What to expect with LA's first round pick??

(picture courtesy of life.com)


An interesting article by Scott Cullen broke down the value of first round picks and what the odds were for teams selecting in the 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, and 26-30 range. Since Edmonton is looking at the last three sections, I thought I would look at the picks from 1995-2004 as well. Although I believe scouting has increased over the past 5 years and it is easier to predict how players will turn out, I think their will be a lot of different opinions from the upcoming draft. Some teams will have a player slotted in the 11th spot while others could have them at 30. For the full article go to http://www.tsn.ca/columnists/scott_cullen/?ID=267960.

He notes that players taken between 16-30 included players like Ryan Getzlaf, Brent Burns, Robyn Regehr, Mike Richards, Simon Gagner, Daniel Briere, Mike Green Martin Havlat, and Correy Perry to name a few. Just by looking at the numbers he had, it is about a 60% chance that Edmonton drafts an NHL player with the pick that they have acuired with LA's pick. Jason Gregor confirms these numbers in his article: http://oilersnation.com/2011/2/25/value-in-acquiring-draft-picks. Roughly 40% of first round draft picks end up being busts.

I'm here to tell you that these statistics are misleading. Its not all doom and gloom in my mind. First, those numbers include some very very horrendus draft years including 2004 and 2005. Secondly, drafting has become considerably better over the past 5 years. Factoring this in with this year draft having a lot of talent and being a good year to have another first, Edmonton could have another steal on their hands. Finally, the way the NHL is being played and the need for youth in an organization draft picks and youngesters are playing a bigger movement in their teams success. I did my own (albeit subjective) breakdown of players that are already NHL regulars, who I think should be in the NHL next year or two as well as players that still have a shot of making the NHL. The numbers look good.

2008 Draft: 15-8-3-4
-15 players already in the NHL(Stamkos, Doughty, Bogosian, Pietrangelo, Schenn, Wilson, Boedker, Bailey, Myers, Karlsson, Sbisa, MDZ, Eberle, Ennis, and Carlson)
-8 players that should have long NHL careers (Hodgson, Beach, Teubert, Boychuk, Colborne, Gardiner, Pickard, Tedenby)
-3 players that should still be NHLers (Filatov, Cuma, and Nemisz)
-4 players that have really struggled (Gustafsson, Tikhonov, Leveille, McCollum)

2009 Draft: 10-10-9-1
-10 players already in the NHL (Tavares, Hedman, Duchene, Kane, OEL, Paajarvi, Kulkiov, Leddy, Josefson, and Johansson)
-10 players that should have long NHL careers (Schenn, Kadri, Cowen, Ellis, Kassian, De Haan, Runbland, LeBlanc, Moore, and Erixon)
-9 players that should still be NHLers (Glennie, Kreider, Schroeder, Holland, Caron, Palmieri, Ashton, Despres, and Olsen)
-1 player that has really struggled (Paradis)

I started doing the 2010 draft as well but realized that a lot of it is pure speculation. Right now only 5 players are in the NHL but I wouldnt be surprised if another 10 players are in the NHL next year (Gudbranson, Gormley, Johansen, Niederreiter, Connolly, Forbort, Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, Granlund and Hishon to name a few). I also think that their are a bunch of guys like Watson, Howden, Etem, Visentin, Campbell etc that could really turn out to be something special.

Anyways from these two drafts the odds seem a lot better. If 2009 can come close to either of these drafts (which I think it will) then we should be in good shape. It shows that 42% of the first round picks are already in the NHL and another 30% should be surefire NHLers in the near future. Together that is a 72% not even including the longshots to make the NHL. This number is MUCH higher then it has been in the past.