #2 (assuming you pick one of the big three defensemen available) is to pick a physical top three defenseman that logs 23 minutes a game and likely will pot 30 points a season, that's hardly a bad place to be. Not the best, but not bad by any stretch.

When you're picking at #2, you are expected to pick a franchise player. A player who simply logs 23 minutes a game plus 30 points is not enough. That sounds like a #2 defenceman. You can trade down to 8th or 9th to get a guy like that. Bogosian was ranked higher than Doughty by CSS that year. Many people thought the Kings should have taken Bogosian. Even I thought the Kings were crazy to take Doughty over Bogosian. The fact that they chose Doughty shows that they SUCCEEDED in drafting that year. This is not like Pittsburgh taking the default guys in Crosby and Malkin in their draft years. Lombardi had to make a decision here. Add the fact that they took Voynov and you basically drafted your top two defencemen for the next decade with your top 2 draft picks. How many teams in the past with #2 and #32 overall can say they did that? Not many. The Kings' 2008 draft is definitely a success. Look at the guys they drafted in the other years and I would definitely say it's arguably one of their best drafts of recent.

 

[KevinRedkey]

The draft is the equivalent of going in to a 6th grade classroom and picking the kids you think will do the best in high school. Sure, the kid with a 99 average will probably do well.. and that's the 1st overall pick, but after the first few, how sure can you really be?

You take the kid with the 80% average over the kid with the 70% average, but maybe that kid was having an off year... needed different teaching techniques, etc... and sometimes you take that random kid with a 55% because his parents are getting divorced and you think he will have the best grades in five years (Janikowski).

It's stupid analogy, but let me put it this way...
The reason guys like Karlsson don't go top 2 overall is the same reason no one picked a guy like Jiri Tlusty high in a fantasy league at the beginning of last year. The randomness of it all makes it impossible to predict ranks accurately. There is no science to it. Trends on the other hand do exist and I do believe they are taken in to account (hence why Jones slipped).

 

[William Hylander]

It's mostly luck.

 

[kingsfan]

When you're picking at #2, you are expected to pick a franchise player. A player who simply logs 23 minutes a game plus 30 points is not enough. That sounds like a #2 defenceman. You can trade down to 8th or 9th to get a guy like that. Bogosian was ranked higher than Doughty by CSS that year. Many people thought the Kings should have taken Bogosian. Even I thought the Kings were crazy to take Doughty over Bogosian. The fact that they chose Doughty shows that they SUCCEEDED in drafting that year. This is not like Pittsburgh taking the default guys in Crosby and Malkin in their draft years. Lombardi had to make a decision here. Add the fact that they took Voynov and you basically drafted your top two defencemen for the next decade with your top 2 draft picks. How many teams in the past with #2 and #32 overall can say they did that? Not many. The Kings' 2008 draft is definitely a success. Look at the guys they drafted in the other years and I would definitely say it's arguably one of their best drafts of recent.

I think we can agree to disagree since you are clearly not understanding what I was and am saying in regards to the Kings 2008 draft.

Obviously you want a franchise guy at #2, but it's no guarantee. You should be guaranteed a very good player, but who will and won't evolve into a franchise goalie is undeterminable in most cases. You look at Tyler Myers as an example, three years ago you'd think he was potentially the best D-man to come out of that draft. Now you have to question if he wasn't drafted to high. It's acrap shoot. You can expect all you want, there's no guarantees. All I'm saying is that at #2 the Kings were virtually guaranteed a very good player.

As I said, I never once said the Kings did not success in the 2008 draft. I said if you disconnect the Doughty pick, which I did in the original post I made you replied to, and virtually every post I've made since that you've replied to, then the 2008 draft is argubaly the worst draft by the Kings from 2007 to 2010 (anything more recent is to early to judge). 2010 is also a bit to early to judge, I'm just going on what I believe will occur from that draft based on the three years since and the players development from the draft.

Either way, agree to disagree but you're arguing a point I'm not even making.

 

[Sticks and Pucks]

I think we can agree to disagree since you are clearly not understanding what I was and am saying in regards to the Kings 2008 draft.

Obviously you want a franchise guy at #2, but it's no guarantee. You should be guaranteed a very good player, but who will and won't evolve into a franchise goalie is undeterminable in most cases. You look at Tyler Myers as an example, three years ago you'd think he was potentially the best D-man to come out of that draft. Now you have to question if he wasn't drafted to high. It's acrap shoot. You can expect all you want, there's no guarantees. All I'm saying is that at #2 the Kings were virtually guaranteed a very good player.

As I said, I never once said the Kings did not success in the 2008 draft. I said if you disconnect the Doughty pick, which I did in the original post I made you replied to, and virtually every post I've made since that you've replied to, then the 2008 draft is argubaly the worst draft by the Kings from 2007 to 2010 (anything more recent is to early to judge). 2010 is also a bit to early to judge, I'm just going on what I believe will occur from that draft based on the three years since and the players development from the draft.

Either way, agree to disagree but you're arguing a point I'm not even making.

Looking back at your original post, if your definition of draft success is whether or not a guy makes the NHL, then yes, you are correct. 2008 is the worst because it produced the least number of NHL players. However, if draft success is defined by the impact that the players have had in building your team (which in my opinion is how it SHOULD be defined), then I would argue that 2008 is better than 2007, 2009 and 2010 even if we disconnect Doughty as Voynov is arguably better than all the players mentioned and he is also arguably going to be better than Mike Richards in the future (which is who you got from the Schenn + Simmonds trade).

 

[kingsfan]

Looking back at your original post, if your definition of draft success is whether or not a guy makes the NHL, then yes, you are correct. 2008 is the worst because it produced the least number of NHL players. However, if draft success is defined by the impact that the players have had in building your team (which in my opinion is how it SHOULD be defined), then I would argue that 2008 is better than 2007, 2009 and 2010 even if we disconnect Doughty as Voynov is arguably better than all the players mentioned and he is also arguably going to be better than Mike Richards in the future (which is who you got from the Schenn + Simmonds trade).

On an individual basis, yes Voynov is the best. But I disagree that he alone (or with Loktionov) is better than either 2007 or 2009, drafts where the Kings picked up seven regular NHLers combined, including top six players. But I guess that's fine, I'm glad you have such a high opinion of Voynov, I as well think he's going to be a stud. I think we are just debating the peak level of Voynov here, and I think we can agree we both think he's got huge upside.

 

[Amadeus]

Follow Tim Burke around. Simple.

 

[Sticks and Pucks]

On an individual basis, yes Voynov is the best. But I disagree that he alone (or with Loktionov) is better than either 2007 or 2009, drafts where the Kings picked up seven regular NHLers combined, including top six players. But I guess that's fine, I'm glad you have such a high opinion of Voynov, I as well think he's going to be a stud. I think we are just debating the peak level of Voynov here, and I think we can agree we both think he's got huge upside.

Yeah I can agree with that.

I will just end with this:
Since this thread is about scouting if I were a GM and I had one scout in 2008 who found me just one Slava Voynov (who is already a very good d-man even if he has peaked already) and nothing else versus another scout in 2007 who found me three Dwight Kings (in other words, grinders and bottom pairing d-men), I would personally say that the guy who drafted Voynov did "better". It's easier to replace 3 grinders (farm system, trade away just one draft pick, etc) than it is to replace a #2 d-man. I can see why others would disagree but that's where I stand.

 

[kingsfan]

Yeah I can agree with that.

I will just end with this:
Since this thread is about scouting if I were a GM and I had one scout in 2008 who found me just one Slava Voynov (who is already a very good d-man even if he has peaked already) and nothing else versus another scout in 2007 who found me three Dwight Kings (in other words, grinders and bottom pairing d-men), I would personally say that the guy who drafted Voynov did "better". It's easier to replace 3 grinders (farm system, trade away just one draft pick, etc) than it is to replace a #2 d-man. I can see why others would disagree but that's where I stand.

Agreed. Though the Kings didn't just get Dwight Kings (thank goodness) in those other drafts, which was my point and reason for pushing 2008 below them. But yeah, if all we got from say 2007 was three Dwight Kings, while technically a success, it really wasn't in comparison with drafting Voynov a year later.

To me, a minimum for a successful draft is to get a core player (such as a top four D-man, a starting goalie or a top six forward) and another regular NHL player. So for example in 2007, if all LA got was Simmonds and Martinez, that'd have been break even. Adding in Hickey and King, and some sprinkling of Moller on top, makes it a huge win (even if Hickey wasn't worth that 4th overall pick).

LA's done well at exceeding those expectations since Futa came on board.

 

[Scouter]

Well how you draft well is you have to have the best scouts and send them on good assignments.

Other than that only maybe a handful of teams in the NHL actually do a really good job at scouting, like Detroit for instance were for years finding talent where no one else looked.

It's also not just about drafting, but about how org.'s then deal with their drafted talent, they have to be handled as well as possible for them to have a good shot at the NHL.

 

[Devilspuppet666]

This is kinda a stupid thread IMO (no offense to op)

its not fully on the NHL clubs, people jsut dont understand that, its also about how bad the player wants to be a NHLer

the old "you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink" expression could be used

 

[kingsfan]

This is kinda a stupid thread IMO (no offense to op)

its not fully on the NHL clubs, people jsut dont understand that, its also about how bad the player wants to be a NHLer

the old "you can lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink" expression could be used

And identifying how much a player wants it should factor into a teams decision to draft the guy or not. "Questionable work ethic" is a phrase that's been around as long as scouting has.