Draft Pick Watch - WE PICKED NYLANDER!!1!!

[OldTimeHockey]

no you need to evaluate rarity and limited resources.  You don't waste something rare, like a first round pick; on something common, like a 3rd line grinder.  That's just common sense.

How rare is a 1st round pick when every team has one?

 

[Redleaf]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Beetle400/status/467790386564321280

The Hockey News mock draft. They have Ritchie at 3, and Bennett just out of reach at 7...

http://forecaster.thehockeynews.com/hockeynews/hockey/articles.php?aid=877

 

[Kin]

Shea Weber at 49th
Lucic at 50th
Chara at 56th

Some teams have luck and some seem to pick carefully.

I think the real point though is that the value in draft picks is really just having them. The idea that some teams "pick carefully" and others don't doesn't so much wash, after all the team that took Chara at 56th was the Islanders for goodness sakes, but just having picks and taking those shots really does seem to be an important part of fleshing out a team.

 

[ZBBM]

I'll just go on record as saying it would be a mistake to trade up from 8 in this draft.  The cost is too high and nobody this year is the kind of generational talent that is the only reason to pay that price.  There will be plenty of good players at 8.

 

[bustaheims]

I'll just go on record as saying it would be a mistake to trade up from 8 in this draft.  The cost is too high and nobody this year is the kind of generational talent that is the only reason to pay that price.  There will be plenty of good players at 8.

It depends on what the cost is, but, for the most part, I agree. Unless the scouting staff really thinks someone within reasonable trading range is a clear cut better prospect, I'd stay at 8, or maybe even trade down a bit. I feel like the guys they could get at 10-12 might not really be a drop off from at 8.

 

[ZBBM]

I'll just go on record as saying it would be a mistake to trade up from 8 in this draft.  The cost is too high and nobody this year is the kind of generational talent that is the only reason to pay that price.  There will be plenty of good players at 8.

It depends on what the cost is, but, for the most part, I agree. Unless the scouting staff really thinks someone within reasonable trading range is a clear cut better prospect, I'd stay at 8, or maybe even trade down a bit. I feel like the guys they could get at 10-12 might not really be a drop off from at 8.

Good point.  If they could pick up and extra 2nd or something I wouldn't care if they dropped to the midteens.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

The Leafs don't have a 2nd round pick this year or next, so trading up will be pretty difficult to pull off anyway.

 

[Kin]

I'll just go on record as saying it would be a mistake to trade up from 8 in this draft.  The cost is too high and nobody this year is the kind of generational talent that is the only reason to pay that price.  There will be plenty of good players at 8.

I don't think a player has to be a generational talent to be worthy of trading up to get them. They just have to be a prospect a team is more confident in then someone they think will be available when they pick. The Devils trading up to get Parise, for instance.

 

[LuncheonMeat]

From an interview with Dave Morrison in the National Post yesterday:

http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/05/16/toronto-maple-leafs-amateur-scouting-chief-taking-patient-approach-with-prospects-despite-lowly-ranking/

To that end, new president Brendan Shanahan offered the scouting staff new guidelines heading into next month?s NHL Entry Draft. Where Brian Burke favoured size over skill (ie: Tyler Biggs) and Dave Nonis was admittedly safe in his selections (ie: Gauthier), Shanahan indicated this week that the emphasis would be on taking players with higher ceilings, starting with the No. 8 pick, even if that meant assuming greater risks.

?Certainly, Brendan has let us know what he likes as a player. He wants a certain type of guy and we?re going to do our best to get that guy,? said Morrison.

This provides me with a glimmer of hope... because I need one.

 

[ZBBM]

I'll just go on record as saying it would be a mistake to trade up from 8 in this draft.  The cost is too high and nobody this year is the kind of generational talent that is the only reason to pay that price.  There will be plenty of good players at 8.

I don't think a player has to be a generational talent to be worthy of trading up to get them. They just have to be a prospect a team is more confident in then someone they think will be available when they pick. The Devils trading up to get Parise, for instance.

See, for me the player would have to be a virtual can't miss superstar.  Even when someone comes very highly lauded you can fall on your face.  Some scouts were touting Schenn as the best defensive defenseman in 25 years -- arguably a generational talent, except there wasn't consensus on that.  (Even so, his rookie year he looked like he could have developed into just that ... which is exactly what we needed then, and now.)  So to me, unless it's somebody about whom there really is no doubt, then the cost is too high.

 

[hap_leaf]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Beetle400/status/467790386564321280

The Hockey News mock draft. They have Ritchie at 3, and Bennett just out of reach at 7...

http://forecaster.thehockeynews.com/hockeynews/hockey/articles.php?aid=877

I've read my THN Draft Preview as pictured (Fantastic Four) cover to cover and am keeping it as a guide on Draft Day. 
The Top 10 as listed are:
1. Bennett
2. Ekblad
3. Reinhart
4. Draisaitl
5. Dal Colle
6. Nylander
7. Ehlers
8. Fleury
9. Ritchie
10. Kapanen

The Leafs will almost assuredly have one of these players.

I think their mock draft thing from last month was written in perspective of what NHL team would need that type of player the most.  If Bennett goes 7th it will be a shock to the hockey community.

 

[Kin]

See, for me the player would have to be a virtual can't miss superstar.  Even when someone comes very highly lauded you can fall on your face.  Some scouts were touting Schenn as the best defensive defenseman in 25 years -- arguably a generational talent, except there wasn't consensus on that.  (Even so, his rookie year he looked like he could have developed into just that ... which is exactly what we needed then, and now.)  So to me, unless it's somebody about whom there really is no doubt, then the cost is too high.

That's a pretty high opinion to have of 2nd and 3rd round picks.

 

[losveratos]

See, for me the player would have to be a virtual can't miss superstar.  Even when someone comes very highly lauded you can fall on your face.  Some scouts were touting Schenn as the best defensive defenseman in 25 years -- arguably a generational talent, except there wasn't consensus on that.  (Even so, his rookie year he looked like he could have developed into just that ... which is exactly what we needed then, and now.)  So to me, unless it's somebody about whom there really is no doubt, then the cost is too high.

That's a pretty high opinion to have of 2nd and 3rd round picks.

I wanted to take a look at maybe what was meant by this. Regarding 2nds and 3rds being more valuable than moving up. So I choose the draft from 2003 as there was no generational talent really. I limited my acceptance of players to 2 seasons or more - some injury time. So I choose 150 games played as my cut off.

0 players in the top ten made no impact
2 players in the first round made no impact (of course the top half of the first round has many more games played than the bottom half)
half the players in the 2nd round made no impact
24 players made no impact in the 3rd

So I thought that seemed to indicate that keeping your extra picks after the 2nd round is pretty terrible idea if you can use them to move up. However if you're already in the top half of the 1st round, where players are almost guaranteed even when picked poorly it seems, you shouldn't give up 2nd round picks for a little higher.

I took a quick glance at 2004-2008 as well. It mostly agrees. But there are a few outliers like every draft year.

All that being said, if I knew for sure that I could grab the next Toews at one spot up, I would trade all my picks to do it. But when it comes to projecting the future of youths in the NHL... is anyone ever "that" sure of their pick? How many times has someone said "this pick will be #1 in scoring/goals/save percentage" then been right?

If I'm walking up to the craps table that is the NHL draft trying to roll 7's to get the best player. I guess I'd rather more attempts with semi loaded dice than one attempt with perfect cheat free dice.

 

[Kin]

I wanted to take a look at maybe what was meant by this. Regarding 2nds and 3rds being more valuable than moving up. So I choose the draft from 2003 as there was no generational talent really. I limited my acceptance of players to 2 seasons or more - some injury time. So I choose 150 games played as my cut off.

Aside being unsure of the point behind your criteria here that's probably a bad way to go as 2003 is almost universally acknowledged to have been the single best draft in the history of the NHL. The value of picks that year was not indicative of the value of picks in most years and if you're ignoring the difference between, say, Ryan Suter and Andrei Kostitsyn on the basis of them both having played 150 games...well, that seems to be missing the point entirely.

 

[2badknees]

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2003e.html

That is a crazy result to look through. There's quality to be found even up to the ninth round (Moulson)

 

[princedpw]

Here's a useful article:

http://theleafsnation.com/2011/3/10/the-value-of-an-nhl-draft-pick

It gives some information but also has links to a bunch of other sites that do further analysis of the draft by position and such.

Here's another take:

http://www.coppernblue.com/2011/4/4/2082829/nhl-draft-pick-value-first-round

 

[Kin]

These are the conclusions from the first article above:

Get top-five picks. The top picks in the first round are very, very valuable. Teams moving up into this range cheaply are getting real value. Generally it costs an arm and a leg to acquire a marquee pick, but there are exceptions ? for instance, Tampa Bay?s trade of the fourth overall pick in 2002 to Philadelphia for Ruslan Fedotenko.

After the top-five, move down in the first round. Teams trade up all the time to snag players that they like in the first round, but as a rule it is a very bad idea. Teams trading down don?t really lose much value, especially if they aren?t trading down very far.

Top-100 picks outside the first round are not especially good, and are virtually interchangeable. These picks are all about quantity over quality; good players are there to be found but the odds are stacked against any individual selection. Trading a mid-second round pick for two third round selections would seem to be a wise move the majority of the time.

Picks outside the top-100 are all but interchangeable. These picks are all about quantity. Every selection is a long-shot, teams play hunches and snag the favourites of regional scouts, and basically there is very little to separate the players involved except the biases of individual teams and who their scouts have seen.

Contending teams can trade mid- to late-round picks with minimal reluctance. Draft picks after the first round, and especially those outside the top-100, can be spent with almost no hesitation on actual players. For a contending team, acquiring depth or quality via draft picks is an extremely sound strategy.

I think I probably agree with most of them here with the exception of the "outside of the top 5, trade down" one as I think that's where there probably has to be an interjection that there is some art to the science of the draft and that a good scouting program that strongly prefers one player to another has some value. Which isn't to say that I don't see how there's real value in trading down if you're not super-high on any one player in particular, just that I don't think the very real successes smart teams have had in trading up can be dismissed as outliers given the very significant impact even one success can have on a team's futures for 10+ years.

 

[slapshot]

See, for me the player would have to be a virtual can't miss superstar.  Even when someone comes very highly lauded you can fall on your face.  Some scouts were touting Schenn as the best defensive defenseman in 25 years -- arguably a generational talent, except there wasn't consensus on that.  (Even so, his rookie year he looked like he could have developed into just that ... which is exactly what we needed then, and now.)  So to me, unless it's somebody about whom there really is no doubt, then the cost is too high.

That's a pretty high opinion to have of 2nd and 3rd round picks.

I wanted to take a look at maybe what was meant by this. Regarding 2nds and 3rds being more valuable than moving up. So I choose the draft from 2003 as there was no generational talent really. I limited my acceptance of players to 2 seasons or more - some injury time. So I choose 150 games played as my cut off.

0 players in the top ten made no impact
2 players in the first round made no impact (of course the top half of the first round has many more games played than the bottom half)
half the players in the 2nd round made no impact
24 players made no impact in the 3rd

So I thought that seemed to indicate that keeping your extra picks after the 2nd round is pretty terrible idea if you can use them to move up. However if you're already in the top half of the 1st round, where players are almost guaranteed even when picked poorly it seems, you shouldn't give up 2nd round picks for a little higher.

I took a quick glance at 2004-2008 as well. It mostly agrees. But there are a few outliers like every draft year.

All that being said, if I knew for sure that I could grab the next Toews at one spot up, I would trade all my picks to do it. But when it comes to projecting the future of youths in the NHL... is anyone ever "that" sure of their pick? How many times has someone said "this pick will be #1 in scoring/goals/save percentage" then been right?

If I'm walking up to the craps table that is the NHL draft trying to roll 7's to get the best player. I guess I'd rather more attempts with semi loaded dice than one attempt with perfect cheat free dice.

Probably wasn't the best year to use as example, as Nik says. However, I tend to agree that getting something decent after the second round is almost akin to finding a needle in a haysack. As for comment that there is quality even in 9th round...A.K.A. Matt Moulsen. For every Moulsen there are probably 100 that bust. That's not to say that surprises can happen, but to project anyone as a sure fired NHLer beyond the first round (and half of those don't make it), let alone a star, is dreaming in techni-colour.  There are about 700 roster players in the league. If you took the draft over the past decade, that would be a not even half way in 3rd round (IF ALL THE TOP CHOICES MADE IT)...of course, it doesn't happen that way. They are spread out a bit more. But beyond a few, it's really a crap shoot.

 

[ZBBM]

See, for me the player would have to be a virtual can't miss superstar.  Even when someone comes very highly lauded you can fall on your face.  Some scouts were touting Schenn as the best defensive defenseman in 25 years -- arguably a generational talent, except there wasn't consensus on that.  (Even so, his rookie year he looked like he could have developed into just that ... which is exactly what we needed then, and now.)  So to me, unless it's somebody about whom there really is no doubt, then the cost is too high.

That's a pretty high opinion to have of 2nd and 3rd round picks.

Not that it matters, but I think it's an opinion that's pretty close to the norm.  Heck, in a subsequent post you quoted somebody who agreed with me.

Each pick = shot at success.  The more you have, the better.

 

[Kin]

Not that it matters, but I think it's an opinion that's pretty close to the norm.  Heck, in a subsequent post you quoted somebody who agreed with me.

Each pick = shot at success.  The more you have, the better.

I'm not sure who you think I quoted that agreed with you but in the article princedpw linked to the key point would be "picks in the top 100 outside of the first round are not very good and are virtually interchangeable" which doesn't seem to be a particularly high opinion to have on 3rd rounders and is a very low opinion to have of 2nd rounders. I read that to mean that a high second round pick isn't much more valuable than a high 4th rounder.

I don't think anyone would disagree with the idea that you want more picks in a vacuum but it does seem as though there's tremendous value in a top 5 pick regardless of whether or not it's a "generational talent" which, it should be noted, a guy like John Toews was not seen to be in his draft year.