Reevaluating the “terrible” 2012 draft class

[Filthy Dangles]

Galchenyuk is a bi-perennial 50 point player, that's not disappointing...he's a legitimate top 6 player with those stats.

"bi-perrenial 50 point player"

Yeah, if you have to describe a former top3 overall pick like that..........they probably aren't very good.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Oh, c'mon; you can give yourself a little more credit than that. When he's on the ice, Murray is everything folks thought he would be and then some - a smooth-skating top-pairing guy who quietly makes everyone around him better. The only problem - one that wouldn't have been picked up from scouting - is that he's injured so often that it's challenging at best to rely on him.

You gotta give up this quest to convince everyone that Ryan Murray is a #1D. He isn’t by any measure.

 

[joe dirte]

I remember seeing a lot of down comments over the years about this draft class, with some people citing it as one of the weakest draft classes in history. However once you get past the abysmal 1st overall pick (Remember “Fail for Nail”?). it actually is a pretty talented draft class: Morgan Rielly (5th) put up over 70 points this year and looks like a Norris contender in the next few years, Hampus Lindholm (6th OA) is an elite 2-way defender, Matt Dumba (7th) is already all-star caliber and is set to take over as Minnesota's 1D after Suter slows down, Jacob Trouba (9th) has developed into a top-2 Defender at this point. Filip Forsberg (11th) is a legitimate star you can build a contending forward corps around. Tomas Hertl (17th) scored at nearly a point-per-game pace last season. Last but certainly not least, Andrei Vasilevskiy (19th)is the reigning Vezina winning goalie. On top of all those guys there are lots of solid picks later in the draft that have played valuable roles in the NHL like Olli Maata (22nd) and Brady Skjei (28th). Even Galchenyuk (3rd) who has not met his lofty expectations is still a legit top 6 forward who has scored 30 goals before, and Ryan Murray (2nd) hasn’t been “bad” so much as hobbled by injuries (as we saw this past season).

Overall, this “historically weak” draft class looks pretty stacked with talent, especially on the blue-line.

There are some good dmen, but overal, it's definitely not stacked. It's weak, but some solid D talent came out of it.

The forwards are quite clearly a large step down from most other draft classes, and compare the defense - Rielly, Trouba, Skjei, Maatta, and Murray, to say:

2013 - Seth Jones, Ristolainen, Pesce, Zadorov, Nurse, Morrissey, Theodore, Pulock, and Ben Fricken Harpur.
2014 - Ekblad, Montour, Sanheim, Deangelo (2012 D is much better, but not enough to make up for the amount of offense in that draft, like Point, Ehlers, Draisaitl, Larkin, Pastrnak, Nylander).
2015 - Werenski, Provorov, Hanifin, Carlo, Nutivaara, Chabot, Dermott

There may be some good D, but it doesn't really set itself apart from most years, and the forward talent overall is quite frankly atrocious. only 4 forwards with more than 200 points. Despite having 1 less year to accomplish that, 2013 already has 6. Despite having 2 less years, 2014 already has the same, 4. Despite having 3 less seasons, 2015 already has the same, 4. If Debrincat has another year like last, 2016 will have 4 after this season.

Overall, it's definitely a bad draft class. Average, maybe a little above in terms of dmen, bottom of the barrell for forwards.

 

[Viqsi]

You gotta give up this quest to convince everyone that Ryan Murray is a #1D. He isn’t by any measure.

Thanks for sharing. He's a #1D. Or do you also presume that Marc-Edouard Vlasic was never a #1D?

 

[ABCUser]

You find gems later on in every draft. People remember it as bad because the top-4 picks, players who should have provided the most value, flopped

Yakupov - somehow stuck around for 350 games, total dud. One of the biggest flops in recent history

R.Murray - a solid but not spectacular D who can't stay on the rink, usurped by players like Werenski and Jones and possibly others in the 'Bus

Galchenyuk - 1 noteworthy season, very disappointing player otherwise, a meh complimentary scoring winger

G.Reinhart - don't need to say much.

Reinhart was a great pick for the Islanders. It's a case of one man's garbage is another man's treasure. If Chiarelli wasn't the Oilers GM, it would have been a terrible pick. But knowing that Chia was available to trade with and that Reinhart played juniors in his area, it was genius grabbing him at #4. Besides the Barzal pick, I'm still surprised the Isles couldn't work out getting Hall in that deal. I would have loved to hear what a Chiarelli / Snow conversation sounded like.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Thanks for sharing. He's a #1D. Or do you also presume that Marc-Edouard Vlasic was never a #1D?

I'm just struggling to find much objective info that points to him being #1 or top-pairing. He doesn't score, he doesn't 'push the pace' (impact possession or shots, but also doesn't get caved in).

I view him as a solid 2nd pairing defenseman, someone like Jonas Brodin maybe. Eat 20 or so minutes and make sure nothing bad happens, but won't make anything spectacular happen either.

Obviously, it's not like if you put Brodin or Murray on a first pairing the world falls apart and your team gets caved. We shoehorn players into labels like #2/#3 and I'm not sure how much of a difference there is between those, but ideally slotted, i'd say 2nd pairing.

 

[Viqsi]

I'm just struggling to find much objective info that points to him being #1 or top-pairing. He doesn't score, he doesn't 'push the pace' (impact possession or shots, but also doesn't get caved in).

Look at team record with and without him. Overall and particular teammates.

 

[ESH]

I remember seeing a lot of down comments over the years about this draft class, with some people citing it as one of the weakest draft classes in history. However once you get past the abysmal 1st overall pick (Remember “Fail for Nail”?). it actually is a pretty talented draft class: Morgan Rielly (5th) put up over 70 points this year and looks like a Norris contender in the next few years, Hampus Lindholm (6th OA) is an elite 2-way defender, Matt Dumba (7th) is already all-star caliber and is set to take over as Minnesota's 1D after Suter slows down, Jacob Trouba (9th) has developed into a top-2 Defender at this point. Filip Forsberg (11th) is a legitimate star you can build a contending forward corps around. Tomas Hertl (17th) scored at nearly a point-per-game pace last season. Last but certainly not least, Andrei Vasilevskiy (19th)is the reigning Vezina winning goalie. On top of all those guys there are lots of solid picks later in the draft that have played valuable roles in the NHL like Olli Maata (22nd) and Brady Skjei (28th). Even Galchenyuk (3rd) who has not met his lofty expectations is still a legit top 6 forward who has scored 30 goals before, and Ryan Murray (2nd) hasn’t been “bad” so much as hobbled by injuries (as we saw this past season).

Overall, this “historically weak” draft class looks pretty stacked with talent, especially on the blue-line.

You can go through every draft and claim it’s not bad because there were good players drafted. 2012 has the weakest forward crop for a draft in who knows how long.

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

People called Brian Burke crazy for saying Rielly was #1 on his draft list and he would have picked him first overall.

Pretty legitimate argument now that he's the best player from that draft class.

He's not the best but he's up there for sure. Best in the top 5 though.

Guys in that draft who are worthy of top 5 picks:
- Vasilevsky
- Rielly
- Forsberg
- Dumba
- Slavin

Guys worthy of top 10:
- Murray
- Lindholm
- Trouba
- Hertl
- Teravainen
- Lindell
- Parayko
- Andersen
- Murray
- probably Helleybucyk
- probably Ghost
- probably Wilson

Not a great draft by any means, though... some very good players but a lot of very very middling guys, too. And while there are 3-4 above average starters and 8 or 9 top pair DMen, there will likely be not even 5 top line forwards from the draft.

 

[The Devilish Buffoon]

Galchenyuk is a bi-perennial 50 point player, that's not disappointing...he's a legitimate top 6 player with those stats.

Youre the funniest poster on here by far

 

[Hivemind]

Depends on how you evaluate a draft. Is it only top end talent? Or is it how many career NHL players a draft produces? I'm going to define a career NHLer as 200+ NHL GP, since players in such recent drafts will not have had an opportunity to reach a significantly higher total yet. Similarly, I didn't compare any drafts after 2012, since those players would not have had the same amount of time to establish themselves in the NHL.

The 2012 NHL draft has produced 45 players with 200+ NHL GP
The 2011 NHL draft has produced 44 players with 200+ NHL GP
The 2010 NHL draft has produced 49 players with 200+ NHL GP
The 2009 NHL draft has produced 51 players with 200+ NHL GP

All of these are recent drafts, and some career NHLers are still reaching the 200GP treshold in them, but 2012 has already passed 2011 and looks similarly poised to the three drafts before that. 2012 still has several players that have a very reasonable chance of passing 200 in the next 1-2 years (Kerfoot, Jankowski, Leipsic, Djoos, Sundqvist, etc).

Looking at some older drafts for context. Note that since the larger time elapsed, there will be more players reaching these 200 NHL GP thresholds.

The 2006 NHL draft has produced 42 players with 200+ NHL GP and 26 with 500+ NHL GP
The 2003 NHL draft has produced 69 players with 200+ NHL GP and 46 with 500+ NHL GP
The 2000 NHL draft has produced 46 players with 200+ NHL GP and 32 with 500+ NHL GP
The 1999 NHL draft has produced 41 players with 200+ NHL GP and 23 with 500+ NHL GP

So the 2003 class continues to establish itself as the cream of the crop in almost any evaluation metric, but the 2012 class holds up well when compared to the relatively well regarded 2006 class and is already ahead of the 1999 class and on the verge of matching the 2000 class. So while the names at the top of the 2012 class aren't all that impressive, it doesn't seem to be an outlier in any fashion with regards to the quantity of NHL depth produced.

 

[ottawa]

"bi-perrenial 50 point player"

Yeah, if you have to describe a former top3 overall pick like that..........they probably aren't very good.

Youre the funniest poster on here by far

How many 50 point forwards are there in the league? Galchenyuk is most definitely a top 6 forward, people just have outdated expectations for a top 6 forward...it's not 1983 anymore.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Thanks for sharing. He's a #1D. Or do you also presume that Marc-Edouard Vlasic was never a #1D?

Marc-Edouard Vlasic was one of the very best shot-impact players in the entire league for a half-decade while being absolutely buried in terms of usage and carrying Justin Braun with him. He regularly tilted the ice to the tune of 60% shot share against any star forward opponents had to offer. He won a Gold medal playing shutdown minutes against the best players in the world. He lead the Sharks to a Cup Final in 2016, while being on the ice for TWO even strength goals against in the entire first three rounds (again, that’s 18 games) against the likes of Kopitar, Tarasenko, and Forsberg.

Ryan Murray dreams of being prime Vlasic. Truly, kind of embarrassing that you’d even compare the two.

More interesting is that I haven’t seen a single other Jackets fan come to your defense in your single minded insistence that Ryan Murray is a #1D this summer.

You haven’t provided a shred of objective argument, other than record when he’s in and out of the lineup, which is incredibly deceiving since it doesn’t take into account literally any other factor about what’s going on with the team at the time (other injuries, strength of opponent, hot/cold goaltending).

How many 50 point forwards are there in the league? Galchenyuk is most definitely a top 6 forward, people just have outdated expectations for a top 6 forward...it's not 1983 anymore.

They aren’t mocking your definition of top-6 forward, they’re mocking your claim that Galchenyuk isn’t a disappointment.

 

[Viqsi]

Marc-Edouard Vlasic was one of the very best shot-impact players in the entire league for a half-decade while being absolutely buried in terms of usage and carrying Justin Braun with him. He regularly tilted the ice to the tune of 60% shot share against any star forward opponents had to offer. He won a Gold medal playing shutdown minutes against the best players in the world. He lead the Sharks to a Cup Final in 2016, while being on the ice for TWO even strength goals against in the entire first three rounds (again, that’s 18 games) against the likes of Kopitar, Tarasenko, and Forsberg.

Ryan Murray dreams of being prime Vlasic. Truly, kind of embarrassing that you’d even compare the two.

More interesting is that I haven’t seen a single other Jackets fan come to your defense in your single minded insistence that Ryan Murray is a #1D this summer.

Maybe if it was actually a controversial position to take they would. You're the first to start insisting "no, really, he's not". He had a bit of a coming out party this year. At bare minimum he's top-pairing.

 

[serp]

Some very good goalies and defenseman in the 2012 draft . Forwards are really lacking though . Most any forward from that draft scored in a season is 76 points . Two complete busts drafted in the top 5 don't look good either.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

Interesting class. Despite the depth I'd still call it relatively weak. Although it did include the best 1st round goalie prospect in awhile.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

At least 2013 and 14 had some top end talent at the top end of the draft. Best player taken in the top 10 in 2012 was Morgan Reilly. Good player but not at the level of say Draisatl from 2014.

Yup.

2013: Mackinnon, Barkov, Jones, Monahan, Lindholm, Horvat all elite to high end players. Plus Drouin / Ristolainen.

2014 is a bit weaker, but Draisaitl is a gem. Ekblad, Reinhart, Nylander, Ehlers have all turned out to be good NHLers too.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Maybe if it was actually a controversial position to take they would. You're the first to start insisting "no, really, he's not". He had a bit of a coming out party this year. At bare minimum he's top-pairing.

I have yet to see a single other person than you claim that Ryan Murray is a #1D.

 

[alko]

How many individual trophies and Stanley Cups is connected with this draft year?

 

[Regal]

I'm just struggling to find much objective info that points to him being #1 or top-pairing. He doesn't score, he doesn't 'push the pace' (impact possession or shots, but also doesn't get caved in).

I view him as a solid 2nd pairing defenseman, someone like Jonas Brodin maybe. Eat 20 or so minutes and make sure nothing bad happens, but won't make anything spectacular happen either.

Obviously, it's not like if you put Brodin or Murray on a first pairing the world falls apart and your team gets caved. We shoehorn players into labels like #2/#3 and I'm not sure how much of a difference there is between those, but ideally slotted, i'd say 2nd pairing.

He was really good last year. 55.2 GF% 5v5 (2nd among Clb defensemen to Savard), 53.7 xGF% 5v5 (1st among Clb defensemen), 52.7 SCF% 5v5 (1st among Clb defensemen) and 24 5v5 points (one behind Werenski and tied with Jones), despite playing only 59 games. In fact, his 1.47 P/60 at 5v5 was actually 7th among all defensemen (after Gio, Rielly, Burns, Letang, Weber and Chabot), and he paced for 40 points with all but 1 point coming at ES. His on-ice shooting percentage suggests regression and he hasn't played that well before, but he was arguably better than Jones in the regular season.

 

[VoluntaryDom]

Who's better? I mean Forsberg has a decent case, so I wouldn't argue too much if someone said he was the best '12 draftee. Other than him, I'm drawing blanks.

hampus lindholm

 

[VoluntaryDom]

Thanks for sharing. He's a #1D. Or do you also presume that Marc-Edouard Vlasic was never a #1D?

i wouldnt call him a 1d but his 18-19 was much better than his previous 2 seasons. hes a #3 at worst.

 

[nturn06]

People called Brian Burke crazy for saying Rielly was #1 on his draft list and he would have picked him first overall.

Pretty legitimate argument now that he's the best player from that draft class.

The problem with BB is that he only came out saying that he had Yakupov on the do not draft list and Rielly at #1 many years after the draft.

It is amazing how badly he failed as GM in Toronto given how he was never wrong in evaluating players and their future careers...

 

[MessierII]

Still the worst draft in recent history at the top

 

[Voight]

The problem with BB is that he only came out saying that he had Yakupov on the do not draft list and Rielly at #1 many years after the draft.

It is amazing how badly he failed as GM in Toronto given how he was never wrong in evaluating players and their future careers...

No he didn't.



7:22-7:35 of the video you can hear him tell Bettman that he had Rielly ranked #1 and Bettman says "not bad, funny how things work out"

Burke thrilled after Maple Leafs draft defenceman Morgan Rielly fifth overall

In this article he says it literally the night of the draft.