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.

Patience Young Swede

Lets face it, Oiler fans are spoiled. I say this because we have seen how quickly a kid like Taylor Hall or Jordan Eberle can jump into the lineup without slowing down offensively. I would even argue that we were spoiled when Sam Gagner made the jump right to the NHL. Sure, we are being patient with most of our other prospects but why is it that Edmonton Oiler fans expect that all of our first rounders to make the NHL immediately and produce.


(picture courtesy of communities.canada.com/edmontonjournal)

I bring this up because of the constant bashing I hear about Magnus Paajarvi. The kid is an unbelieveable talent that is still putting up decent numbers in the NHL, the problem is that they aren't quite as good as the young phenoms that Edmonton has been blessed with. Anyways, I'm hear to tell you that this is only natural for a swedish player. In fact, it is the exception that someone comes over from sweden and produces almost instantly. The only real cases I could find of this were Nicklas Backstrom (selected 3rd overall), Anze Kopitar (11th overall) and Erik Karlsson (selected 15th overall). Hell, even the leauge leading sedins that were drafted number 2 and 3 respectively took 5+ years to really break into the leauge. Victor Hedman was drafted 2nd overall and is still looking to take his game to the next level at the NHL.

I have compiled a list of swedish players that were drafted in the first round that are considered NHL regualars as well as the busts over the past 10 years. It should be noted that I did not include anyone drafted behind Magnus Paajarvi. These include Jacob Josefson, Tim Erixon, and Marcus Johansson. He is easily ahead of both Josefson and Erixon and is putting up better numbers then Johansson. It should be noted that the average length for a player coming from the SEL is about 4-5 years before they really contribute at the NHL level.

Daniel Sedin (2nd overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 19G 26A 45P
Year 2 (NHL): 20G 14A 34P
Year 3 (NHL): 9G 23A 32P
Year 4 (NHL): 14G 17A 31P
Year 5 (NHL): 18G 36A 54P

Victor Hedman (2nd overall):
Year 1 (NHL): 4G 16A 20P
Year 2 (NHL): 3G 21A 24P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Henrik Sedin (3rd overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 9G 38A 47P
Year 2 (NHL): 9G 20A 29P
Year 3 (NHL): 16G 20A 36P
Year 4 (NHL): 8G 31A 39P
Year 5 (NHL): 11G 31A 42P
Year 6 (SEL): 14G 22A 36P
Year 7 (NHL): 18G 57A 75P

Nicklas Backstrom (3rd overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 12G 28A 40P
Year 2 (SEL): 14G 55A 69P

Oliver Ekman-Larsson (6th overall):
Year 1 (Swe-1): 9G 18A 27P
Year 2 (NHL): 1G 10A 11P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Magnus Paajarvi (10th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 12G 17A 29P
Year 2 (NHL): 10G 16A 26P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Anze Kopitar (11th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 8G 12A 20P
Year 2 (NHL): 20G 41A 61P

Lars Eller (13th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 12G 17A 29G
Year 2 (AHL): 18G 39A 57P
Year 3 (NHL): 7G 8A 15P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Erik Karlsson (15th overall):
Year 1 (NHL): 5G 21A 26P
Year 2 (NHL): 12G 28A 40P

Nicklas Bergfors (23rd overall):
Year 1 (AHL): 17G 23A 40P
Year 2 (AHL): 13G 19A 32P
Year 3 (AHL): 12G 15A 27P
Year 4 (AHL): 22G 29A 51P
Year 5 (NHL): 21G 23A 44P

Mikael Backlund (24th overall):
Year 1 (Swe-1): 4G 4A 8P
Year 2 (AHL): 15G 17A 32P
Year 3 (NHL): 1G 9A 10P
Year 4 (NHL): 8G 10A 18P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Alexander Steen (24th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 5G 10A 15P
Year 2 (SEL): 10G 14A 24P
Year 3 (SEL): 9G 8A 17P
Year 4 (NHL): 18G 27A 45P

Mattia Tedenby (24th overall)
Year 1 (SEL): 3G 1A 4P
Year 2 (SEL): 12G 7A 19P
Year 3 (NHL): 7G 9A 16P
*Has yet to take the next step*

Patrik Berglund (25th overall):
Year 1 (Swe-1): 21G 24A 45P
Year 2 (NHL): 21G 26A 47P
Year 3 (NHL): 13G 13A 26P
Year 4 (NHL): 18G 27A 45P
*Has Plateaued, still waiting to make the next step*

Niklas Kronwall (29th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 1G 9A 10P
Year 2 (SEL): 5G 7A 12P
Year 3 (SEL): 5G 13A 18P
Year 4 (AHL): 2G 11A 13P
Year 5 (AHL): 13G 40A 53P
Year 6 (NHL): 1G 8A 9P
Year 7 (NHL): 1G 21A 22P

*Draft Busts* Jens Karlsson (2001), Lars Jonsson(2000), Martin Samuelsson (2000), Fredrik Sjostrom 2001), Jonas Johansson (2002), and Robert Nilsson (2003), Christofer Lofberg (2005), Dennis Persson (2006), Anton Gustafsson (2008)

Just for fun I thought I would also bring up the statistics and progression of a player like Henrik Zettberg. He is after all one of the best that Sweden has produced but it took the Detroit Red Wings a long time to do so. Yes, he was drafted way later in the draft but it still goes to show that patience can go a long way.

Henrik Zetterberg (210th overall):
Year 1 (SEL): 15G 31A 46P
Year 2 (SEL): 10G 22A 32P
Year 3 (NHL): 22G 22A 44P
Year 4 (NHL): 15G 28A 43P
Year 5 (SEL): 19G 31A 50P
Year 6 (NHL): 39G 46P 85P

Any way you break it down, the whole "Swedish players play against grown men and can handle the NHL" argument is overblown. Sure, they might be able to handle the NHL but it does not mean that they are going to be able to come in and produce at both ends of the ice. Over the past 10 years only three SEL players were able to come in and produce in their second year after being drafted. The Oilers did not have a chance to draft any of these three players and right now MPS is looking to be the best player available at his respective draft position.


(picture courtest of thepipelineshow.blogspot.com)

Just be patient and wait a few years before we run a kid out of town. He is going to be money for us down the road. I would also like to point out that if Edmonton does indeed draft Adam Larsson this summer, fans probably shouldn't expect anything to amazing in his first season. He would be lucky to put up 20 points coming directly out of the SEL (i.e. similar numbers to Victor Hedman). Even Nicklas Lidstrom played an extra two years after his draft year in the SEL before coming over to the NHL. That leads me to believe that we won't really see a dominante Larsson until his third year with the team. I'm not saying Edmonton shouldn't draft Larsson but odds are he will take a while to develop- something that shouldn't be a problem for a team doing a full rebuild.