I got a lot of feedback last week, off the heels of the 2018 NHL draft preview. One common question or area of confusion was why did I limit my draft board to 74 players? A second big issue was about the order of the players. Today, I hope to provide more insight into the draft process and how draft boards work.



Some readers took the draft board very literally. They saw 74 skaters and presumed that meant the board was 2.5 rounds deep. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Then they saw the do not draft column and presumed that meant I wouldn’t pick one of those guys only in the top three rounds. That also couldn’t be farther from the truth.



To illustrate this, I’m going to simulate a few drafts. I took my 2010 through 2017 draft boards, which are all available publicly online at various publication points. I then presumed I had the 16th pick in each round 1-7, and then just pick the highest player available on my board. In parentheses is the...