Prospect Info: Ty Mueller: 105th Overall 2023 Draft (Nebraska-Omaha) - C

[bossram]

I actually went through and crunched the numbers on this several years ago and it's definitely the case (and you can see this just by eyeballing the hits) but I can't find the post now.

Fair enough.

I think part of the hubbub over these guys is not really that they're OAs...but they don't seem particularly impressive for OAs. Moreso Perkins. Mueller is a good NCAA player already.

 

[MS]

Fair enough.

I think part of the hubbub over these guys is not really that they're OAs...but they don't seem particularly impressive for OAs. Moreso Perkins. Mueller is a good NCAA player already.

And I don't overly disagree with that.

It is worth noting that it doesn't look like Perkins got much PP time and his ES scoring is right there with the leaders on his team.

 

[RobsonStreet]

Not that I’m aware of. My confidence level isn’t 100%, but I do think it’s a smart strategy worth exploring with little downside.

To your second point, that applies to the draft generally. Why even make selections at all if it only works when you identify the right prospects?

I could probably code a scraper and model that tests this, but my stumbling blocks would be: what draft years to include, what draft rounds to look at, and what sort of outcome people would agree shows there is/is not an advantage to this strategy.

 

[Vector]

Pronman's brief comments.

Scouts like his skill, goal scoring ability and skating. Whether he’s dynamic enough at 5-foot-11 will be the question for him in the pros.

 

[God]

It's a legit question. I asked Calhoun if there was any systematic evidence that double OAs performed better than the average draft pick, and he basically said he didn't know.

I suspect that this would be easy to look at...if I just look at Colton's team in his draft year, 5 of the 6 top scorers have played an NHL game already, and 4 of those 5 would've been overagers if they were selected Cedar Rapids RoughRiders 2015-16 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

I'm gonna guess that it largely depends on the team development system (e.g. chicago steel) but I really wonder what's different in going this route.

 

[God]

I could probably code a scraper and model that tests this, but my stumbling blocks would be: what draft years to include, what draft rounds to look at, and what sort of outcome people would agree shows there is/is not an advantage to this strategy.

I think you would scrape out every USHL season from 2006-07 to... say, 2018-19 (I'm not sure about how COVID would affect development) and try to look at point production to see if there's a correlation between that and playing an NHL game, which I think is a pretty decent achievement if we're thinking about mid to late draft picks. Once you do that, you can stratify the players based on draft position, and also check if it makes a difference if it's D+0, D+1, D+2, etc. I suspect there will be no difference between later and undrafted, and if Tampa has it right, D+0/D+1/D+2 should not be that different either.

 

[Bitz and Bites]

Sure, the kind of undersized skill players available in later rounds like Palmu and Lockhart put up junior numbers that look impressive but even in their best case scenarios, these guy often end up as NHL tweeners who aren’t good enough to make the top 6 and aren’t suited at all for the bottom six and end up in Europe or bouncing around the AHL.

With our next coming cap crunch from the OEL buyout and Pettersson and Hronek’s new contracts we’re going to need a steady supply of sub 1M players to step into bottom six roles in a couple years.
If management sees these types of players as good candidates for those spots then it’s probably prudent to get them into the system and hopefully signed before they become UFA’s at the end of their college career and have to compete with a bunch of other teams for them.

 

[Jyrki21]

But yeah, those 'big upside' picks really don't turn out any different. Really, in terms of actually 'mattering' rounds 4-7 could be eliminated from the draft and literally nothing would change as they're functionally mostly a waste of time. I love the draft and scouting so I'm happy they're there, but I try to separate 'this interests me' from 'this is actually affecting the fortunes of my team'.

This is a fair point, but I'd guess -- and I stand to be corrected -- that most of the later-round players who turn out to be better than replacement level still scored noticeably more in their draft years (in whatever level they were playing) than a lot of the guys who don't. Quite apart from the few (but by no means unicornish) ones who actually turn out to be stars.

 

[MS]

This is a fair point, but I'd guess -- and I stand to be corrected -- that most of the later-round players who turn out to be better than replacement level still scored noticeably more in their draft years (in whatever level they were playing) than a lot of the guys who don't. Quite apart from the few (but by no means unicornish) ones who actually turn out to be stars.

Absolutely, this is generally somewhat true, although some weird stuff happens.

And I can't stress this enough : the USHL is *weird*.

Like, I've followed the CHL my whole life. I've been a WHL season ticket holder. I know those leagues inside-out and I understand well what I'm watching and what the stats mean and what tends to project and what doesn't. But the USHL I have no clue. It doesn't make sense. Guys like Aidan McDonough and Adam Gaudette were unpopular picks here and their production at their respective ages in the WHL or OHL simply wouldn't project at all. And the USHL is theoretically a worse league, but both guys ended up in the NHL. And that happens a lot in that league - we were discussing the Colton/Koepke/Perbix TB trio earlier and these were all OA/double OA guys with seemingly very iffy production in that league who reached the NHL, and two of them are legitimately good NHL players.

I think that the reason is that for non-elite/middling prospects the USHL->NCAA age 19-23->AHL is a more realistic/attainable progression that allows guys to keep developing year over year and keep improving for many years whereas the CHL->massive jump to the AHL and get destroyed thing just ends the development and progression of a lot of kids. Or they go to CIS and they might as well be playing on the moon at that point.

So I've seen this movie before and learned from it and I guess I don't have the same reaction when we pick a middling-producing USHL guy, because it seems inevitable that that player will be a pretty dynamic NCAA scorer in 3-4 years.

 

[credulous]

ushl numbers are generally meaningless. it's a developmental league not a competitive one and things get weird as a result

again, i have no idea about value but i actually recognized this player when selected from remembering his games and i think he'll be a decent pro at some level. spending a 4th to get access to him prior to leaving college doesn't seem like a bad price to pay

 

[bossram]

I suspect that this would be easy to look at...if I just look at Colton's team in his draft year, 5 of the 6 top scorers have played an NHL game already, and 4 of those 5 would've been overagers if they were selected Cedar Rapids RoughRiders 2015-16 roster and scoring statistics at hockeydb.com

I'm gonna guess that it largely depends on the team development system (e.g. chicago steel) but I really wonder what's different in going this route.

This not a systematic analysis. It’s barely more than picking anecdotes.

It’s plausible this is a real strategy. But this isn’t evidence of it.

 

[God]

This not a systematic analysis. It’s barely more than picking anecdotes.

It’s plausible this is a real strategy. But this isn’t evidence of it.

I didn't say it was, and posted a more succint strategy in another post. That was just a cursory look as an example. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

[ahmon]

Absolutely, this is generally somewhat true, although some weird stuff happens.

And I can't stress this enough : the USHL is *weird*.

Like, I've followed the CHL my whole life. I've been a WHL season ticket holder. I know those leagues inside-out and I understand well what I'm watching and what the stats mean and what tends to project and what doesn't. But the USHL I have no clue. It doesn't make sense. Guys like Aidan McDonough and Adam Gaudette were unpopular picks here and their production at their respective ages in the WHL or OHL simply wouldn't project at all. And the USHL is theoretically a worse league, but both guys ended up in the NHL. And that happens a lot in that league - we were discussing the Colton/Koepke/Perbix TB trio earlier and these were all OA/double OA guys with seemingly very iffy production in that league who reached the NHL, and two of them are legitimately good NHL players.

I think that the reason is that for non-elite/middling prospects the USHL->NCAA age 19-23->AHL is a more realistic/attainable progression that allows guys to keep developing year over year and keep improving for many years whereas the CHL->massive jump to the AHL and get destroyed thing just ends the development and progression of a lot of kids. Or they go to CIS and they might as well be playing on the moon at that point.

So I've seen this movie before and learned from it and I guess I don't have the same reaction when we pick a middling-producing USHL guy, because it seems inevitable that that player will be a pretty dynamic NCAA scorer in 3-4 years.

I have watched quite a bit of USHL over the years. And the talent has improved a lot over the years.

If I had to compare USHL with CHL, CHL does have elite talent like your Mcdavid, Bedard etc. While the best American 17 year olds either go selected into the US development team or some fast track and play NCAA (like Quinn Hughes).

*Technically the US development team is part of the USHL - they play against USHL and NCAA teams.

so there's less elite talent but because there's less USHL teams than CHL, there's more parity and talent is more concentrated which can make it harder to put up the production.

 

[racerjoe]

I actually remember the OA debate @MS is talking about. It was started back when we were discussing drafting of Gillis vs Benning, and people were laughing at the Mallet pick/draft. It was discovered the thought process was correct with the wrong target.

 

[MS]

I actually remember the OA debate @MS is talking about. It was started back when we were discussing drafting of Gillis vs Benning, and people were laughing at the Mallet pick/draft. It was discovered the thought process was correct with the wrong target.

Yeah, it was 7 or 8 years ago and I remember putting a fair bit of time into actually crunching some numbers.

We took Ben Hutton as an OA in the same draft as Mallet and that was a home run, but someone nobody ever remembers that.

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Mueller is listed as center but the Canuck release shows him as a LW.

 

[ChilliBilly]

People asked why we just didn't sign as a FA after the draft? Doesn't that mean that he is now a pro and can't go back to Univ? He probably would be hesitant to sign a pro contract and not be able to return to school ..... right? Or am I missing something.

 

[alternate]

People asked why we just didn't sign as a FA after the draft? Doesn't that mean that he is now a pro and can't go back to Univ? He probably would be hesitant to sign a pro contract and not be able to return to school ..... right? Or am I missing something.

It does mean that, yes. Of course there's a realistic possibility he'd take the contract and can go back to school afterwards, but he can't officially have an agent, and wasn't exactly a high profile name that would expect to get offered a contract.

And if you do sign him, then what? University is out. Would he have a spot in the CHL? Throw him in the deep end, use a contract slot, and let him sink or swim in Abby? Send him to Finland to play pro? I dunno, obviously he's a long shot, but realistically letting him have another year of NCAA hockey is probably the best path for his development, and the only way to ensure you get him AND let him have at least his junior season is to draft him.

 

[StreetHawk]

People asked why we just didn't sign as a FA after the draft? Doesn't that mean that he is now a pro and can't go back to Univ? He probably would be hesitant to sign a pro contract and not be able to return to school ..... right? Or am I missing something.

Correct. NCAA players can't sign a pro deal and return to the NCAA.

 

[lawrence]

I don’t think much has changed with our drafting.

 

[Izzy Goodenough]

The draft analyists (Robinson etc.) are saying this is a wasted pick.
They should fire their Scouting staff and hire a Mr. Potatohead with specialized knowledge of hockey.

 

[MarkMM]

Sure, the kind of undersized skill players available in later rounds like Palmu and Lockhart put up junior numbers that look impressive but even in their best case scenarios, these guy often end up as NHL tweeners who aren’t good enough to make the top 6 and aren’t suited at all for the bottom six and end up in Europe or bouncing around the AHL.

With our next coming cap crunch from the OEL buyout and Pettersson and Hronek’s new contracts we’re going to need a steady supply of sub 1M players to step into bottom six roles in a couple years.
If management sees these types of players as good candidates for those spots then it’s probably prudent to get them into the system and hopefully signed before they become UFA’s at the end of their college career and have to compete with a bunch of other teams for them.

This would be the only thing that could make our drafting strategy past round three make sense, and the hopeful thing about that would be that unlike the #DaytoDayBenning this would show that current management is actually planning ahead and I could forgive them for the later drafting strategy this year.

That said, I'm kind of with Trotz's thinking in that those depth players can be found on waiver or free agent time, even without paying premium. There are probably more hard working, tenacious gritty players than there are bottom line jobs in the NHL, so I'd rather we do more Tyler Motte and Dakota Joshua moves while we reserve our draft spots for high upside swing for the fences type moves.

 

[Gstank]

I like this pick. 20 year old with good NCAA numbers on a middling Div 1 team. At worst he doesnt sign out of college and we dont have to use a contract spot on him to see him develope before making a decisions like with CHL overagers. Best case he developes into a player who will go to Abby out of College and then we will have a better idea of his development curve.

 

[Bitz and Bites]

This would be the only thing that could make our drafting strategy past round three make sense, and the hopeful thing about that would be that unlike the #DaytoDayBenning this would show that current management is actually planning ahead and I could forgive them for the later drafting strategy this year.

That said, I'm kind of with Trotz's thinking in that those depth players can be found on waiver or free agent time, even without paying premium. There are probably more hard working, tenacious gritty players than there are bottom line jobs in the NHL, so I'd rather we do more Tyler Motte and Dakota Joshua moves while we reserve our draft spots for high upside swing for the fences type moves.

It’s not always easy to find the right price on bottom six guys when you really need them, especially if you have to bid against 31 other teams for UFA’s on July 1st. We just paid 1.9M for Teddy Blueger to be a 3/4 C but we probably won’t have that luxury when the OEL buyout takes a 4M plus chunk of cap space in a couple years. We’re likely better off having cheap home grown players who are already familiar with the organization than to get into bidding wars for players that might or might not want to play here or be a good fit.

I find the late round guys with high upside petty much never make it as everyday NHLers. Rathbone is a prime example, plenty of upside but he’s not good enough to bump Hughes or Hronek for the prime offensive minutes he’d need to utilize his skill set and he’s not suited for bottom pairing or PK duty so he’s basically an AHLer. Most later round skill forwards end up in the sort of situation, not good enough for the top six and not gritty or defensively savvy enough for the bottom six. Gaudette is a good example of this.

 

[Bubbles]

This goes quite opposite to Allvin last year banging the table saying he doesnt want to aim for prospects who have low upside and instead to swing for the fences. That's unfortunate. But this player's NCAA statline is not weak and I'm fine with the risk. But the drafting philosophy needs to be there.

Really depends on what that means to Allvin. It might mean something else for someone else.

Do you take a guy that has a lot of speed but no IQ or hands?

Do you take a huge guy that has skating issues?

Do you take a 5'8 or 5'7 forward that scores a lot?

One thing I want the Canucks to do in the super late rounds is take an unknown from a non-hockey dominant hockey. I'm intrigued by a few picks this year like Antoine Keller from France and Vladimir Nikitin from Kazakhstan (who is coming to the BCHL this year).