Why was Nikita Kucherov so overlooked?

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

I think pre-draft there was an announcement that he had verbally committed to the KHL for two more years and I think that scared off everyone else.

http://www.boltprospects.com/content/nikita-kucherov-pre-draft-reviews

There you go, under the TSN part they indicate that he was planning to stay in Russia two more years. Obviously that changed.

/thread

He was passed over (for size/strength AND availability reasons), not overlooked.

 

[Seedling]

Small, skilled and mostly because he's Russian.

 

[Blues88]

I recently analyzed every forward taken in the drafts between 2005 and 2010 and found some pretty revealing information regarding height and NHL success:

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 6' or taller, 45.6% played at least one game. 23.4% played 100 games or more. The total points per game of all these players is .47.

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 5'11" or smaller, 48.8% played at least one game. 24.2% played 100 games or more. The total PPG of all these players is .501.

There's a disgustingly pervasive myth that smaller forwards have higher "bust factor" than bigger players. What I found is that this common narrative is absolutely not grounded in reality.

I did not analyze defensemen, but I would hypothesize that size does play more of a prohibitive role. But as far as forwards are concerned, drafting small, skilled players like Gaudreau, Kucherov, etc. is no more risky than drafting bigger players. Teams have been handcuffing themselves for years by ignoring talented small players in favor of bigger guys who they believe are more likely to carve out NHL careers. It's just not true. Teams like TB with no size bias are laughing their way to highly successful picks that others seem to ignore.

Just another example of the NHL's frustratingly conservative and traditional approach to analysis rather than analyzing empirical data to determine where successful picks lie.

EDIT: This also brings me to another frustrating misconception. Often times a team will draft a highly talented, small forward, and you will hear the phrase "high risk, high reward". This is an asinine statement. For ALL players drafted, there exists risk of the player never playing in the NHL. But for some reason, the risk is only acknowledged for smaller players. Take a pick like Tyler Biggs. Most people said, "Oh, well even if he doesn't reach his potential, he can still be a bottom six guy because he has size". Wrong. That's BS, and now he's no longer a legit NHL prospect. Tell me how that pick was any less risky than he Panthers selecting Rocco Grimaldi a few picks later. It wasn't. There's a dinosaur mentality in the NHL, and the people running the show are petrified of breaking from conservative tradition, instead relying on empty rhetoric that gets perpetuated year after year.

Great post. Absolutely agree.

I think the whole 'Russian Factor' is about to go the way of the dodo. Too many smart and skilled players are coming out of Russia these days. If these kids are willing to come to the CHL and grind it out, then I see them as no greater flight risk than a Swedish kid who chooses the same path.

I don't see the Kucherov's of the world falling very far on draft day anymore.

And the bolded is pretty much why lingering hesitation will continue to exist with Russian prospects. Xenophobia factors into it at some level I'm sure, but that's likely (hopefully) becoming a less practical way of thinking.

And there is certainly some argument to be had, but look at Barbashev taken at #33. Was he really not a 1st round talent? And he's a CHL product!

 

[That Habs Fan]

Saw a stats board for him and Johnson the other night during the game v. Montreal and was shocked. They both deserve more credit/recognition. I thought last year was an anomaly, unfortunately (as a Habs fan) it seems not.

 

[Atas2000]

Part of it was he wasn't expected to come to NA for a few years at least. Also, other than the U-18, he developed in the MHL with no KHL time at that point, and the MHL isn't really viewed highly as a development league. The fact he came over the year after his draft may have been due to Yzerman's influence though.

Just thank the dumbness of the NHL GMs and scouts for that.

And the reason for comig over was quite different. Shows again how little ppl know about hockey in Russia.

 

[madmike77]

The KHL and the fact Russian players can use the league as leverage (or just not come over to NA at all) means a lot of Russians don't get drafted as high as they could be. My guess would be that's the main reason.

It might be a bit less of a concern with the economic issues in Russia now.

 

[tantalum]

I recently analyzed every forward taken in the drafts between 2005 and 2010 and found some pretty revealing information regarding height and NHL success:

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 6' or taller, 45.6% played at least one game. 23.4% played 100 games or more. The total points per game of all these players is .47.

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 5'11" or smaller, 48.8% played at least one game. 24.2% played 100 games or more. The total PPG of all these players is .501.

I understand what you're saying, you may very well be completely correct but I think to truly show a trend you need to break things down further. You might see, for instance, that the numbers of 5'11" and under people skew heavily to the 5'11" side of things and the 6'0" and over skew to that 6'0" mark, in which case you wouldn't expect to really see much of a difference.

Rather I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown in discrete inch by inch heights (and perhaps looking at weights and height:weight ratio). These would also need to be compared with the distribution of picked players based on those factors. Perhaps they simply overlap such that the prevalence for a 6'1" 210 lb player being successful is solely because there are more of them picked.

Basically I just don't want to do that work but would be very interested in having someone do it for me!

 

[Atas2000]

The KHL and the fact Russian players can use the league as leverage (or just not come over to NA at all) means a lot of Russians don't get drafted as high as they could be. My guess would be that's the main reason.

It might be a bit less of a concern with the economic issues in Russia now.

and again, ppl have no idea about russian hockey or Russia. I fact US and Canada should be concerned about their economics more. But that would require some long term in depth analysis instead of following biased news broadcasts.

 

[magic school bus]

/thread

He was passed over (for size/strength AND availability reasons), not overlooked.

Pretty ridiculous reason considering most 1st round picks don't play in the nhl their first two seasons anyways.

 

[aemoreira1981]

Fear (not unfounded) that Kucherov might not come to North America is the basic answer. Some GMs are very wary of drafting Russians with a high draft pick for this reason. If he had been playing in the CHL at the time of the draft, he may have gone higher. (At the time of the draft, Kucherov had been playing primarily for CSKA's junior club.)

In a related note: after Stevie Y was hired by Tampa Bay (Kucherov was an Yzerman draft pick), how many former Red Wings scouts followed him?

 

[DFC]

Fear (not unfounded) that Kucherov might not come to North America is the basic answer. Some GMs are very wary of drafting Russians with a high draft pick for this reason. If he had been playing in the CHL at the time of the draft, he may have gone higher. (At the time of the draft, Kucherov had been playing primarily for CSKA's junior club.)

In a related note: after Stevie Y was hired by Tampa Bay (Kucherov was an Yzerman draft pick), how many former Red Wings scouts followed him?

Yzerman has hired out of the Red Wings organization, but I don't think there've been many scouts. He's hired a lot of former Wings players (Verbeek, Thomas, Roest). And Roest in particular has a hand in developing players. But Yzerman's head scout is Al Murray, who's last NHL gig, I believe, was in LA.

 

[Derrty]

theres a thread about him and Tyler Johnson every other day. Not overlooked.

Came to post this

 

[Random Forest]

I understand what you're saying, you may very well be completely correct but I think to truly show a trend you need to break things down further. You might see, for instance, that the numbers of 5'11" and under people skew heavily to the 5'11" side of things and the 6'0" and over skew to that 6'0" mark, in which case you wouldn't expect to really see much of a difference.

Rather I'd be interested in seeing the breakdown in discrete inch by inch heights (and perhaps looking at weights and height:weight ratio). These would also need to be compared with the distribution of picked players based on those factors. Perhaps they simply overlap such that the prevalence for a 6'1" 210 lb player being successful is solely because there are more of them picked.

Basically I just don't want to do that work but would be very interested in having someone do it for me!

Here is most of what you've asked for:

I already had most of the data pooled, so this was easy, but adding weight and weight ratio would be a bit more time consuming. Maybe I'll look deeper when I have more time.

Your observations and critiques are fair. Obviously the sample size is minuscule on the tails, but I still think this confirms most, if not all, of my original claim.

30% of 5'9" forwards drafted go on to play 100+ games in the league. That's pretty damning considering all we hear is how much the odds are against such draftees.

The aggregate percentage of players during this timeframe to play 100 games is 23.7%. The odds are actually in favor of 5'9-5'10 players making it relative to their peers!


I don't have much time to complete all my thoughts, but this is actually some really interesting stuff. Thanks for suggesting I break it down discretely! I think I'll probably start a thread on this later tonight.

 

[Pavels Dog]

It definitely seems strange now. A lot of teams are just really afraid of picking undersized and/or Russian players I guess. I don't think it's a surprise Yzerman was willing to take a chance on him, coming out of the Red Wings organization that has always been willing to go with small, skilled, European players. I imagine Detroit must have been interested in Kucherov as well, but it's hard to blame them too much for taking Jurco, Ouellet and Sproul before him.. that's still a solid haul.

Probably a lot of scouts/GMs kicking themseles right about now though.

 

[tfong]

Who is that 5'5 player?

 

[Random Forest]

Who is that 5'5 player?

Gerbe.

 

[tfong]

Crazy, I thought Gerbe was like 5'7 or something at least.

 

[Toews2Bickell]

TB just flat-out doesn't pay any attention to "factors." Russian factor? Size factor? _____ factor? They shrug these off, take the most skilled prospect, and, shockingly enough, over time a few of them pan out.

The most effective way to draft, imo. You take enough of those kind of players each draft and you only need a few to pan out to look really good as a front office. I don't see it as much in the NHL, but in the NFL the combine is a complete sham imo. I'd love to know if there is any regression analysis out there to see if it has any predictive ability at all.

 

[HighLifeMan]

Here is an interesting little tidbit regarding Kucherov and the 2011 draft.

Tod Button (Calgary - Director of Scouting) had listed two players from the 2011 draft that he deemed to be complete "wild card" selections, and convinced Jay Feaster to keep them off of their draft list all-together. Those two players ended up being Nikita Kucherov and Johhny Gaudreau. Obviously the skillset's of these two never went completely unnoticed but there had always been legitimate concerns about each players ability to play/transition to the NHL level whether that be due to size, strength or concerns about coming over. The draft is all about taking calculated risks and hoping that some teams overlook certain players for different reasons. Unfortunately for Calgary, Steve Yzerman and co. beat them to the punch on Kucherov, but ultimately that prompted Calgary to take the gamble on Gaudreau with their next selection or they would risk walking out of the draft without two of the most talented players they deemed to be available. I would say that both teams are extremely happy with the way it all played out on the draft floor.

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

They pay attention to factors, just not stereotype factors.

Agree with this. I think that the Bolts have recognized that the compete level is most important. Overall, the number of players with a low compete level that make it in the NHL are pretty small. Ask DFC about the compete level of Connelly vs. Kucherov, and I bet you'll get an earful.

Obviously, skill + size + compete level triumverate is the "grand slam", but I think that in today's NHL compete level is a hell of a lot more important that size.

 

[jack mullet]

the guy is playing great, a point per game player and he only gets 14 minutes of ice time per game. love it.

 

[Zaddy]

I've said it for a long time. NHL scouting is just not anywhere near where it should be. People think just because they are the NHL they know best and have the best scouts in the world etc. False. Honestly I think the NHL teams need a complete re-work in how they think when it comes to scouting and drafting players. I think they might extremely slowly be getting there now when they're seeing how smaller guys like Palat, Kucherov and Gaudreau are tearing up the league but it's not moving fast. It's hilarious how bad the scouting is on many NHL clubs honestly. I can't believe they haven't adjusted, especially now given how important it is to draft/develop properly in the cap era.

As for the Kucherov case. I'm not overly familiar with him but looking through his stats, him having 58 pts in 48 games in MHL (where generally speaking the top russian players hover around PPG in their draft years) and 21 points in 7 games in the U18 WJC's is flat out amazing. That alone should have given him if not top15 material at least first round consideration. With that being said, that draft was very deep and funnily enough it's starting to look like the best players from that draft is coming from the 2nd round. A re-draft from that year would probably have Kucherov, Saad and Gibson in the top10.

It's his size and the Russian factor. I'm starting to think that teams should stop avoiding good players just because of their size. Tampa got Kucherov (5'11) on the second round, Palat (6'0) on 7th and Johnson (5'10) as undrafted player. Last draft they also got Brayden Point (5'10) on the 3rd round, who made the U20 Team Canada and is currently putting up 1,5 points per game as the captain of Moose Jaw Warriors in the WHL. The only reason he fell that low in the draft was his size.
I think that GMs are slightly overvaluing size. While important, it's clearly not compulsory to be big in today's NHL.

Good post. I love Tampas way to draft. Just the fact alone that their three first picks in the 2011 draft was all russian and every one of them have made their debut in the NHL says a lot.

I recently analyzed every forward taken in the drafts between 2005 and 2010 and found some pretty revealing information regarding height and NHL success:

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 6' or taller, 45.6% played at least one game. 23.4% played 100 games or more. The total points per game of all these players is .47.

Of all the forwards drafted during this time who were 5'11" or smaller, 48.8% played at least one game. 24.2% played 100 games or more. The total PPG of all these players is .501.


There's a disgustingly pervasive myth that smaller forwards have higher "bust factor" than bigger players. What I found is that this common narrative is absolutely not grounded in reality.


I did not analyze defensemen, but I would hypothesize that size does play more of a prohibitive role. But as far as forwards are concerned, drafting small, skilled players like Gaudreau, Kucherov, etc. is no more risky than drafting bigger players. Teams have been handcuffing themselves for years by ignoring talented small players in favor of bigger guys who they believe are more likely to carve out NHL careers. It's just not true. Teams like TB with no size bias are laughing their way to highly successful picks that others seem to ignore.

Just another example of the NHL's frustratingly conservative and traditional approach to analysis rather than analyzing empirical data to determine where successful picks lie.


EDIT: This also brings me to another frustrating misconception. Often times a team will draft a highly talented, small forward, and you will hear the phrase "high risk, high reward". This is an asinine statement. For ALL players drafted, there exists risk of the player never playing in the NHL. But for some reason, the risk is only acknowledged for smaller players. Take a pick like Tyler Biggs. Most people said, "Oh, well even if he doesn't reach his potential, he can still be a bottom six guy because he has size". Wrong. That's BS, and now he's no longer a legit NHL prospect. Tell me how that pick was any less risky than he Panthers selecting Rocco Grimaldi a few picks later. It wasn't. There's a dinosaur mentality in the NHL, and the people running the show are petrified of breaking from conservative tradition, instead relying on empty rhetoric that gets perpetuated year after year.

Another great post. Size is the most overrated thing in hockey right now and it's not even close. People who take chances on these super skilled 5'9-5'10 players are going to get rewarded.

 

[Analyzer*]

The size-dinosaurs in the NHL clubs needs to be phased out asap. Stuck in a no longer existing age.

NHL average size is 6'1 and 200 pounds, no ?

 

[DFC]

I've said it for a long time. NHL scouting is just not anywhere near where it should be. People think just because they are the NHL they know best and have the best scouts in the world etc. False. Honestly I think the NHL teams need a complete re-work in how they think when it comes to scouting and drafting players. I think they might extremely slowly be getting there now when they're seeing how smaller guys like Palat, Kucherov and Gaudreau are tearing up the league but it's not moving fast. It's hilarious how bad the scouting is on many NHL clubs honestly. I can't believe they haven't adjusted, especially now given how important it is to draft/develop properly in the cap era.

As for the Kucherov case. I'm not overly familiar with him but looking through his stats, him having 58 pts in 48 games in MHL (where generally speaking the top russian players hover around PPG in their draft years) and 21 points in 7 games in the U18 WJC's is flat out amazing. That alone should have given him if not top15 material at least first round consideration. With that being said, that draft was very deep and funnily enough it's starting to look like the best players from that draft is coming from the 2nd round. A re-draft from that year would probably have Kucherov, Saad and Gibson in the top10.



Good post. I love Tampas way to draft. Just the fact alone that their three first picks in the 2011 draft was all russian and every one of them have made their debut in the NHL says a lot.



Another great post. Size is the most overrated thing in hockey right now and it's not even close. People who take chances on these super skilled 5'9-5'10 players are going to get rewarded.

It's been pointed out in other threads just how good that 2011 draft was for TB. 4/6 have played in the NHL this year, and every one of them played/is playing well. The other two were just named Hobey Baker finalists.

1(27) Vlad Namestnikov (AHL All Star)
2(58) Nikita Kucherov (41 points in 42 games)
5(148) Nikita Nesterov (AHL All Star, currently in NHL)
6(178) Adam Wilcox (Hobey Baker finalist)
7(201) Matt Peca (Hobey Baker finalist)
7(208) Ondrej Palat (...)

 

[AwaKe]

Even in junior he was underrated.

He reported to the Quebec Remparts in 12-13 but when Grigorenko was sent back to the Q by the Sabres, Quebec had too many import players so they got rid of Kucherov for almost nothing. He ended up in Rouyn and played Quebec during the playoffs... He returned the courtesy.