What NHL teams have strong/weak drafting

[Flowah]

What does it mean if a person who doesn't watch hockey can draft "pretty well" according to your metrics?

It means that the top15 is talent that is significantly easier to evaluate. That's all. I don't think it's a big shock that there's a small group of players every drafts that you can almost be assured will succeed in the NHL and that everyone else is a question mark. It says that for all the vaunted knowledge of the "experts," once you get outside the top15, everything is a coin toss at best.

Some more numbers.

• 18 total forwards out of 1312 drafted have achieved .795 ppg + 100 GP. That's the PPG of the top3 forwards drafted which I'm using as a proxy for "elite" players.
• 14 were in the first round.
• .36% of finding them in the 2nd round and beyond. Less than HALF A PERCENT.
• Between 2005-2015, not a single team drafted more than 1 of these players outside the first round. Only 4 teams even drafted 2 such players in those 10 years and 3 of those 4 teams drafted them in the first round. Chicago, Edmonton, Boston.
• Only 4/1102 forwards that were chosen outside the first round achieved .795 PPG and played 100+ games. That's statistical noise. That's luck. That's utter randomness.

Defense is slightly better.

• 15 d-men outside the first round got a .4 PPG and 100+ GP. Again that PPG is the top3 picks.
• That's 15/675 picks giving you 2.2%.
• You have a 19.4% chance of finding such a player in the entire first round, nearly 9x higher. I haven't separated the actual top3 picks from this so expect picks 4-30 to be worse than 19.4%.
• Anaheim drafted 2/4 of these d-men from the 2nd round on down. St. Louis, Nashville, did 1/3. Pittsburgh did 2/2. Everyone else did either 1 or 0. Mostly 0.
• So Anaheim, who did the best at drafting these elite level d-men, did so at only 9.1%.
• Takeaway is that in 10 years of drafting, in almost 700 picks, only 15 "elite" d-men were found. And the spread in "success" among teams ranged from 0-2 players found outside the 1st round.

 

[BinCookin]

I will try to post my results today. then we can discuss Method changes

Stay tuned Flowah and Henkka

 

[Henkka]

It means that the top15 is talent that is significantly easier to evaluate. That's all. I don't think it's a big shock that there's a small group of players every drafts that you can almost be assured will succeed in the NHL and that everyone else is a question mark. It says that for all the vaunted knowledge of the "experts," once you get outside the top15, everything is a coin toss at best.

Some more numbers.

What was the time span for these numbers? 90's values are quite misleading for today's numbers. There was a huge jump after the cap was implemented, but I can see also a second jump from 2013 and so on. Players are year-after-year more in right order. And you predict that in the future, even more.

 

[Flowah]

What was the time span for these numbers? 90's values are quite misleading for today's numbers. There was a huge jump after the cap was implemented, but I can see also a second jump from 2013 and so on. Players are year-after-year more in right order. And you predict that in the future, even more.

2005-2015.

I started after the cap because I think that marked a significant change in the game and the way teams were assembled. I stopped at 2015 because plenty of great players spend a year or two elsewhere after getting drafted and go on to be regular NHL players. Some even become great. I didn't want to bias against that so I gave a few seasons cushion. That gives them the 15-16, 16-17 seasons and half of the 17-18 season (when I gathered this data).

 

[Henkka]

2005-2015.

I started after the cap because I think that marked a significant change in the game and the way teams were assembled. I stopped at 2015 because plenty of great players spend a year or two elsewhere after getting drafted and go on to be regular NHL players. Some even become great. I didn't want to bias against that so I gave a few seasons cushion. That gives them the 15-16, 16-17 seasons and half of the 17-18 season (when I gathered this data).

Yep, that's pretty much the only reasonable data we can use.

 

[BinCookin]

Draft-ReDraft

Ok Here is my file:

Here is the methodology and Approach.

For 2001-2010 I have copied down the entire draft list by year.

For each year I have performed a Full Re-Draft. Here was my general process for that:

Select best possible player for players that play > 20-25 GP for recent drafts, and > 50 GP for really old drafts.
this usually amounts to roughly 2 rounds of NHL players / borderline NHL players.
Players with less than that many GP, i have considered a "bust". All the Bust players remain in their original draft order, and are bumped down below all the selected players. this means that a bust in the 1st round is usually moved down to around round 3, and a bust at the end of the draft remains at the end of the draft.
ReDrafts in 2010-2007 involve voting on HFBoards (up to around pick 20)... this got slow so i did the rest myself
(the redrafts are a rough approximation, round 2 is hard, i often do not recall many borderline players, go start ordering by GP and Pts/Game. But Obviously i can adjust these Redrafts.

the Key Method to evaluating Redrafts.

I have found several Draft Pick Value Charts. Schuckers old chart I find does not have as large a spread as I would like. I also found a Value chart that uses the first 7 years of NHL production. this has a slightly larger spread. there is also a value chart based on GM pick for pick trades. I do enjoy this chart because it uses actual values, and not invented values. I have found a 3rd value chart somewhat similar to an NFL chart. On the Sheet I compared this chart to the GM pick for pick chart and realized they have a similar spread. thus this is the value chart i used.

Each player Now has a Draft Position and a ReDraft position.
I calculate the Draft Value chart number for each player in their original position and redraft position.
the change in these numbers defines the overall score.

Some Example results would be:

Patrice Bergeron: Drafted #45 (Score of 179) Redrafted #2 (Score of 2600)
this gives a value of 2421 for Bergeron (Decidely a hardcore steal)

Jonathan Ericsson: Drafted #291 (Score of 0) Redrafted #20 (Score of 630)
this gives a value of 630 for Ericsson which is a good score

Cam Barker: Drafted #3 (Score of 2250) Redrafted #45 (Score of 179)
this gives a value of -2071 for a Big time Bust move for Chicago.

Sidney Crosby: Drafted #1 (score of 3000) Redrafted #1 (Score of 3000)
this gives a value of 0. thus Pittsburgh "met expectations" for picking the best player in the draft that year.


From these examples you can see how this system will work.

It controls for team drafting position.
(If you draft early, and pick properly you dont lose alot of points or gain alot of points)
(If you make big mistakes early, you are penalized hard)
(If you pick a late round pick who makes it, you get rewarded)



the Analysis tab is not "organized well" But i put titles in blue at the top
generally all the team selections are in the first section on the left
followed by many draft value charts
And finally on the right I have team sums by Year
And additive team sums for a 10 year period.

 

[BinCookin]

Ok finally figured out how to post the link LOL

technically the same amount of points are available in each draft, so an uncontrolled variable is variations in draft strength year to year.

 

[TheOtherOne]

It means that the top15 is talent that is significantly easier to evaluate. That's all. I don't think it's a big shock that there's a small group of players every drafts that you can almost be assured will succeed in the NHL and that everyone else is a question mark. It says that for all the vaunted knowledge of the "experts," once you get outside the top15, everything is a coin toss at best.

Some more numbers.

• 18 total forwards out of 1312 drafted have achieved .795 ppg + 100 GP. That's the PPG of the top3 forwards drafted which I'm using as a proxy for "elite" players.
• 14 were in the first round.
• .36% of finding them in the 2nd round and beyond. Less than HALF A PERCENT.
• Between 2005-2015, not a single team drafted more than 1 of these players outside the first round. Only 4 teams even drafted 2 such players in those 10 years and 3 of those 4 teams drafted them in the first round. Chicago, Edmonton, Boston.
• Only 4/1102 forwards that were chosen outside the first round achieved .795 PPG and played 100+ games. That's statistical noise. That's luck. That's utter randomness.

Defense is slightly better.

• 15 d-men outside the first round got a .4 PPG and 100+ GP. Again that PPG is the top3 picks.
• That's 15/675 picks giving you 2.2%.
• You have a 19.4% chance of finding such a player in the entire first round, nearly 9x higher. I haven't separated the actual top3 picks from this so expect picks 4-30 to be worse than 19.4%.
• Anaheim drafted 2/4 of these d-men from the 2nd round on down. St. Louis, Nashville, did 1/3. Pittsburgh did 2/2. Everyone else did either 1 or 0. Mostly 0.
• So Anaheim, who did the best at drafting these elite level d-men, did so at only 9.1%.
• Takeaway is that in 10 years of drafting, in almost 700 picks, only 15 "elite" d-men were found. And the spread in "success" among teams ranged from 0-2 players found outside the 1st round.

Look, I'm not going to harp on this because it's not too important, but you missed my point, so I'll try one last time.

2018 NHL Draft Rankings Here are some consensus draft rankings. I don't know anything about them specifically, but I assume they're compiled by smart people. They're all similar in the top 15. They're based on all the information about each player, because the internet exists, and they have a lot of attention surrounding them. They're well-known. A computer program could use any one of those lists to automatically draft the top 15 and do reasonably well.

What I wouldn't expect a computer to be able to do is get a late-round under-the-radar steal. It's only going by the consensus, and the consensus doesn't know Pavel Datsyuk has something special about him that's going to light up the league.

An individual who is a smart drafter on the other hand, MIGHT be able to see that something special in a late-rounder. So getting that late rounder who performs way above expectations is MORE indicative of drafting talent.

Now, you say that's luck. I'm not disagreeing. There is a ton of luck involved all around. But all you're measuring is performance vs expectations. This algorithm has no way of differentiating WHICH steal was luck, and WHICH steal was drafting talent. But that's also true in the top 15. You have to ignore it because you can't control for it.

Let's look at individuals to drive the point home. If the Pens picked Ryan and the Ducks got Crosby, the Ducks would have got bonus points. But they didn't do anything particularly smart. They just took the obvious choice.

But when you look at Pavel Datsyuk, Andersson personally saw somebody that nobody else in the league saw. He used real drafting ability to find this guy, who wasn't on anybody's lists. So of course he should get a ton of points for that.

That's why I think late rounders should be weighted a lot more than top 15. They have more potential to show real drafting talent, whereas the top 15 is just well-known to everybody and you really can't go wrong.

But if that doesn't convince you then I'll just agree to disagree.

 

[BinCookin]

the other one. (totally agree with your post, and I think my system does do what you are asking)

that top 15 remark was not well thought out by me:

this is the value chart i used:

See my above comment for what happens when you pick #1 and he is redrafted #1. Or a low pick turns to gold, or a high pick busts. All of these are factored into the scoring. disregard that top 15 remark it was not well thought out.

(Chart is for 300 draft pick positions)

3000
2600
2250
1950
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1650
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1350
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1050
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870
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710
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430
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380
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285
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197
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107
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98
93
91
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82
79
76
73
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67
64
62
60
58.5
57
55.5
54
52.5
51
49.5
48
46.5
45
44
43
42
41
40
39
38
37.25
36.5
35.75
35
34.25
33.5
32.75
32
31.25
30.5
29.75
28
27.25
26.5
25.75
25
24.5
24
23.5
23
22.5
22
21.5
21
20.5
20
19.5
19
18.5
18
17.5
17
16.5
16
15.6
15.2
14.8
14.4
14
13.6
13.2
12.8
12.4
12
11.6
11.2
10.8
10.5
10.2
9.9
9.6
9.3
9
8.75
8.5
8.25
8
7.8
7.6
7.4
7.2
7
6.8
6.6
6.4
6.2
6
5.8
5.6
5.4
5.2
5
4.9
4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.45
3.4
3.35
3.3
3.25
3.2
3.15
3.1
3.05
3
2.9
2.85
2.8
2.75
2.7
2.65
2.6
2.55
2.5
2.45
2.4
2.35
2.3
2.25
2.2
2.15
2.1
2.05
2
1.9
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
1.4
1.35
1.3
1.25
1.2
1.15
1.1
1.05
1
0.95
0.9
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
0
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0
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[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Flowah]

But when you look at Pavel Datsyuk, Andersson personally saw somebody that nobody else in the league saw. He used real drafting ability to find this guy, who wasn't on anybody's lists. So of course he should get a ton of points for that.

But that's factually wrong. It was a throwaway pick. They didn't expect him to turn into what he did. He just did. That's luck, not drafting talent.

It is luck. The mere fact that we're talking about 1, maybe 2, players out of 25-45 picks turning into anything special for all the teams indicates no one is doing it with any regularity. No regularity = luck. How else do you describe a process where you can't repeat your results? That's called luck.

But if that doesn't convince you then I'll just agree to disagree.

If you think there are actually scouts out there who can find those elite players in the late rounds via skill and not luck, then why isn't anyone doing it? Outside of the 1st round, no team has shown they can do it. 10 years of drafts, hundreds and hundreds of picks. No one has done it.

You are assuming it's possible to be good at drafting such that you can find those players. That's an assumption you seem unwilling to abandon. Unfortunately that means you're just going to be wrong.

This algorithm has no way of differentiating WHICH steal was luck, and WHICH steal was drafting talent.

Of course not. That requires data that doesn't exist and couldn't exist, frankly. To determine what was talent and what was luck you'd need to know the minds and discussions of the drafting decision makers. You'd have to hear Hakan Andersson say "That Datsyuk is going to be a 1C. Future Hall of Famer." We're never getting that data if it even exists.

The fact that the number of exceptional, elite talent outside the first round is so tiny is a huge sign that it's luck outside the first round. There's not one single team finding these guys with repeated success. There's a couple teams who got slightly luckier than others and it led to 1-2 more amazing players (IN 10 YEARS OF DRAFTING) and that's all you need. You get 1-2 more great players than everyone else and you can win. A great player can stick around for 15-20 years barring injury. They give you a huge window.

Wings did it. We got lucky and snagged Datsyuk and Zetterberg while we had Lidstrom still. Boom. We're contenders for like 8 years. Since Zetterberg we've drafted what that approaches their level? Larkin's the closest and he's not that close. It's been over 10 years since we drafted Zetterberg and so far we've drafted a single player who projects to be anything close to their level. Kronwall, our last actually good drafted defensemen was over a decade ago as well. It's been over a decade since we drafted any player that might be elite one day outside the 1st round. Hell even including the first round.

Did we just get bad at drafting? No. We were just never good in the first place. Because it's all luck.

 

[BinCookin]

So here is the interesting results (Yes i didnt copy in every team yet)

Note Pittsburgh doesnt rate that highly because they hit on their early picks... but they were expected to.
they also have misses like picking Jordan staal to early, and other busts which balance out with picking Letang late.

A team like Chicago also used their 1st overall pick to get Kane and toews highly, but mostly the 2000's is a series of failures ffor Chicago, minus 2002 where they killed it (Buff and Keith).

Detroit has no really high picks, but we have done a great job finding talent from bad positions. We actually rate as the strongest drafting team (of the 9 i looked at). this is due to having nearly no full on Busts. And many late round ggems.

2nd best drafting was Boston (of the 9 i looked at). they also have many later round gems, and also didnt totally miss on their high picks (seguin/kessel)


I have not plugged all the teams in as of yet.. but so far Detroit ranks as the Best drafting team (2001-2010) I have evaluated so far.

 

[BinCookin]

Also to be clear, my drafting results Do NOt include Datsyuk or Zetterberg.

 

[BinCookin]

...

It is luck. ...

I mean we all know (even Hakan said in an interview) that they would have taken Datsyuk sooner than 6th round if they knew how good he would turn out to be in the end.

But there are some teams that constantly seem to do well in round 2 through 4

Detroit and Boston Did.

I mean we can debate what is luck or skill. But Ideally my scoring system uses 7-9 picks per year, x10 years so about 80 picks. this system could be used to evaluate a scout even more efficiently, as you could rate all their choices (many years later). And see who (if anyone) consistently scores positively vs expectation on each draft position.

 

[BinCookin]

P.S. does the link work to my file??

 

[Flowah]

I mean we all know (even Hakan said in an interview) that they would have taken Datsyuk sooner than 6th round if they knew how good he would turn out to be in the end.

But there are some teams that constantly seem to do well in round 2 through 4

Detroit and Boston Did.

Obviously they would have taken him sooner. It's not like they picked anyone close to Datsyuk's level that draft. And if you have a guy you think has even a 25% chance of turning into Datsyuk's level, you take him with any pick outside the top3.

Yeah Boston and Detroit have been okay at it. We've been at the higher end of finding those guys along with Tampa, Nashville, Montreal, and the Rangers. But again we've only drafted 4 players outside the 1st round that have put up a .41 PPG and played 82 games. And that's the high end of success at drafting forwards. We're not lighting the world on fire if we found only 4 such players out of 44 picks over 10 years.

P.S. does the link work to my file??

Yes.

 

[TheOtherOne]

the other one. (totally agree with your post, and I think my system does do what you are asking)

that top 15 remark was not well thought out by me:

this is the value chart i used:

See my above comment for what happens when you pick #1 and he is redrafted #1. Or a low pick turns to gold, or a high pick busts. All of these are factored into the scoring. disregard that top 15 remark it was not well thought out.

(Chart is for 300 draft pick positions)

3000
2600
2250
1950
1800
1650
1500
1350
1200
1050
1000
960
910
870
830
790
750
710
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630
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520
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460
430
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107
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60
58.5
57
55.5
54
52.5
51
49.5
48
46.5
45
44
43
42
41
40
39
38
37.25
36.5
35.75
35
34.25
33.5
32.75
32
31.25
30.5
29.75
28
27.25
26.5
25.75
25
24.5
24
23.5
23
22.5
22
21.5
21
20.5
20
19.5
19
18.5
18
17.5
17
16.5
16
15.6
15.2
14.8
14.4
14
13.6
13.2
12.8
12.4
12
11.6
11.2
10.8
10.5
10.2
9.9
9.6
9.3
9
8.75
8.5
8.25
8
7.8
7.6
7.4
7.2
7
6.8
6.6
6.4
6.2
6
5.8
5.6
5.4
5.2
5
4.9
4.8
4.7
4.6
4.5
4.4
4.3
4.2
4.1
4
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.45
3.4
3.35
3.3
3.25
3.2
3.15
3.1
3.05
3
2.9
2.85
2.8
2.75
2.7
2.65
2.6
2.55
2.5
2.45
2.4
2.35
2.3
2.25
2.2
2.15
2.1
2.05
2
1.9
1.8
1.7
1.6
1.5
1.4
1.35
1.3
1.25
1.2
1.15
1.1
1.05
1
0.95
0.9
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
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0
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[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Sounds good

Another point to keep in mind (though unfortunately there's not much you can do about it here) is role/need. i.e. you have a need for a RHD and there's a decent one in the third round. Maybe you're picking at 70 and this guy is rated to be at 80. You're risking BPA and probably losing points on purpose, but it's smart because he could develop into a guy who better fits your system.

 

[BinCookin]

...But again we've only drafted 4 players outside the 1st round that have put up a .41 PPG and played 82 games. And that's the high end of success at drafting forwards. We're not lighting the world on fire if we found only 4 such players out of 44 picks over 10 years.

You have confused me here. Are you saying 4/44 is good ?

I can say this. When you look closely at my redrafts. It may be surprising how few players even make the NHL each year.
Probably legit NHL'ers is more like 20-30 per year with 30-60 real borderline NHL'ers. So i can say most picks are actually expected to be Busts.

 

[BinCookin]

Sounds good

Another point to keep in mind (though unfortunately there's not much you can do about it here) is role/need. i.e. you have a need for a RHD and there's a decent one in the third round. Maybe you're picking at 70 and this guy is rated to be at 80. You're risking BPA and probably losing points on purpose, but it's smart because he could develop into a guy who better fits your system.

Ya I mean obviously there are very complicated choices when it comes to drafting.

I figured a decade worth of results is a good window overall to see a general trend to answer this question:

"Who has drafted better: Detroit or the NYI"... According to my results its Detroit by a big margin


Using draft pick value charts works well assuming the player redraftd #5 or #20 in 2001 is nearly equal to those players taken in 2004 or 2006.
I could add an additional talent score to players (after my redrafts) to get a correction factor for lets say 2003. But overall this is a good roughtimation (a good first draft of this system)

 

[Frk It]

So here is the interesting results (Yes i didnt copy in every team yet)

Note Pittsburgh doesnt rate that highly because they hit on their early picks... but they were expected to.
they also have misses like picking Jordan staal to early, and other busts which balance out with picking Letang late.

A team like Chicago also used their 1st overall pick to get Kane and toews highly, but mostly the 2000's is a series of failures ffor Chicago, minus 2002 where they killed it (Buff and Keith).

Detroit has no really high picks, but we have done a great job finding talent from bad positions. We actually rate as the strongest drafting team (of the 9 i looked at). this is due to having nearly no full on Busts. And many late round ggems.

2nd best drafting was Boston (of the 9 i looked at). they also have many later round gems, and also didnt totally miss on their high picks (seguin/kessel)

I do think this “Jim Nill was awful” narrative that gets floated around from time to time on here is not really accurate.

 

[BinCookin]

I do think this “Jim Nill was awful” narrative that gets floated around from time to time on here is not really accurate.

Well A GM or Assistant GM is not solely responsible for Drafting. Its a whole team of people.
So I think blaming/crediting 1 person is never really that great a choice.

I am finding it hard to find when Nill was working ffor Us... but lets assume he was assist GM for 2001-2010... than yes he was also responsible for this good drafting record.

 

[Red Stanley]

If I were in charge of a scouting department, I'd require my scouts to take FBI-style profiling courses, because you have to be part psychiatrist when evaluating these kids AND consciously check your own biases when doing so.

P.S. That 2002 Detroit redraft looks insane!

 

[MintBerryCrunch]

Have really enjoyed the discussion on this. I will hope to look at your file sometime this weekend BinCookin. Great work so far!

 

[BinCookin]

If I were in charge of a scouting department, I'd require my scouts to take FBI-style profiling courses, because you have to be part psychiatrist when evaluating these kids AND consciously check your own biases when doing so.

P.S. That 2002 Detroit redraft looks insane!

Ya i basically have our first 3 picks (all outside first round) as redrafted inside the top 15 picks. (which i can change if people think i was being overly zealous)

 

[TheOtherOne]

If you'd like me to stop nitpicking, I can. But I find this interesting.

If I understand right, this doesn't take into account who was available for any given pick.

Meaning basically that if every team picked perfectly and took the player who would go on to have the best career out of all available players... every team would get zero points.

If 29 teams somehow overlook Crosby, they all lose a different amount of points, from 400 to 20, depending on their position. The 30th team gains 2660 points for picking him. Again, if I understand right.

Also, if the team with the very last pick takes the player who would go on to become the 27th best player of the draft, that team would gain 400 points. If the 2OA becomes better than the 1OA, then the team that picked 2OA would also gain 400 points.

None of these are necessarily criticisms per se. They're just implications I'm pulling together to illuminate how this works out.

 

[BinCookin]

If you'd like me to stop nitpicking, I can. But I find this interesting.

No no, nitpicking is exactly what i want. I mean, i'd just call it intellectual feedback, but I am open to all kinds of criticism

If I understand right, this doesn't take into account who was available for any given pick.

Meaning basically that if every team picked perfectly and took the player who would go on to have the best career out of all available players... every team would get zero points.

In essence exactly correct. Another way of saying: "Did the team take the best possible pick available".
Obviously we are assuming my redraft is "roughly" correct (which it could have lots of errors, but for sake of speed, i finished the redrafts quickly).
But If Crosby is the consensus #1 OA pick, and Carolina got the pick... and they pick him. One could say that didn't require any expert drafting skill. But on the flip side, they also didn't make any mistakes. So Zero (0) is the score you would receive for picking the correct player considering your draft position.

In a sense this is a good control for erasing actual team performance from drafting analysis. (i.e. if a team was bad for years, vs a team was good for years).

Also Detroits big bust in the first round, is 2008 #30th pick tom mcCollum. And yet we dont have that pick thrown in our ffaces alot because it was the #30 pick. Like its really low, and screwing it up isnt killing our whole franchise. And the negative score we recieve is kind of proper value to that understanding.
Now if we screw up this year's pick #5? (depending on lottery). I would say our scouting staff is under much higher pressure to pick the right player. If we screw this up... it will be a significantly stronger negative score.

Now obviously pick #1 vs pick #2 could be arguable. And a further version of my sheet could involve talent scores and ties. and thus balance the pick values between 2 players. (Example in HFBoards voting 2008 2nd round pick was basically a tie between Stamkos and Doughty). (I could of course average certain numbers to make such close values more accurate to specific players).

If 29 teams somehow overlook Crosby, they all lose a different amount of points, from 400 to 20, depending on their position. The 30th team gains 2660 points for picking him. Again, if I understand right.

Also, if the team with the very last pick takes the player who would go on to become the 27th best player of the draft, that team would gain 400 points. If the 2OA becomes better than the 1OA, then the team that picked 2OA would also gain 400 points.

None of these are necessarily criticisms per se. They're just implications I'm pulling together to illuminate how this works out.

Ya i mean if you can get the best player in a draft at #30. Id say thats a "steal of the draft" type move. And that score is appropriate.

If For example (Ericsson) is picked last in the draft, and in the redraft he would be picked #20. then you can see his score
is +630.

And if we got Crosby at #30, we would score 2660.

So is Crosby worth about 4 Ericssons? I dont think that valuation is crazy, snagging a star player is clearly an insane plus. See Calgary Gadreau.

Also you mentioned the 1st vs 2nd would be a similar score (400) if you picked #2 and got the best player. I mean the number scale (draft pick value scale) may not be perfect, but its the best draft pick value scale i could find.

But Definitely worth looking at closely to see if we can find serious problems. ON my sheet you will notice i have 2 other scales which i did not use, but change a few lines in the code, and we can see the scores using other scales.