May 7, 2020

What is the Value of a Draft Pick in the NHL?

If you are anything like me during this covid-19 lockdown, you’re probably bored out of your mind.

I have therefore tried to answer the age old question: What is the value of an NHL Draft Pick? This is a very important question for an NHL Team, and answers to questions like these could be very valuable for an NHL Franchise. For example:

When should a Team trade a Pick for a Player?

What kind of Player should they expect in return?

How much more valuable are First Round Draft Picks?

Does Draft Year or Draft Class play a role?

Like a madman with a fishing pole and endless hours, I set about making a massive spreadsheet tracking the historical data. I have now analyzed all 7,473 Players drafted between the years 1979 and 2008.

Yes, that took me many hours and a few pots of coffee. Don’t worry, I enjoyed it. It was like some sort of OCD induced statistical catharsis. Here are the categories I used to carry out my analysis.

Type Of Player Definition Players in this category Legendary 1,000 Games Played or

1,000 Career Points Mario Lemieux, Daniel Alfredsson, Zdeno Chara Star 700-1,000 GP or

Career Points Daniel Briere, Johnny Boychuk, Mike Cammalleri Regular 400-700 Games Played P.A. Parenteau, Johan Franzen, Dave Bolland Grinder 100-400 Games Played Andrei Kostitsyn, Oleg Saprykin, Peter Mueller Bust Fewer than 100 Career Games Played Gerard Coleman, Chris Beckford-Tseu, Masi Marjamaki

Here are some of my findings. Some of the results might surprise you.

74% of all drafted players in the NHL are Busts .

In other words, most players who are drafted never end up playing in the NHL. A Team is much more likely to “miss” than to “hit”.

Only 3.4% of all drafted players earn Legendary Status.

If a Team manages to draft even one Legend during a Draft, they have already been extremely successful. It’s like finding a diamond in the rough.

In all Rounds, Teams have only a 15.9% chance, of drafting at least an NHL Regular

A Team normally only has 7 Picks, which means everything else being equal, a Team can only expect to come out of the Draft with only one Regular NHL Player. That’s a “good” outcome.

The odds drop off significantly after the First Round.

After the First Round, odds of drafting at least a Regular are 11.2%, a Star 5.6%, and a Legend 1.6%.

This means after the First Round, 88.8% of the time a Team will end up drafting a proverbial bag of pucks. Those aren’t very good odds at all.

This also means after the First Round, out of a total of 186 Picks, only 3 will become Legends. And that will be in a good year.

Imagine a bag with 186 Skittles in it. That’s how many players are Non First Rounders.

In this bag of 186 Skittles, there are: 153 Busts, 17 Grinders, 10 Regulars, 7 Stars and only 3 Legends.

Bag Of Skittles Total: 186 Busts 153 Grinders 17 Regulars 10 Stars 7 Legends 3 Pick Distribution after First Round

Stick your hand in the bag and take a pick. Only the Greens, Oranges and Reds taste any good. The rest are just rocks which you might be able to use as a handy paper weight.

If Skittles is “taste the rainbow”, then the NHL Draft is more like “taste the wave of purple mediocrity.”

In other words, the Draft after the First Round is like throwing darts blind at a board. If you get even one Regular after the First Round, you’re doing well. The NHL Draft is therefore a science of missed expectations.

Conclusion: Trading a Draft Pick outside of the First Round to net an NHL Regular is generally a good deal. If that Player goes on to play over 100 games for your club, you have already basically won the deal.

The Value of the First Round

A First Round Draft Pick is of considerable value compared with the rest of the Draft. I have analysed the 753 First Rounders drafted between 1979-2008. Of these First Rounders:

Legendary Star Regular Grinder Bust 18.7% 19.7% 19.0% 16.6% 26.0% First Round Drafting Odds

This is significant. There is nearly a 60% chance of drafting a Regular in the First Round. Compare this with the 11.2% chance of drafting a Regular after the First Round.

A First Round Pick is essentially a 1/5 card draw. You have a 1/5 chance of hitting any one of those categories. Therefore, a First Round Pick is extremely valuable.

If you can acquire two First Rounders, or even three, you can really increase your odds through stacking.

The Boston Bruins had three consecutive First Rounders in 2015. They managed to draft Jake DeBrusk who looks like he will go on to become a Star. The other two picks unfortunately “missed” and were either a Grinder or a Bust. So what happened there?

The next three Picks after Boston were: Matthew Barzal, Kyle Connor and Thomas Chabot. All future Stars or even Legendary players. So, good planning but bad luck for the Bruins there.

Conclusion: A First Round Draft Pick has significant value to a team. Having a nearly 40% chance of drafting a Star or a Legend is an enormous boost for a club. Therefore, a First Round Pick should only be traded for another Star or Legend, and only if they expect to play for your club for a significant portion of time.

The Value Of Draft Classes

One of the most important factors in all of this, is the overall strength of Draft Classes.

Not all Draft Classes are equal. For example, there were only 2 Busts in the First Round of the 2003 “Super Draft”. Compare that with 12 Busts in 1999. This dramatically alters the value of a Pick. Therefore, “Strength of Draft Class” is very important.

Assessing this is an incredibly difficult task to manage, and includes many variables. It also isn’t necessarily statistically significant if we cannot manage to extrapolate that into future draft classes. But this analysis will come later.

In addition, many Drafts have incomplete statistics. Many Players drafted are still playing, and will necessarily update their statistics over time.

In any event, like a ship without mast sailing into the wind, I have attempted to rank these Draft Classes.

Methodology: I have assigned point values (weights) to different variables, and have ranked every Draft analysed. Some results matched the initial hypothesis, and some were a surprise.

Best Draft Classes

The Best Draft Class, with a score of 362 was the 1979 Draft. This makes perfect sense as it allowed underage players already playing in the WHA. Significant players include: Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, and Dale Hunter.

The 2003 “Super Draft” came out as #2 with a score of 360. However, by the time these players retire, this will be the #1 Draft Year, and it isn’t even close.

This was obvious even without statistical analysis. At a glance: Brent Burns, Patrice Bergeron, Joe Pavelski, Shea Weber, Dustin Byfuglien, Ryan Suter, Zach Parise, Eric Staal, Jeff Carter, Brent Seabrook, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ryan Getzlaf, Ryan Kesler. That’s like Canada and America’s Olympic Starting Lineup all rolled into one.

The 2003 “Super Draft” already has 14 Legendary Players at this time of writing, with at least 4 others who will join this group soon. We can also take into consideration the missed 2005-2006 Season, which would bring the value of this Draft even higher.

In addition, there were only 2 Busts in all of the First Round. Compare that with 11 Busts in 1996, or 12 Busts in 1999.

The Draft Class of 2003 is clearly the best Draft year, and has significantly altered the course of the NHL. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2-4 years once these Legendary players retire.

1984 was a Great Draft Class, and comes in with a score of 328. Mario Lemieux was taken First Overall. Also from that Draft Class: Luc Robitaille, Brett Hull, Cliff Ronning, and Gary Suter.

The Early 90s had some great Draft Classes as well. Every year from 1990-1994 ranks highly according to the algorithm.

The Ottawa Senators probably wish they could redo 1993 in which they selected Alexandre Daigle First Overall. Nevertheless, this Draft year scored very high with a score of 327. Taken 2nd overall was Chris Pronger, and 4th overall was Paul Kariya. Also taken that year: Jason Arnott, Todd Bertuzzi, Saku Koivu.

Finally, 1990 was a good year with a score of 301: Owen Nolan, Jaromir Jagr, Martin Brodeur, Doug Weight, Keith Tkachuk.

Conclusion: The Strength of Draft Class is of enormous importance in determining the Value of a Draft Pick.

Worst Draft Classes

1999 comes in with the worst score of all the Draft Classes with a score of 132. That’s nearly 3X worse than 1979 or 2003.

Patrik Stefan was First Overall that year, and many say he was a Bust. But, actually, according to our algorithm he falls into the Regular category. He was considered a “Bust” because he was taken First Overall, but actually he had a pretty decent career compared to most Players drafted in history.

In total in 1999 there were 12 Busts. This is significant, and it is the most of any Draft Year. Best Picks that year were: The Sedins, Zetterberg, and Radim Vrbata. After that, it falls off a cliff. Niklas Hagman comes in as the 10th Best Player drafted in 1999.

Compare that with 2003 where the 10th Best Player picked was (take your pick): Pavelski, Carter, Parise, Kesler, Weber, Byfuglien (yes, there are 9 players better than those players in that draft).

1997 was also a very bad year. After Legendary Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Marian Hossa, it drops off the charts. Jason “The Manticore” Chimera was the 9th best player drafted that year.

1986 also yielded a poor harvest with a score of 190. Vincent Damphousse and Joe Murphy were decent players in their own right. But after that, not much to write home about.

Conclusion: Draft Class is of extreme importance. We will need to come up with an algorithm to be able to predict Draft Classes going forward. Generally speaking, we should be able to evaluate this by comparing past Draft Classes.

That wraps up my covid-19 Lockdown Draft Analysis. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions. Yes, I am insane. Thank you for reading, and I hope you are all doing well during the Lockdown.

Finally, I hate to kick a guy while he is down but… The #1 Pick of 1999 will probably go down in history as “Patrik Stefan, you should be embarrassed.”. Poor guy. If you haven’t seen this already, I give you the greatest Sports Blooper of all-time.