2023 NHL Entry Draft

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

1 hour ago, tomh009 said:

For the 2009-2018 drafts (ignoring later ones as may be too early to judge), 243 players picked in second round or later have played at least 200 games. That's an average of about eight successful picks per team.

• Anaheim, Carolina, LA and Pittsburgh all had 12 picks with over 200 games
• Colorado had 3, NYR and Vancouver only 4

I think these differences are big enough to be statistically significant.

 

That's pretty interesting that Colorado only had 3 but they really nailed it with some of their 1st round picks and made some shrewd trades. 

[Commandant]

People talk about Boston as though they have no top picks. 

 

This isn't exactly true.  They may have traded them, but they got assets when trading them. 

 

Phil Kessel (5), Dougie Hamilton (9), Tyler Seguin (2), these are all top 10 picks that they traded and got assets for.   Even after that they moved those assets for other assets.  its all part of trade trees. 

 

They also have high profile misses Zboril (13), Senyshyn (15), Colborne (16), Hamill (8), 

[tomh009]

7 hours ago, Commandant said:

People talk about Boston as though they have no top picks. 

 

This isn't exactly true.  They may have traded them, but they got assets when trading them. 

To me, the bigger point is that three of their top players (Pastrnak, Bergeron and Marchand) are late picks, and shrewd/lucky picking has enabled them to become a top contender without (earned) lottery picks.

[GHT120]

13 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

To me, the bigger point is that three of their top players (Pastrnak, Bergeron and Marchand) are late picks, and shrewd/lucky picking has enabled them to become a top contender without (earned) lottery picks.

Pastrnak was an excellent late first-round pick after a 117-point season (and right before MB et al took Scherbak ... wonder which they would have grabbed given the choice) ... Bergeron was a great mid-2nd round pick after a pedestrian first round pick 24 spots earlier (Mark Stuart) ... Marchand was a superb early 3rd round pick but after Lucic (21 spots earlier, good but not as good as BM) and the great Yuri Alexandrov 13 spots before Lucic ... all of which to say that while the BB did make good picks but also mis-fired before those were made ... the deeper in the draft, the more of a crap shoot it becomes.

[tomh009]

11 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

... the deeper in the draft, the more of a crap shoot it becomes.

A lottery in the first round, a crap shoot in the rest! 😂😂😂

[Peter Puck]

21 hours ago, tomh009 said:

For the 2009-2018 drafts (ignoring later ones as may be too early to judge), 243 players picked in second round or later have played at least 200 games. That's an average of about eight successful picks per team.

• Anaheim, Carolina, LA and Pittsburgh all had 12 picks with over 200 games
• Colorado had 3, NYR and Vancouver only 4

I think these differences are big enough to be statistically significant.

  The problem here is that that are 30 or so teams.  So we should expect several to be outliers.  You found 4 at 1.5 times the average and 3 at about 0.5 times the average.  I'd have to do the computation but I am fairly certain these results are not statistically significant. 

 

Furthermore, we would have to account for variations in draft power which will spead the results away from the average.  

 

  If we conclude that the results are not due to chance, then the conclusion seems to be

that Anaheim, Carolina, LA, and Pittsburgh are the teams with the secret to drafting. 

[GHT120]

On 4/13/2023 at 11:23 PM, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

We have a little more certainty with the Hab's first round picks. 

 

With their own pick it will be 1,2,5,6 or 7 (Let's dream, come on #1)

 

With Florida's pick it will be 17 or from 29-32. 

 

I can't believe I will be cheering for Boston in the 1st round of the playoffs. 

 

Interesting thought from MtlHockeyNow:
 

3rd Overall

In the very minute chance that the Ottawa Senators, currently owning the 12th best odds in the NHL Draft Lottery, were to win the first lottery, they would only be able to move up 10 spots, per NHL ruling.

 

In this scenario, the Anaheim Ducks, who finished 32nd overall, would automatically be awarded the 1st overall pick, Ottawa would be given the 2nd overall pick, and the winner of the second lottery would be awarded the 3rd overall pick in consequence.

 

There’s a 0.3% chance that such an outcome could come to pass, but it remains a possibility for the Canadiens, should the stars align.

 

The Ottawa "math" seems to work ... but I'm not certain what happens if a Top 11 team other than Anaheim wins the second lottery ... if, for example, Montreal wins the second draw, would they jump to #1 and push Anaheim to its "guaranteed no later than third" slot ... or would the second lottery be cancelled.

 

AND ... as much as I like that the Habs might also have the potential to draft third instead of 5/6/7th, I am not certain I want it at the cost of the senators drafting second.

 

[tomh009]

1 hour ago, Peter Puck said:

If we conclude that the results are not due to chance, then the conclusion seems to be that Anaheim, Carolina, LA, and Pittsburgh are the teams with the secret to drafting.

I don’t know about the secret, but I think those teams may have done more effective amateur scouting than most others.

 

There is certainly randomness in the results but I am certain that evaluation skills also play a part.

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

24 minutes ago, GHT120 said:

Interesting thought from MtlHockeyNow:
 

3rd Overall

In the very minute chance that the Ottawa Senators, currently owning the 12th best odds in the NHL Draft Lottery, were to win the first lottery, they would only be able to move up 10 spots, per NHL ruling.

 

In this scenario, the Anaheim Ducks, who finished 32nd overall, would automatically be awarded the 1st overall pick, Ottawa would be given the 2nd overall pick, and the winner of the second lottery would be awarded the 3rd overall pick in consequence.

 

There’s a 0.3% chance that such an outcome could come to pass, but it remains a possibility for the Canadiens, should the stars align.

 

The Ottawa "math" seems to work ... but I'm not certain what happens if a Top 11 team other than Anaheim wins the second lottery ... if, for example, Montreal wins the second draw, would they jump to #1 and push Anaheim to its "guaranteed no later than third" slot ... or would the second lottery be cancelled.

 

AND ... as much as I like that the Habs might also have the potential to draft third instead of 5/6/7th, I am not certain I want it at the cost of the senators drafting second.

 

 

Interesting scenario. I think I could handle Ottawa drafting 2nd if we draft 3rd as we could get a stud center like Carlsson.  

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

26 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

I don’t know about the secret, but I think those teams may have done more effective amateur scouting than most others.

 

There is certainly randomness in the results but I am certain that evaluation skills also play a part.

 

Don’t forget development. Are your picks proving successful because of your scouts, or because you are good at helping your talent succeed? It seems to be almost impossible for the outsider to discern the distinction. But I always think back to the Gainey rebuild, where we had piles and piles of well-regarded picks and prospects, almost all of which disappointed in the end. One can argue that the real problem in that case was development. 🤷‍♂️

[Commandant]

I also point out that 200 games is kind of an arbitrary figure and doesn't give a lot of context. 

 

200 games out of David Pastranak and 200 games out of a Jarred Tinordi and Michael McCarron (both of whom are over 150 now and likely to hit 200) are not the same thing. 

 

I'd rather look at the WAR (wins above replacement) that got drafted, not a pure games played.   Have they been useful on those games or are they just a filler on the fourth line. 

 

 

[tomh009]

15 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Don’t forget development. Are your picks proving successful because of your scouts, or because you are good at helping your talent succeed? It seems to be almost impossible for the outsider to discern the distinction.

Indeed. However, need to remember that the data just indicates which team made the pick, not which one developed the player.

 

1 minute ago, Commandant said:

I'd rather look at the WAR (wins above replacement) that got drafted, not a pure games played.   Have they been useful on those games or are they just a filler on the fourth line.

While fourth-line filler players are significantly less likely to hit 200 games, I do agree that WAR would be much better. But I don't have any easy way to merge that data into my Excel sheet.

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

24 minutes ago, Commandant said:

I also point out that 200 games is kind of an arbitrary figure and doesn't give a lot of context. 

 

200 games out of David Pastranak and 200 games out of a Jarred Tinordi and Michael McCarron (both of whom are over 150 now and likely to hit 200) are not the same thing. 

 

 

Good point, quality versus quantity. 

[The Chicoutimi Cucumber]

34 minutes ago, Commandant said:

I also point out that 200 games is kind of an arbitrary figure and doesn't give a lot of context. 

 

200 games out of David Pastranak and 200 games out of a Jarred Tinordi and Michael McCarron (both of whom are over 150 now and likely to hit 200) are not the same thing. 

 

I'd rather look at the WAR (wins above replacement) that got drafted, not a pure games played.   Have they been useful on those games or are they just a filler on the fourth line. 

 

 

 

Yeah, great point. In fact, if you use the 200-game standard, the Gainey Rebuild 1.0 (2004-2009) was a cracking success, with loads of players having a number of years in the league. The problem was that few of them, other than Plekanec and of course the great Carey Price, were difference-makers. The rest became either mid-roster journeymen (Higgins, Halak) or crapped out of the league after leaving Montreal (the Kostitsyns, Komisarek). 

[hab29RETIRED]

1 hour ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

Good point, quality versus quantity. 

That’s what I’ve been saying for a long time, every time the argument came up that we’ve been drafting a high percentage of NHL players. Well, I it’s nice to be able to draft 3rd/4th line grunts, but if you aren’t able to draft more front line talent than Price, Pactioretty, Subban, and Gallagher in over 10 years you have a serious drafting and development issue. It also hurts when you do get your picks right with a McDonough and Sergechev and trade them for garbage.

 

drafting under MB was as bad as it was in the Houle regime, until we hit the Caufield draft year. The number of 1st round picks Gainey and Houle wasted and got wrong was staggering. From Gainey’s first draft to the Caufield pick it was a disaster:

-Kostitsyn - the beat draft ever any horrible gamble

-Chipchura - drafting character over skill

-Price - home run franchise goalie

-Fischer - garbage pick 

-McDonough - 1st pairing dmen give. Away

-Pactioretty - legit 1st line goal scorer 

-Leblanc - garbage pick - Kreider was right there - speed and size 

-Tinordi - garbage pick - I think they also may have moved up for it???

-Bealieau - lower pick, so it’s a pass, did pick skill, and can right off as normal miss

-Galchenyuk- probably right ouck - but development issue

-McCarron - horrible garbage pick for size, for a guy with zero skill and minor league skating ability

-Scherbak - Bruins pick before them, and their pick really hurts, but at least they went for skill unlike the previous year. 

-Juulsen - probably a pass, was a decent prospect, but had injury/concussion issues 

-Sergechev - good picks wasted on worst trade in recent habs history

-Poehling - perfect example of excelling at drafting fringe players. Oettinger taken right after him. Dallas also took Robertson and basically setup their franchise in this draft.

-KK - bad pick, given who else was available, even if the puck can be excused -big time development issue. Zero excuse for him being brought over as the youngest player in the league his first year. He clearly looked like Bambi taking his first steps on skates against the big boys!!!!

 

So basically over a 15 year period, we came away with 2 star players from my the first round. Combination of bad picks, poor development, and trading away the picks we got right.

 

I do like the post Caufield prospects, lets just hope the new management team develops them right!!!

 

[tomh009]

15 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

So basically over a 15 year period, we came away with 2 star players from my the first round.

If we look at just the drafting (which is what you were complaining about) rather than development, we have a reasonable number of good picks: Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Juulsen, Sergachev and Kotkaniemi. Not all equally good but some draft years are weak and some years the Habs picked late. Still, seven decent picks in fifteen years is not nothing.

 

Now, development has also been a problem, but a separate problem...

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

44 minutes ago, hab29RETIRED said:

 It also hurts when you do get your picks right with a McDonough and Sergechev and trade them for garbage.

 

drafting under MB was as bad as it was in the Houle regime, until we hit the Caufield draft year. The number of 1st round picks Gainey and Houle wasted and got wrong was staggering. From Gainey’s first draft to the Caufield pick it was a disaster:

-Kostitsyn - the beat draft ever any horrible gamble

-Chipchura - drafting character over skill

-Price - home run franchise goalie

-Fischer - garbage pick 

-McDonough - 1st pairing dmen give. Away

-Pactioretty - legit 1st line goal scorer 

-Leblanc - garbage pick - Kreider was right there - speed and size 

-Tinordi - garbage pick - I think they also may have moved up for it???

-Bealieau - lower pick, so it’s a pass, did pick skill, and can right off as normal miss

-Galchenyuk- probably right ouck - but development issue

-McCarron - horrible garbage pick for size, for a guy with zero skill and minor league skating ability

-Scherbak - Bruins pick before them, and their pick really hurts, but at least they went for skill unlike the previous year. 

-Juulsen - probably a pass, was a decent prospect, but had injury/concussion issues 

-Sergechev - good picks wasted on worst trade in recent habs history

-Poehling - perfect example of excelling at drafting fringe players. Oettinger taken right after him. Dallas also took Robertson and basically setup their franchise in this draft.

-KK - bad pick, given who else was available, even if the puck can be excused -big time development issue. Zero excuse for him being brought over as the youngest player in the league his first year. He clearly looked like Bambi taking his first steps on skates against the big boys!!!!

 

So basically over a 15 year period, we came away with 2 star players from my the first round. Combination of bad picks, poor development, and trading away the picks we got right.

 

I do like the post Caufield prospects, lets just hope the new management team develops them right!!!

 

 

I agree with much of your analysis. Trading McDonagh and Sergachev really hurt. It seems (still to be determined) that the last 3 years they have done much better at the draft table but as you said development is key.  A lot of teams moved ahead of the Habs in that key 2003 draft.  Nashville built their defense that year (Suter and Weber), Anaheim got 2 stud forwards etc etc.  We got Kostitsyn

[hab29RETIRED]

35 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

If we look at just the drafting (which is what you were complaining about) rather than development, we have a reasonable number of good picks: Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Juulsen, Sergachev and Kotkaniemi. Not all equally good but some draft years are weak and some years the Habs picked late. Still, seven decent picks in fifteen years is not nothing.

 

Now, development has also been a problem, but a separate problem...

One without the other is not a recipe for success.  And there were more misses than good picks - and development issues aside, I’d classify KK as a miss, in an attempt to fill an immediate need - which unless you are drafting Crosby or McDavid - you should never be trying to do through the draft. With high picks, you have to go for the BPA.

[huzer]

18 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

we have a reasonable number of good picks: Price, McDonagh, Pacioretty, Galchenyuk, Juulsen, Sergachev and Kotkaniemi.

 

One of these things is not like the others.

 

Looking at Galchenyuk and Kotkaniemi, and their relative draft position, and taking your 2009-18, some good players taken at #3. Also interesting just to think of player movement in the NHL. Of just these draft picks, only two are still with their drafting team.

 

'09 Duchene

'10 Gudbranson

'11 Huberdeau

'12 Chucky

'13 Drouin

'14 Draisaitl

'15 D. Strome

'16 Dubois

'17 Heiskanen

'18 Kotkaniemi

 

Looking at the Chucky draft, 2012 overall looks like a bit of a stinker. Seems like the Habs should've gone with Bob McKenzie's pre-draft ranking for 3rd....Filip Forsberg. Also thinking about 2012, kinda funny that the only two Habs picks (Galchenyuk/Hudon) to ever see the NHL both play for the AHL Colorado Eagles.

 

This has been today's random draft insights from huzer.

 

[DON]

3 hours ago, tomh009 said:

I don’t know about the secret, but I think those teams may have done more effective amateur scouting than most others.

 

There is certainly randomness in the results but I am certain that evaluation skills also play a part.

 

MY oh my Wings were so good at drafting, was once said.

 

How did Tolsa or Adam DeLeeuw turn out?

 

Talk about shit-house luck in drafting, prime example.

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

31 minutes ago, DON said:

 

MY oh my Wings were so good at drafting, was once said.

 

How did Tolsa or Adam DeLeeuw turn out?

 

Talk about shit-house luck in drafting, prime example.

 

There is always some luck but sometimes the harder you work the luckier you get.  I think the Wings were ahead of a lot of teams in scouring Europe for prospects.  Zetterberg and Datysuk were amazing picks especially getting them that late in back to back years.  They asked Ken Holland about it and he said if they thought they were going to turn out that well they would have drafted them earlier.  You have to give some credit to the Wings European scouts, perhaps they wanted Holland to draft those guys earlier. 

[Commandant]

50 minutes ago, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

There is always some luck but sometimes the harder you work the luckier you get.  I think the Wings were ahead of a lot of teams in scouring Europe for prospects.  Zetterberg and Datysuk were amazing picks especially getting them that late in back to back years.  They asked Ken Holland about it and he said if they thought they were going to turn out that well they would have drafted them earlier.  You have to give some credit to the Wings European scouts, perhaps they wanted Holland to draft those guys earlier. 

 

I think thats part of it, but luck is also a huge part of it. 

 

The Red Wings drafted extremely well in those years.

 

then post lockout in 2005, the same group of people drafted very poorly, leading to the end of their playoff streak, current rebuild and firing of Ken Holland. 

 

So did they have a magic touch that was lost in 2005, or did they get lucky and then revert to the mean, or was it a little of both. 

 

[Habs Fan in Edmonton]

16 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

So did they have a magic touch that was lost in 2005, or did they get lucky and then revert to the mean, or was it a little of both. 

 

 

Or did other teams put more resources into scouting in Europe after seeing the success Detroit had which eliminated their edge?  A lot of factors in play.  Some luck?  Sure   Some skill and hard work involved - I think so. 

 

If there was no skill involved in scouting then teams could just follow the NHL Central Scouting list and save some money. Perhaps some do that. 

[hab29RETIRED]

3 hours ago, Commandant said:

 

I think thats part of it, but luck is also a huge part of it. 

 

The Red Wings drafted extremely well in those years.

 

then post lockout in 2005, the same group of people drafted very poorly, leading to the end of their playoff streak, current rebuild and firing of Ken Holland. 

 

So did they have a magic touch that was lost in 2005, or did they get lucky and then revert to the mean, or was it a little of both. 

 

I think part of the shift for the wings was that they shifted to building their team by trading for, and signing big name players. It seemed like every big name player was going to Detroit either as a a UFA, or as via trade - Shanahan, Hull, Robaitaille, Chelios, Hasak, along with many others.
 

Detroit became a chase the cup destination for a lot of players and they were moving picks and young players, or signing big name UFA’s as they spent as much as ownership was willing to ante up.

 

than the cap happened, and this model was no longer sustainable. When their base core aged out, or retired, they were left with an empty cabinet, bloated contracts, and cap constrained to chase talent. Holland wasn’t prepared for the cap world and, faced the same predicament as the penguins, having aging elite talent, and trying to go for it while they were still elite. 

[DON]

U-18s started this morning in Switzerland, TSN showing games.

https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2023/wm18

Lots top prospects playing

e.g. Cristall-Wood-Leonard-Smith-Dvorsky-Sale-Sandin-Pellikka-Moore-AND COLE Hutson

 

 

CSS final ranking.

https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-final-2023-draft-rankings/c-343572600?tid=277764372