What is considered a successful draft?

[SoftDumpInTheCorner]

Just looking at other teams and the Sharks draft history and I asked myself what do other people consider a good draft?

Lets say you get your standard seven picks, what number of those picks have to go on to have NHL careers in order to consider the team's draft a success? If your team has 2 out of the 7 picks make the NHL and make it to their UFA contracts would you consider that a successful draft? If you only had one player stick who ended up being a top 6 forward or top 4 defenseman that wasn't a 1st rd pick, is that draft considered a success?

Click to read more...

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

Normal Teams: 2
Sharks: 3-4

I expect more from the one of the best drafting teams in the league.

 

[SirKillalot]

I think it would be more about how many players you can get out of a 5 year span.

If you look at your team. How many players on your team should be drafted within the franchise to be seen as a team that's successful in drafts.

In 5 years you have potentially 35 drafted players.

I think one should have for at least 50%. Not all of these would make the team, some would get traded for other assets.

But yeah, it will give around 3 players pr. draft.

 

[Led Zappa]

 

[hockeyball]

My bet is the teams above the Sharks have likely historically been worse teams as well. I bet the average draft position of those teams is higher (maybe quite a bit higher) than the Sharks. Detroit is the only team that might hold a candle to the Sharks overall, and they've been falling off lately.

Basically, the Sharks may be the best drafting team in the NHL, and yet we still harp on them for picking guys like Mueller and Meier. It might just be possible they know more than we do...

 

[Pinkfloyd]

My bet is the teams above the Sharks have likely historically been worse teams as well. I bet the average draft position of those teams is higher (maybe quite a bit higher) than the Sharks. Detroit is the only team that might hold a candle to the Sharks overall, and they've been falling off lately.

Basically, the Sharks may be the best drafting team in the NHL, and yet we still harp on them for picking guys like Mueller and Meier. It might just be possible they know more than we do...

They're certainly successful at drafting most types of players. The problem is that one of their biggest weaknesses overall and one of their biggest weakness in drafting is getting something that is supremely important to all teams trying to be a Cup contender. That's getting that legit #1 d-man. They've never drafted a player that they could build their team around. That's a pretty big thing missing when we're going to start doling out credit for drafting.

 

[5H4RK5]

Full range roster refill so you don't have down years and always playoff contenders. You should fill all bottom 6 lines with draft picks and the 1st and 2nd rounders should be top 6 lines and top 4 defenseman as well as depth at goalie. You should have a ton of cap room to sign guys that finish our roster and load up.

 

[hohosaregood]

They're certainly successful at drafting most types of players. The problem is that one of their biggest weaknesses overall and one of their biggest weakness in drafting is getting something that is supremely important to all teams trying to be a Cup contender. That's getting that legit #1 d-man. They've never drafted a player that they could build their team around. That's a pretty big thing missing when we're going to start doling out credit for drafting.

More basic than that, they have not been good at drafting PMDs, especially ones that can put up offense. Like I can count three since 2001 that have been considered offensively minded and gifted in the NHL:Ehrhoff, Demers, and Carle. However, that seems to be changing but results are coming along slowly.

They're also not very good at getting goalies anymore. It's been awhile since Stalock was drafted.

Sharks strength at drafting has been predominantly two way forwards and defensively minded defensemen.

 

[KirbyDots]

They're certainly successful at drafting most types of players. The problem is that one of their biggest weaknesses overall and one of their biggest weakness in drafting is getting something that is supremely important to all teams trying to be a Cup contender. That's getting that legit #1 d-man. They've never drafted a player that they could build their team around. That's a pretty big thing missing when we're going to start doling out credit for drafting.

This is true but I think we're moving to remedy said problem. The Roy pick is a step the right direction. Most of the problems with not drafting elite talent can be explained away by not having high picks, also the Sharks tend to draft safer players and seem a little more risk adverse. This is also changing as they seem to be shifting toward skill. It will be interesting to see how our drafting looks in another 5 years.

 

[MardocAgain]

They're certainly successful at drafting most types of players. The problem is that one of their biggest weaknesses overall and one of their biggest weakness in drafting is getting something that is supremely important to all teams trying to be a Cup contender. That's getting that legit #1 d-man. They've never drafted a player that they could build their team around. That's a pretty big thing missing when we're going to start doling out credit for drafting.

At this moment there is a thread in the NHL forum listing #1Dmen and >50% of posters seem to be listing Vlasic. Though I disagree about Vlasic being a true #1, I think he's clearly just below the mark. True #1 dmen in the mold of a Chara/Keith/Weber are very hard to come by and sometimes seem to be more luck than skill by way of drafting considering very few were top 10 picks let alone 1st rounders. My point is I find it hard to fault the org for failing to fine a diamond considering how luck based I consider it to be and we have had reasonable success finding too 4 guys.

 

[Sharksrule04]

I think it completely depends on what picks you have but the obvious answer is getting NHL production. Any draft in which you get 2 or more NHLers has to be considered a success for most teams. If you have a top 5 pick or multiple first rounders then I'd say it really depends on the impact of the players, but for the average team I'd say getting 1 full time NHLer who contributes positively is considered an ok/good draft and getting 2 NHLers is considered a successful draft. The higher the picks the more contribution I'd expect.

 

[TheHockeyRant]

Getting 2 future NHL players that will go on to play a solid 800 games in their career is a successful draft.

Whether or not they play for your team is where you have to question as to whom benefited from said draft. 2008 is a perfect example, Wingels/ Demers are the only 2 who will probably go on to accomplish this feat. BUT if Dillon doesn't pan out then that draft doesn't look as promising.

With this in mind lets take a quick look at the Sharks drafts since 2004.

04 (Griess, Mitchell) still a bust year due to the 1st round pick
05 (Setoguchi, Vlasic, Stalock) A solid year with Burns factored in
06 (McGinn) bust year, even more so now that he is gone
07 (Couture, Bonino, Braun) If Bonino wasn't traded this would be hands down the best
08 (Wingels, Demers) Good but we have to see how Dillon works out
09 Total bust
10 (Coyle) Even factoring in Burns still makes this a huge bust year
11 (Nieto) doubtful anyone else comes up so another meh year.

From 2012 and onward is too early to tell as this point, but from 2013 onward from an early standpoint the Sharks drafting LOOKS like it has improved. From 09-11 the team only drafter two NHL caliber players and from 12-14 they may triple that number with ease.

 

[Patty Ice]

They're also not very good at getting goalies anymore. It's been awhile since Stalock was drafted.

That wasn't so much as the Sharks picking the right goalie. That was Warren Strelow coaching a guy up into an awesome goalie. It is no coincidence that it has become an issue ever since he passed away.

 

[Led Zappa]

Getting 2 future NHL players that will go on to play a solid 800 games in their career is a successful draft.

Whether or not they play for your team is where you have to question as to whom benefited from said draft. 2008 is a perfect example, Wingels/ Demers are the only 2 who will probably go on to accomplish this feat. BUT if Dillon doesn't pan out then that draft doesn't look as promising.

With this in mind lets take a quick look at the Sharks drafts since 2004.

04 (Griess, Mitchell) still a bust year due to the 1st round pick
05 (Setoguchi, Vlasic, Stalock) A solid year with Burns factored in
06 (McGinn) bust year, even more so now that he is gone
07 (Couture, Bonino, Braun) If Bonino wasn't traded this would be hands down the best
08 (Wingels, Demers) Good but we have to see how Dillon works out
09 Total bust
10 (Coyle) Even factoring in Burns still makes this a huge bust year
11 (Nieto) doubtful anyone else comes up so another meh year.

From 2012 and onward is too early to tell as this point, but from 2013 onward from an early standpoint the Sharks drafting LOOKS like it has improved. From 09-11 the team only drafter two NHL caliber players and from 12-14 they may triple that number with ease.

You're making it look much worse than it is. I like how you started at 2004 to cut out Michalek and Bernier and Pavelski. Here is a summary of just 1rst round picks since 2003. Also, trading away first rounds to put a team over the top is common practice. I also disagree that trading Coyle makes that year a bust. I'll take a Burns over Coyle+ any day of the week.

This prior post of mine along with the Sharks infographic of our success far outweighs your attempt at making the Sharks drafting look like dog crap.

Year|Original Pick|Actual Pick|Traded For|Traded Away|Player|Comments
2003|7|7|0|0|Michalek|
2003|0|16|0|0|Bernier|Had #21 Pick for Owen Nolan Trade which became 16th pick
2004|28|22|22|28|Kaspar|
2005|12|8|8|12|Setoguchi|
2006|20|16|16|20|Wishart|
2007|22|9|9|22|Couture|
2007|0|28|28|0|Petrecki|Acquired with 2 2nd Round picks
2007|0|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Guerin - Acquired pick for Korky
2008|26|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Campbell
2009|26|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Dan Boyle
2010|28|28|0|0|Coyle|
2011|28|0|0|28|No Pick|Trade for Burns
2012|17|17|0|0|Hertl|
2013|20|18|18|20|Mueller|
2014|20|27|27|20|Goldobin|
Total|12|11|7|9||
Average|21.17|17.82|18.29|25.3||

 

[Juxtaposer]

My bet is the teams above the Sharks have likely historically been worse teams as well. I bet the average draft position of those teams is higher (maybe quite a bit higher) than the Sharks. Detroit is the only team that might hold a candle to the Sharks overall, and they've been falling off lately.

Basically, the Sharks may be the best drafting team in the NHL, and yet we still harp on them for picking guys like Mueller and Meier. It might just be possible they know more than we do...

The Sharks are very good at drafting Meier and Mueller types: 2nd liners and #4 defensemen. And those players have value. The problem is that the Sharks refuse to take risks in the 1st round to yield a possible star. No one is questioning our late-round drafting and no one is questioning our ability to draft middle-six forwards and bottom-4 defensemen. What the Sharks do remarkably poorly is draft stars, and unfortunately home-grown stars are what win Stanley Cups. For example, we skipped over Kopitar (with our head of scouting actually saying he though he was all hype, yikes!), and that obviously has been our undoing.

 

[The Nemesis]

This is such an open question that it's hard to pin down a consistent, concrete, and cleanly delineated answer. If you get one superstar player out of a draft and nothing else of value, does it make it automatically successful? Does it matter if that player was taken out of the 1st round or the 6th? Does it matter if you hit on that 1 star in a draft where you had 8 picks vs one where you had just 5? What if you trade every single pick in your draft but one, but that one pick made ends up being great? Is it a great draft because you batted 1.000 in a small sample size? Or do you question the returns on those trades, especially if it was considered a strong draft and you might've gotten more good players from it?

Is there a set # of players that makes a draft successful? Is it 3? If you get players to each play 500 games in the NHL, is it a good draft? What if all 3 of those players are depth guys (4th liners, bottom-pairing D, a platoon or backup goalie who gets 15-20 games a year)?

What if I told you you could have a draft where you'll hit on 4 of your 10 picks for a total of 1,200 games? That sounds successful by some standards. But what if that draft was Columbus' 2003 draft where they got Nikita Zherdev, Dan Fristche, Philippe Dupuis, and Marc Methot? Now it seems kind of awful that in a draft of historic reverence they got the biggest 1st round bust not named Hugh Jessiman a pair of forgettable role players, and a guy whose biggest NHL contributions have come in another uniform.

The Sharks in 1998 got over 2000 NHL games from their draft. Is it important that almost half of those were from Marco Sturm, and the other half came from the largely-considered-disappointing Andrei Zyuzin at #2 and good depth guy Matt Bradley in round 4 (who accumulated the largest majority of his games in the NHL outside of a Sharks sweater)

What about using picks or prospects as trade chips? Does trading Setoguchi in the Burns package redeem his value a little bit? Does Charlie Coyle become a "good" pick for the Sharks value-wise because his primary value for the team was in that trade (simply becuase he didn't have time to build up any in-organization value contributions)?

I realize this seems like kind of a weasely non-answer, but I feel that there are too many moving parts in a draft and outcomes to be able to set hard criteria on what does and doesn't count as a "successful" draft based on simple thresholds like "X games played from at least Y players or Z% of players selected"

A successful draft kind of seems like that famous quote about pornography: I don't know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it.

 

[SnarkAttack]

The Sharks are very good at drafting Meier and Mueller types: 2nd liners and #4 defensemen. And those players have value. The problem is that the Sharks refuse to take risks in the 1st round to yield a possible star. No one is questioning our late-round drafting and no one is questioning our ability to draft middle-six forwards and bottom-4 defensemen. What the Sharks do remarkably poorly is draft stars, and unfortunately home-grown stars are what win Stanley Cups. For example, we skipped over Kopitar (with our head of scouting actually saying he though he was all hype, yikes!), and that obviously has been our undoing.

This is why it's so hard to rate the Sharks' drafting. If you're looking for useful players the Sharks have done amazing, but if you're looking for high end talent, they've never drafted and elite player. Pavelski, Couture, Marleau, and Vlasic are damn good players, but Doughty/Kopitar they ain't.

Edit: Spare me your varying definitions of "elite," you know the point I am making.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

Nem makes some really good points.

I think we need to draw a line between draft history and a single draft. I think we have had a lot of successful drafts based on the number of NHL players that we generate. I am generalizing a bit but if you have 2+ NHL players from a draft, it is fairly successful.

The issue that I have with our drafting is the lack of success we have had with drafting elite players. We have had no success with that over the entire history of our organization. Not one elite player was drafted and developed through our systems. That failing however, is more indicative of how our drafting style and philosophy is.

Nem makes some really good points. I was thinking of this in terms of school grades. Over a 5 year period you can get an overall B every year and end the 5 years with the same overall B. Or you can get a C, B+, C+, A+, C (making this up) and still end up with the same overall B. That A+ being the year that you drafted the elite player. Assuming a B or better is considered a success, the first case has 5 successful drafts and the latter only has 2.

Which of this would be better for us long term though? No way of saying for sure but seeing how important an elite/franchise player has been to an organizations success, I would lean towards getting an elite player as being the most important thing for our organization.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

At this moment there is a thread in the NHL forum listing #1Dmen and >50% of posters seem to be listing Vlasic. Though I disagree about Vlasic being a true #1, I think he's clearly just below the mark. True #1 dmen in the mold of a Chara/Keith/Weber are very hard to come by and sometimes seem to be more luck than skill by way of drafting considering very few were top 10 picks let alone 1st rounders. My point is I find it hard to fault the org for failing to fine a diamond considering how luck based I consider it to be and we have had reasonable success finding too 4 guys.

Vlasic is a #1 d-man but he's not the kind of d-man you build your blue line around. He's a #1 d-man by default because the Sharks don't have that kind of d-man. He's a #1 if you argue that there are 30 #1 d-men in the NHL. But he's just not a franchise cornerstone type of defenseman because he doesn't have the complete package.

Lucky for the Sharks, you don't need a top five pick to draft one of those kinds of blue liners but they just haven't done it yet. The issue only is worsened by the fact that they're not drafting goalies well since Strelow died. That's where they're going to be stuck in this mediocre limbo for the foreseeable future. They're great at drafting secondary and tertiary level talent and that keeps them afloat. With how this team operates, it's the d-men first and foremost that they need to figure out how to draft and develop at a high level with high quality and then goaltending. Forwards should be bottom on the list even with Thornton and Marleau being close to the end. I hope Roy can be a part of that solution because it would be of great help long-term for this team to get a cornerstone blue liner to build around.

 

[Sleepy]

It's really easy to develop 40-60 point wingers through the draft if you're going to gift them a spot on JT's line.

 

[TheHockeyRant]

You're making it look much worse than it is. I like how you started at 2004 to cut out Michalek and Bernier and Pavelski. Here is a summary of just 1rst round picks since 2003. Also, trading away first rounds to put a team over the top is common practice. I also disagree that trading Coyle makes that year a bust. I'll take a Burns over Coyle+ any day of the week.

This prior post of mine along with the Sharks infographic of our success far outweighs your attempt at making the Sharks drafting look like dog crap.

Year|Original Pick|Actual Pick|Traded For|Traded Away|Player|Comments
2003|7|7|0|0|Michalek|
2003|0|16|0|0|Bernier|Had #21 Pick for Owen Nolan Trade which became 16th pick
2004|28|22|22|28|Kaspar|
2005|12|8|8|12|Setoguchi|
2006|20|16|16|20|Wishart|
2007|22|9|9|22|Couture|
2007|0|28|28|0|Petrecki|Acquired with 2 2nd Round picks
2007|0|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Guerin - Acquired pick for Korky
2008|26|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Campbell
2009|26|0|0|26|No Pick|Trade for Dan Boyle
2010|28|28|0|0|Coyle|
2011|28|0|0|28|No Pick|Trade for Burns
2012|17|17|0|0|Hertl|
2013|20|18|18|20|Mueller|
2014|20|27|27|20|Goldobin|
Total|12|11|7|9||
Average|21.17|17.82|18.29|25.3||

#1 my purpose was not to make the Sharks drafting look like crap. Because truth be told they draft better than the majority of the league period end of story. You are merely putting words in my mouth and for that you should be ashamed.

#2; I started at 04 because that's when the Wilson era started (I'm one of the few who has been supporting DW thru these past few seasons btw) [mod]
But yes I did overlook the entire premise of trading picks BEFORE the draft so kudos to you for that. But the entire point of this discussion was to see how the Sharks drafted NOT how they managed their future assets. Trades and Draft picks are a different breed entirely.

 

[Patty Ice]

This is such an open question that it's hard to pin down a consistent, concrete, and cleanly delineated answer. If you get one superstar player out of a draft and nothing else of value, does it make it automatically successful? Does it matter if that player was taken out of the 1st round or the 6th? Does it matter if you hit on that 1 star in a draft where you had 8 picks vs one where you had just 5? What if you trade every single pick in your draft but one, but that one pick made ends up being great? Is it a great draft because you batted 1.000 in a small sample size? Or do you question the returns on those trades, especially if it was considered a strong draft and you might've gotten more good players from it?

Is there a set # of players that makes a draft successful? Is it 3? If you get players to each play 500 games in the NHL, is it a good draft? What if all 3 of those players are depth guys (4th liners, bottom-pairing D, a platoon or backup goalie who gets 15-20 games a year)?

What if I told you you could have a draft where you'll hit on 4 of your 10 picks for a total of 1,200 games? That sounds successful by some standards. But what if that draft was Columbus' 2003 draft where they got Nikita Zherdev, Dan Fristche, Philippe Dupuis, and Marc Methot? Now it seems kind of awful that in a draft of historic reverence they got the biggest 1st round bust not named Hugh Jessiman a pair of forgettable role players, and a guy whose biggest NHL contributions have come in another uniform.

The Sharks in 1998 got over 2000 NHL games from their draft. Is it important that almost half of those were from Marco Sturm, and the other half came from the largely-considered-disappointing Andrei Zyuzin at #2 and good depth guy Matt Bradley in round 4 (who accumulated the largest majority of his games in the NHL outside of a Sharks sweater)

What about using picks or prospects as trade chips? Does trading Setoguchi in the Burns package redeem his value a little bit? Does Charlie Coyle become a "good" pick for the Sharks value-wise because his primary value for the team was in that trade (simply becuase he didn't have time to build up any in-organization value contributions)?

I realize this seems like kind of a weasely non-answer, but I feel that there are too many moving parts in a draft and outcomes to be able to set hard criteria on what does and doesn't count as a "successful" draft based on simple thresholds like "X games played from at least Y players or Z% of players selected"

A successful draft kind of seems like that famous quote about pornography: I don't know what it is, but I'll know it when I see it.

Everything you just said is invalidated because it was the 1996 draft. Sorry.

 

[Led Zappa]

Doug Wilson was hired on May 13, 2003

 

[Sharksfan83]

The Sharks are very good at drafting Meier and Mueller types: 2nd liners and #4 defensemen. And those players have value. The problem is that the Sharks refuse to take risks in the 1st round to yield a possible star. No one is questioning our late-round drafting and no one is questioning our ability to draft middle-six forwards and bottom-4 defensemen. What the Sharks do remarkably poorly is draft stars, and unfortunately home-grown stars are what win Stanley Cups. For example, we skipped over Kopitar (with our head of scouting actually saying he though he was all hype, yikes!), and that obviously has been our undoing.

Apart from Kopitar, which ok they looked over, but so did other teams. I don't see too many stars picked directly after when the sharks took their 1st round pick in the past 10 years?

 

[The Nemesis]

Everything you just said is invalidated because it was the 1996 draft. Sorry.

well, there's only one recourse left. Seppuku. I have shamed myself and my house, and I leave it now for my fellow Sharks fans to reclaim the honor that I have lost this day. And so I compose my death haiku

my knowledge fails
that I could not use the correct year
brings great dishonor

Farewell.