The Curse of the Second Round

[gja]

All of this Hog hype had me wondering when was the last time the Canucks drafted a real impact player in the second round. Aside from Demko (jury’s out) and Mason Raymond (who was a fine player in his own right), I couldn’t even remember the last time the Canucks had drafted a player in the second round who made the team. Taylor Ellington was late for his shift at Applebee’s and was unavailable for comment.

So, I did some research. Turns out the Canucks have made 40 second round picks in 51 drafts, given their predilection for trading away second rounders. In those 40 picks, they have drafted a handful of guys who went on to have quality NHL careers (Brent Ashton, Curt Fraser, Jiri Slegr, Dave Scatchard, Raymond). But, in 40 picks, they have drafted exactly one real impact NHL player - Mike Peca.

The fact that Peca made that impact for a different team is just so perfect.

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[Nona Di Giuseppe]

well yeah.

a second rounder turning into a decent nhler, like the ones listed above, is a win.

the hit rate doesn't seem anomalous

 

[Fatass]

well yeah.

a second rounder turning into a decent nhler, like the ones listed above, is a win.

the hit rate doesn't seem anomalous

Which is exactly why, during the rebuilding phase, a competent GM (with a good plan) collects second round picks. A lot of high end D come out of the second round. More picks equals more chances of grabbing one or two of these high end D. Trading away second round picks, like Benning did too much of, was foolish.

 

[Lindgren]

Don't forget Guillaume Brisebois, who was as good as a second round pick ...

 

[Pastor Of Muppetz]

In the past 20 years (other than Hog)..only two, ..Mason Raymond, and Demko,(who I think its safe to say is an NHL goalie).

Canucks have had 13 second round picks since 2001.

 

[RobertKron]

Koltsov and Rodin are probably fine picks, TBH.

Koltsov obviously became an NHL-level player, and Rodin likely would have been if he'd not had his whole weird health saga. The scouts basically did a good job on those two, as far as I'm concerned.

Basically underlines the importance of actually making picks because even promising selections often don't pan out for one reason or another.

Yann Sauve, for example, looked at least promising to hopefully become a useful depth/system player and then got hit by a car at training camp and missed a big chunk of his 20yo rookie pro season.

 

[MS]

All of this Hog hype had me wondering when was the last time the Canucks drafted a real impact player in the second round. Aside from Demko (jury’s out) and Mason Raymond (who was a fine player in his own right), I couldn’t even remember the last time the Canucks had drafted a player in the second round who made the team. Taylor Ellington was late for his shift at Applebee’s and was unavailable for comment.

So, I did some research. Turns out the Canucks have made 40 second round picks in 51 drafts, given their predilection for trading away second rounders. In those 40 picks, they have drafted a handful of guys who went on to have quality NHL careers (Brent Ashton, Curt Fraser, Jiri Slegr, Dave Scatchard, Raymond). But, in 40 picks, they have drafted exactly one real impact NHL player - Mike Peca.

The fact that Peca made that impact for a different team is just so perfect.

I mean, if your standard for 'impact player' doesn't include a 40-goal scorer like Brent Ashton, most teams aren't going to have multiple 'star' type 2nd round picks over their history.

We absolutely smoked our 2nd rounders in the 1990s. Slegr/Cullimore/Peca/Scatchard/Chubarov is the probably best haul of talent from the 2nd round for any team that decade.

Then from 1999-2011 we only had 7 2nd rounders in 13 drafts. Not surprising this period sucked with only Raymond turning out. As noted above, though, Koltsov and Rodin probably turn out in alternate universes where some things happen a bit differently.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Taylor Ellington was late for his shift at Applebee’s and was unavailable for comment.

ouch that’s savage

i have this theory that the second round is where you can really build a franchise. my hunch is that the real value is in the second round because you have dumb GMs (like benning) who just give them away for anything.

chicago and LA both built their multi-cup depth through the second round, and if you look at those teams they’d be picking twice or more in a lot of second rounds. it was obviously strategic.

in four years, LA drafted simmonds, voynov, clifford, and toffoli. chicago had a three year run of bolland, bickell, crawford, and keith.

but this is the important part—betwee 2002 (keith) and 2007 (the kane draft), chicago had thirteen second round picks. obviously they didn’t all hit (2007 were two familiar names: bill sweatt and akim aliu), but they gave themselves much better odds of hitting than benning, who has only had four seconds in six drafts (not counting the first one he inherited).

 

[I am toxic]

All of this Hog hype had me wondering when was the last time the Canucks drafted a real impact player in the second round. Aside from Demko (jury’s out) and Mason Raymond (who was a fine player in his own right), I couldn’t even remember the last time the Canucks had drafted a player in the second round who made the team. Taylor Ellington was late for his shift at Applebee’s and was unavailable for comment.

So, I did some research. Turns out the Canucks have made 40 second round picks in 51 drafts, given their predilection for trading away second rounders. In those 40 picks, they have drafted a handful of guys who went on to have quality NHL careers (Brent Ashton, Curt Fraser, Jiri Slegr, Dave Scatchard, Raymond). But, in 40 picks, they have drafted exactly one real impact NHL player - Mike Peca.

The fact that Peca made that impact for a different team is just so perfect.

Great post, but one quibble 'cause I'm . . . you know.

Jury is not out on Demko - he will be fine. He's already managed to crawl back up to .899 and should be over .900 after tonight's game.

He has some things to work on, but the only reason he isn't putting up better SV% is the brutal team defense that he . . . enjoyed . . . in front of him for his games so far this season, prior to the last couple.

Same with Petey after his first game, well period but anyway (1st rounder obviously) or Hogs after a handful of games.

We don't need to wait and see.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

one thing we have historically been cursed by is european second rounders who either didn't come or went home too soon.

starting with the immortal leif rohlin, there's chubarov, koltsov, and rodin. under more ideal circumstances, all probably would have been regular NHLers at least.

slegr eventually went home too, but not before we'd already traded him away.

 

[Didalee Hed]

one thing we have historically been cursed by is european second rounders who either didn't come or went home too soon.

starting with the immortal leif rohlin, there's chubarov, koltsov, and rodin. under more ideal circumstances, all probably would have been regular NHLers at least.

slegr eventually went home too, but not before we'd already traded him away.

I can’t remember exactly how this was a thing but wasn’t rohlin a late 80s draft pick who they still owned rights to like 15 years later?

 

[rypper]

I was kind of curious to see what's become of some of our failed 2nd round picks. Surprised to see a fair number still playing in various leagues.

Alexandre Mallet has 13 points in 39 games for Vitkovice HC in the Czech Extraliga. Playing with another former Canuck pick Adam Polasek and heavy NHL hitter Roman Polak.

Anton Rodin has 23 points in 25 games with Brynas in the SHL. He's the team captain.

Yann Sauve is playing in France for Grenoble. 4/4/8 in 11 games.

Taylor Ellington last played in Denmark in 13/14 but has since retired.

He's not a second round pick but the last time I did some searching like this I was surprised to see our McDavid antidote, Cole Cassels is still playing in the AHL.

 

[Jyrki21]

We absolutely smoked our 2nd rounders in the 1990s. Slegr/Cullimore/Peca/Scatchard/Chubarov is the probably best haul of talent from the 2nd round for any team that decade.

One of the reasons I don't really like talking about "nth rounders" across eras is because the number of teams in the league has grown, so it starts to lose meaning over time.

For instance, Slegr, Cullimore and Chubarov would all have been late first-rounders today based on their draft position, so comparing them to today's second-rounders feels a bit apples-to-oranges. Hell, Slegr was taken 23rd overall, in the same spot as Ryan Kesler or Brock Boeser, and a spot ahead of Jared McCann... if there really were a curse of the second rounder, which group does it apply to?

It makes more sense to look at fixed blocks, like 20 or 30 players at a time in any year, as forming a cohort.

 

[RussianRacket]

i thought this was going to be about our general inability to get past the second round of the ploffs.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

One of the reasons I don't really like talking about "nth rounders" across eras is because the number of teams in the league has grown, so it starts to lose meaning over time.

For instance, Slegr, Cullimore and Chubarov would all have been late first-rounders today based on their draft position, so comparing them to today's second-rounders feels a bit apples-to-oranges. Hell, Slegr was taken 23rd overall, in the same spot as Ryan Kesler or Brock Boeser, and a spot ahead of Jared McCann... if there really were a curse of the second rounder, which group does it apply to?

It makes more sense to look at fixed blocks, like 20 or 30 players at a time in any year, as forming a cohort.

otoh, because the draft number of a second rounder is proportionate to league size, if we assume the distribution of talent relative to number of teams stays mostly even, an 80s early second rounder in the 20s (say, troy gamble, 25th overall), a 90s early second rounder in the high 20s/low 30s (chubie, 31st), and a 2000s early second rounder in the mid-30s (demko, 36) should theoretically be of the same value to their teams, if not necessarily in abstract rank against all players in the league.

 

[Hit the post]

2nd round pick 'Chubie' would've had a fairly decent NHL career as a 3C had we not lost him to the Russian hockey league. We really missed him during the WCE years.