Yzerman's Draft History

Bolt32

Registered User
Aug 24, 2004
4,627
809
Palm Harbor, FL
I remember reading about how horrible we are drafting in the first round compared to the other rounds, even during Yzerman's Era so I decided to do a little digging to see what is our draft odds. Overall I would say we have a very solid drafting history, but the first round still kind of stuck out for me. Just that we did better than I initially thought we did.

So this is from all the way from the last draft, since Yzerman took over with his guys in place (Al Murray.)

1---4 out of 6 drafts 7 picks (Drouin, Deangelo, Namestnikov, Vasilevskiy)

2---2 out of 11 picks and 6 Drafts (Erne and Kucherov)

3---1 out of 5 picks in 6 drafts (Point.)

4---1 out of 5 picks in 6 drafts (Paquette)

5---1 out of 4 picks in 6 drafts (Nesterov)

6---1 out of 7 picks in 6 drafts (Dotchin)

7---1 out of 8 picks in 6 drafts (Palat) (One maybe Gusev)

Ironically looking we tend to do the worse with in the 5th round. Mind you I only counted it as a win for guys that turned out to be NHL regularers and actually contributed in some fashion to the NHL team. I did not include guys with only a small cup of coffee.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
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So the issue with the first round isn't the number of regulars that are drafted - it's some of the decisions that went into it. Connolly is an obvious one (although that wasn't Murray's pick or really Yzerman's). Koekkoek was another off the board pick. Drouin over Jones was questionable if not outright bad. So KK is the only "bad" pick in the bunch (discounting Connolly), and at least my impression is that KK was picked due to the run on Dmen that was going on rather than him being worth that spot.

It's weird - him taking Vasi at 10 and KK at 19 would have been much more defensible than KK at 10 and Vasi at 19. With KK there were just better names on the board (Forsberg and a few of the Dmen).
 

These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
34,124
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Tampa Bay
I wanted Forsberg so bad that it's not even funny. When our name was called I was literally in ecstasy. I'm thinking to myself "We have a franchise center in our lap. I know we have a need on defense but they're all gone now. What are we gonna do about it? Holy **** man this is the PERFECT backup plan if Vinny ever gets hurt again. Yes! YES! Thank you Lord! We're gonna get ourselves a heck of a great player. Steal of the draft!" Then Yzerman strolls up and calls Slater Koekkoek and I about jumped out of my skin.
 
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LTIR Trickery

Plz stop pucks
Jun 27, 2007
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Scrip Club
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Koekkoek pick at the time. He was talked about being a potential top pair defender, basically carried the Petes at one point, while playing almost 35 minutes a night on a very bad team.

Three shoulder surgeries (one botched) will slow down anyones development.

Also nothing wrong with the Drouin pick, Jones was a bad interview and didn't seem interested in Tampa.
 

These Are The Days

Oh no! We suck again!!
May 17, 2014
34,124
19,688
Tampa Bay
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Koekkoek pick at the time. He was talked about being a potential top pair defender, basically carried the Petes at one point, while playing almost 35 minutes a night on a very bad team.

Three shoulder surgeries (one botched) will slow down anyones development.

Also nothing wrong with the Drouin pick, Jones was a bad interview and didn't seem interested in Tampa.

I liked Jones a lot as a prospect but I was foaming at the mouth for Jonathan Drouin.

It made zero sense to me to take another defenseman when Yzerman was hoarding every young name he could get his hands on at the time. Not to mention we had the singing of Andrej Sustr and Matt Carle -who wasn't playing that poorly yet. We just drafted Slater Koekkoek the previous season and Hedman was 250 games into his career and was a ticking time bomb ready to explode into the most dominant defenseman in Lightning history. As far as I was concerned all we were still about 2 years or so from competing from the playoffs and all we had to do was wait out for our defense to mature. In the meantime the writing had been on the wall with Lecavalier for years and St. Louis was like 38 years old. Here we had a chance to draft a guy who had a "Datsyukian" skillset and a chance to shore up a top 6 that was soon to have holes in it.

To me the choice was obvious to go with Drouin despite how tempting Seth Jones was. We had FANTASTIC forward prospects at the time but only speculation as to how they would do at the NHL level. At least Drouin felt like a sure-fire thing.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
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Absolutely nothing wrong with the Koekkoek pick at the time. He was talked about being a potential top pair defender, basically carried the Petes at one point, while playing almost 35 minutes a night on a very bad team.

Three shoulder surgeries (one botched) will slow down anyones development.

Also nothing wrong with the Drouin pick, Jones was a bad interview and didn't seem interested in Tampa.

Luckily Drouin has been a real character guy for us...

...

KK was drafted where he was for his draft-1 season more than his draft season, if I recall. Similar to Connolly. That's - in my estimation - always a bad move. It is really tough to project Dmen in the best circumstances (and talent in general), especially at 16-17. The season right before their draft will be the best data you have to date.

Guys like KK and Connolly are guys you take when surefire prospects are off the board. I just don't think either pick is defensible when you have Forsberg and Fowler/Tarasenko still on the board. Those were, frankly, mistakes, and even if KK develops into an NHL player, it still wasn't the right pick at 10.
 

Butchered

I'm with Kuch
Apr 30, 2004
6,338
1
I went back not too long ago and did a redraft of guys that were selected within so many spots of when we picked and it hurt my heart. Some of the choices we made were either bad at the time or just failed colossally
 

Five Alarm Fire

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Jun 17, 2009
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I remember being angry that we took Koekkoek over Maatta in 2012. In hindsight, missing out on Forsberg is really disappointing.

I'm a big Drouin fan but even I'll admit that we should have taken Jones in 2013. If only we knew then how good Kucherov would become.

DeAngelo was a good pick in 2014, just wish we could have traded him when his value was at its absolute peak.

Despite these blemishes, our scouting staff has done a great job. I can't think of another team in the NHL that consistently gets players in later rounds who end up having more value than the pick they were drafted with. To me, that is the definition of good drafting.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
48,610
28,847
I remember being angry that we took Koekkoek over Maatta in 2012. In hindsight, missing out on Forsberg is really disappointing.

I'm a big Drouin fan but even I'll admit that we should have taken Jones in 2013. If only we knew then how good Kucherov would become.

DeAngelo was a good pick in 2014, just wish we could have traded him when his value was at its absolute peak.

Despite these blemishes, our scouting staff has done a great job. I can't think of another team in the NHL that consistently gets players in later rounds who end up having more value than the pick they were drafted with. To me, that is the definition of good drafting.

There are also a few times we traded out of the first and didn't take guys that I think would have been great picks. Barbashev in 2014 - we traded for the Islanders and Habs seconds (taking Masin at 35 and Macleod at like 50-something) with the 28th pick, but I remember really wanting Barbashev with that pick (he ended up going 33 - Ho-Sang was selected with the 28th pick).

I know center isn't exactly a need for us right now though, and Masin has some promise (haven't heard anything on Macleod in awhile?), but I just feel we missed on a surefire NHLer there.
 

Todd1a

Kucherov or prospect
Jun 19, 2014
16,389
2,747
orlando, fl
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Koekkoek pick at the time. He was talked about being a potential top pair defender, basically carried the Petes at one point, while playing almost 35 minutes a night on a very bad team.

Three shoulder surgeries (one botched) will slow down anyones development.

Also nothing wrong with the Drouin pick, Jones was a bad interview and didn't seem interested in Tampa.

Flip forsberg feel right into or laps there we should have for sure drafted him! There! Big mistake by Murray there!
 

Todd1a

Kucherov or prospect
Jun 19, 2014
16,389
2,747
orlando, fl
I wanted Forsberg so bad that it's not even funny. When our name was called I was literally in ecstasy. I'm thinking to myself "We have a franchise center in our lap. I know we have a need on defense but they're all gone now. What are we gonna do about it? Holy **** man this is the PERFECT backup plan if Vinny ever gets hurt again. Yes! YES! Thank you Lord! We're gonna get ourselves a heck of a great player. Steal of the draft!" Then Yzerman strolls up and calls Slater Koekkoek and I about jumped out of my skin.

Yep I was so happy then ended up pissed and sad
 

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