The NHL Entry Draft is one of the most exciting days on the NHL calendar.
Sure no games are played, but future games are envisioned, both in terms of players selected in the 7 rounds and in transactions completed on the draft floor.
Teams are shaped, futures are made more clear (or at least we tell ourselves this), and winners and losers are declared.
For years my rule of thumb in looking back at draft success was the two players selected after each and every Calgary Flames pick. The origin of that saying has something to do with the allowable width of a stick used to hit your wife, so I’ll leave that alone, but the origin of my two pick rule can be traced back to the 1997 draft, and for me will always be known as my “Marian Hossa” rule.
And why is that? Well bare with me as I recant an unsuccessful draft for the Calgary Flames. Calgary with a top 6 pick follows a run of players that would include Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Olli Jokinen, Roberto Luongo and Eric Brewer – all well established NHL talents.
Calgary took Daniel Tkaczuk.
He played 19 NHL games.
Clearly it would be unfair to judge the pick of Tkaczuk against the previously named 5 players, we can all agree to that statement as they had already been selected. But what bothered me in the years after that draft was the suggestion that the Flames should have taken Marian Hossa. Hossa is approaching 1200 NHL games, and earlier this week captured his 3rd Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks, so the timing of conjuring up this rule is perfect. The Flames clearly should have taken Hossa, but then too should have the teams selecting 7th through 11th in the first round. He wasn’t rated to got top ten, so he fell to Ottawa at 12.
I’ve always contended that the two players selected immediately after your selection are truly the best indication of who was on the board, admitting of course that some teams take fliers on players, gumming up the results.
In 1997 the Flames took Tkaczuk ahead of Paul Mara and Sergei Samsonov, both of whom would have been better selections as they went on to play 800 games each, but not the swing and miss that one could point to against Hossa’s career.
But what about the big picture? How do teams do against this Hossa Rule over a long period of time? I compiled 10 years of draft results ranging from 2004 to 2013 to see how teams fare against the Hossa rule with a decade of results. Clearly the 2013 draft is fresh, but I kept it within the study as I truly believe modern scouting has made the strike outs less frequent, so going back in time too deeply would skew the results.
The numbers startled me at first but then upon pondering began to make sense.
The draft is a crapshoot, and when two player’s fortunes are measured against one, very rarely will the one win out. So as a result, from 2004-2013 not a single NHL team has a positive total games played comparison between the players they selected (roughly 70 apiece) and the the players selected immediately after their selections (roughly 140 players).
Scouting couldn’t beat the 2 out of 3 odds that are in place with the Hossa rule.
In fact on average every team gives up 234 games played to the two players following each of their picks over this ten year period (23 gp per draft, or 3 games played per pick) … so clearly the rule is somewhat cruel as a logical distribution of success should have generally as many winners as losers. What the rule summary does provide though is an interesting ranking of how teams have done in comparison to the the two picks after selection, as two teams stand out well above the pack.
The Buffalo Sabres and St. Louis Blues seem to have had the leg up on scouting in this time frame, at least in this measure dropping 220 and 627 games played to double the amount of players selected after their picks.
The worst drafting team? The Calgary Flames, sorry everyone. The Flames have given up 5,102 games played in this time frame, or an average of 510 games played per draft, and that’s with the all but last year included (the disparity of the 2013 and 2012 drafts are tight given their proximity to today’s date).
The graphic above is “heat mapped” so you can see the biggest gains and losses from all of the teams over the years. Clearly the first draft on the list will have wider GP disparity then the most recent draft. Some interesting examples to pull out of the grid …
Best success story: Buffalo 2004, +890
(Stafford, Sekera, Kaleta) almost 1500 games played
Runner Up: Boston 2004, +881
(David Krejci, Kris Versteeg, Matt Hunwick)
Worst GP Loss: Columbus 2004, -2,701
Columbus drafts a cast of nobodies and misses out on Laddy Smid, Blake Comeau, Brandon Dubinsky, Thomas Greiss, Johan Franzen, Versteeg and Kari Ramo.
Runner Up: Calgary 2006, -1,477
Considerably less of a variance, but then it still has two years of damage to come in an updated table as 2006 becomes year one in the analysis. The Flames find a total of 13 games played, all from Leland Irving and miss out on Nick Foligno, Leo Komarov, Derek Dorsett and Erik Condra.
The Jackets missed out on Franzen, the Flames on Foligno, but the rest of the names certainly aren’t players that are needed to turn a franchise around; they are 3rd pairing defenseman, depth forwards, or backup goaltenders. However games played is certainly a fair barometer for a large set of data as players that play games are assets, and teams with assets have options both to play or trade for other players. If you draft players that never play a game you have a stable of busts and with busts you have nothing to deal with.
However is this the best way to measure draft talent? On the surface sure, but it doesn’t take into account other issues such as; 1) number of picks 2) number of top 60 picks 3) average draft position, all of which would bring more clarity to team’s and their abilities.
Look for that analysis later this week!
Drill Down Data: Flames Games Played Results 2004-2013
2004
Drafted and Played: Kris Chucko, Brandon Prust, Dustin Boyd, Adam Pardy
Missed Out: Rob Schremp, Cory Schneider, Andrej Sekera, Tyler Kennedy, Mike Vernace, Troy Brouwer
Total Impact: 1,036 games played loss
Commentary: Some success in drafting depth players, but missed out on a #1 goaltender, a top 4 defenseman, and some character.
2005
Drafted and Played: Matt Pelech, Matt Keetley, Brett Sutter
Missed Out: Matt Niskanen, Tim Kennedy, Kyle Cumiskey
Total Impact: 971 games played loss
Commentary: Calgary drafts next to nothing, but only misses out on one player in 7 rounds.
2006
Drafted and Played: Leland Irving
Missed Out: Nick Foligno, Leo Komarov, Derek Dorsett, Erik Condra
Total Impact: 1,477 games played loss
Commentary: Calgary strikes out on every pick, and could have had Nick Foligno.
2007
Drafted and Played: Mikael Backlund, Keith Aulie
Missed Out: David Perron, Drayson Bowman, Matt Halischuk
Total Impact: 485 games played loss
Commentary: Net loss in games played, but I’d take Backlund over Perron so a win overall.
2008
Drafted and Played: Greg Nemisz, Lance Bouma, T.J. Brodie
Missed Out: Tyler Ennis, John Carlson, Zack Smith, Ben Smith
Total Impact: 433 games played loss
Commentary: Very successful draft for the Flames but would have been epic if Ennis or Carlson were taken instead of Nemisz.
2009
Drafted and Played: Tim Erixon, Joni Ortio
Missed Out: Marcus Johansson, Jordan Caron
Total Impact: 343 games played loss
Commentary: Tim Erixon looked like a steal a year after that draft, but then the karma train took his career off the rails.
2010
Drafted and Played: Max Reinhart, John Ramage, Bill Arnold, Michael Ferland, Patrick Holland
Missed Out: Radko Gudas
Total Impact: 77 games played loss
Commentary: Calgary gets at least a game from 5 different players, and look to have a steal in Ferland in the 5th round. Still high on Arnold as well. Great draft for Calgary
2011
Drafted and Played: Sven Baertschi, Markus Granlund, Tyler Wotherspoon, John Gaudreau, Laurent Brossoit
Missed Out: J.T. Miller, Matthew Nieto, Nikita Kucherov
Total Impact: 165 games played loss
Commentary: Like 2010 5 guys play at least a game, a star is found in Gaudreau, the Flames make Baertschi into a 2nd round pick, and draft other above average pieces. Great draft. Kucherov went a pick after Wotherspoon, meaning the Flames could have hit it out of the park. Look for these games played numbers to go positive in the future.
2012
Drafted and Played: Brett Kulak
Missed Out: Olli Maatta
Total Impact: 107 games played loss
Commentary: What looked like a pretty good move to take Jankowski and also gain Sieloff has turned into one of the most contentious draft decisions in modern Flames draft history. Lots of time on the clock to work this out either way.
2013
Drafted and Played: Sean Monahan, Emile Poirier
Missed Out: Rasmus Ristolainen, Andre Burakovsky
Total Impact: 8 games played loss
Commentary: Could end up being one of the best drafts in Flames’ history if all three first round picks hit it. Monahan looks to be an elite pick that will go on to 1000+ NHL games making it a breakeven draft at worse (knock on wood). Interesting that Burakovsky’s success in Washington could be the better comparable to Poirier than Shinkaruk.
