Draft Your Way To The Playoffs - Part 1
May 22nd, 2008 by StevePittsburgh, and Washington are going to be strong in the Eastern Conference for a long time (if they can keep everyone in the fold happy). Buffalo and Philadelphia are young and improving also, but the former struggles with funding, and the latter seems intent on overpaying free agents. Lets look at the drafting of these 4 teams and see if there are any indicators towards the direction the Leafs need to take to keep up with these other young squads. In today’s article I’m going to examine how the Penguins and Capitals ended up with their full stables of young guns on the rise.
Pittsburgh - If you examine the Penguins drafting over the past 5-10 seasons and their current roster, a few things become VERY obvious very quickly. 1) The penguins might have a good scouting staff, but it could just as easily be a pack of fans who spend too much time on mock draft websites. 2) The picks they have that have worked out over the past few years (i.e. Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, Whitney, Malone, Orpik, Letang, Ouellet, Talbot, Armstrong, Christensen, etc.) were all predominantly taken in the first round.
In fact, Crosby, Malkin, Staal, and Fleury were all top 2 draft picks. Whitney was a number 5 overall, Armstrong was 21st overall, and Orpik was 18th overall. Letang and Christensen were 3rd rounders, Ouellet and Malone were 4th rounders, and the only real off the board pickup was Maxime Talbot, who went in the 8th round. Considering their top line players (aside from Malone) were mainly the result of picks in the top 5, I don’t really think anyone should be holding up them up as paragons of scouting virtue.
In fact, of the 73 players drafted by the Pens since the 2000 draft year, 13 have played over 65 games in the NHL. That’s about an 18% success rate, which compares favourably to the Leafs 13% success rate over the same span (8 players out of 63 drafted). Of course when you consider that the Leafs have drafted in the top 10 exactly ZERO times over that span, while Pittsburgh has 5 top five picks on it’s roster, that might have something to do with it.
As simple as it sounds, the Pittsburgh road to glory is pretty much the obvious - Suck really bad for 8 years and finish as close to last as possible. Do that enough years in a row and you should end up with a bunch of players who are the best in their age group all playing on your team. Ta-da, Stanley Cup Finals! Do Leafs fans want to go that route? Possibly.
Washington - Like the Penguins, the Capitals have been blessed with a lot of high draft picks over the past few seasons. That being said, unlike Pittsburgh very few of them were in the top 5. Of the players the Capitals drafted since 2000 who are now playing regularly in the NHL (Ovechkin, Semin, Gordon, Backstrom, Eminger, Green, Schultz, Paetsch, Oduya, Pettinger, Sutherby) the predominance of the major contributors were taken in the first round. Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, Gordon, Eminger, Green, Schultz, and Sutherby were all first round draft picks, but only Backstrom and Ovechkin were top 5 picks. WHL player of the year, and recently signed Capital D-man Karl Alzner was a first rounder also, taken 5th overall last year.
What is interesting about how the Caps made forward strides is how they traded for multiple first round picks. In 2006 they took Nicklas Backstrom, and also Semen Varlamov in the first round; in 2005 they took Sasha Pokulok, and Joe Finley in the first round; in 2004 they took Ovechkin first overall, as well as Jeff Schultz and Mike Green in the first round; and then in 2002 they took Steve Eminger, Alexander Semin, and Boyd Gordon in the first round.
That’s 11 first round picks in 5 draft years. THAT’S A LOT OF FIRST ROUNDERS. (Especially when you consider the Leafs have only drafted in the 1st round five times over the same stretch). Apparently it’s also paying huge dividends. Even more so when you consider the fact that Alzner, Varlamov, Pokoluk, and Finley all have yet to play a game in the NHL.
10 of the 11 players I first listed for the Caps as regular contributors to NHL franchises were taken in the first or second round. Only Johnny Oduya really came off the board, but he’s contributing in New Jersey after being given up on by Washington and returning to his native Sweden to play a few seasons in the Swedish Elite League.
Washington’s plan of stockpiling first round draft picks seems to be a good one (and slightly less odious in comparison to the Pittsburgh “suck as many balls as you can” technique), but it requires marketable assets you’re willing to trade. If the Leafs REALLY want to blow things up, perhaps they should deal players who are half developed that have already plateaued, in an effort to add prospects with a greater upside. That means being willing to deal the likes of Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ian White, and/or convincing Darcy Tucker, Jason Blake, etc. to move on to another organization. It might be painful in the short term but long term the team will improve in leaps and bounds. 5 years of pain, might mean lots of gain down the line.
Posted in Prospects
8 Responses to “Draft Your Way To The Playoffs - Part 1”
By Jason C
on May 22, 2008
A large part of why the Pens really sucked was also because of bankrupty and an uncertain future. In 2000 or 2001, I can’t remember, they got rid of two of their top players in Jagr and Straka because the team was losing money fast.
It’s not like the Caps didn’t suck either, for a long time they went quantity over quality, in the belief that the first round picks were picked in that round for a reason, and were patient in slowly developing and evaluating them. They either traded for late first round picks or picked up former first round picks who were deemed busts by their organizations.
By Steve
on May 22, 2008
Actually in regards to Washington, the players on their squad that I listed who were taken in the first round were all drafted BY Washington. Only 3 players currently on their roster were taken in the first round by other teams: David Steckel, Shaone Morrisonn, and Viktor Kozlov. Of those, only the first two would really count as being “given up on” by their teams, since Kozlov played 12 full years in the NHL before being picked up by Washington.
Also I’m not sure Washington “sucked” for all those years. They finished first in the South East in 2000-01, 2nd in 2001-02, 2nd in 2002-03, Last in 2003-04, 2005-06, and 2006-07, before coming first in the division again this season.
If you compare that to Pittsburgh, who finished first in the Atlantic this year, and 2nd last year, but before that were last for 4 seasons in a row, and 3rd for the 3 seasons before that, they hadn’t won their division since the last season before re-alignment in 1997-98. That’s 10 years and 9 seasons ago.
Yes Washington had some lean years, and yes the South East is a weak sister division, but at least they only took 5 seasons between divisional championships. The Pens took almost twice as long, and were wandering in the dark for a long time before lucking into 4 straight top 2 picks… which was my point. Getting top 2 picks for 4 seasons in a row has more to do with their success than drafting a LOT of first rounders like Washington.
I also disagree that bankruptcy made the Penguins franchise bad. Buffalo and Ottawa have both had to deal with Bankruptcy proceedings and were quite successful while doing so. The two are mutually exclusive, and being placed under the care of the NHL does not translate to being a complete sink hole in the NHL standings if you draft and develop appropriately.
By eyebleaf
on May 23, 2008
great post.
let’s just not trade poni. i like him.
By Dan
on May 23, 2008
Lots of ways to build a winner, isn’t there? The Sens sucked for 10 years, got first and seconds and built around that. They have also made bold moves like Hossa for Heatly, or Yashin for Chara and Spezza. Move the assests for younger sure things. but what goes up must come down…hahaha
The ducks built through some strong late draft picks, dumped all the european defence and loaded up on strong proven Canadians, and put together a winner using a team formula. They also looked for players with heart - Don Cheery type of players.
It would be nice to clear off some cap room like McCabe or Blake, but if not, moving some younger players like Steen or Stajan for high first rounders doesn’t hurt either, but just don’t give anyone away. I’m not saying trading the farm, but if they could move up to first overall by trading Steen and the 7th pick, I’d do it. Why not - we need some star power in T.O.
Trading a older player who may have leveled off for a top five pick should be a direction the team is looking at. Poni or Antropov included. Losing one of them for a top five is a no brainer. If that was the case, they could buy out a bigger contract because they could pick up two young strong players to offset the buyouts for three years. But I’m only saying one or two players, not all of them.
The free agent list this year is pretty weak. So I don’t think they are going to turn the team into a contender in one year so trading younger guys to get even younger and stronger, even if they are pretty good players, is something Cliff should consider.
I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us, I can’t wait for draft day!!! There could be a little or a lot of movement.
Steve, another great, well researched article. Keep up the great work.
By Jason C
on May 23, 2008
I don’t believe Buffalo or Ottawa were threatened by ownership to move the teams. Pittsburgh and just recently, Nashville, were. It was very surprising to many that Nashville stayed as competitive as they did, after losing lots of key pieces in their lineup. I think it goes without saying that when a team is threatened to be moved, they have to cut expensive salaries, and more often than not those are the quality players.
Nashville bounced right back up because they were incredibly good at drafting and had some quality depth players that came cheap and young promising players that were still on minimal contracts.
Also consider this, the Caps’ have had 12 first round picks since 2002. That’s twice as many first rounders as most teams have had in that same span. 6 of those came in the second half of the first round, 4 of them in the 20s. They were hoarding all the first round picks, regardless of what position they were.
By Jason C
on May 23, 2008
You already said they had 11 in 5 years, I forgot about that… Anyway, I think it goes to show that they went quantity over quality, and not necessarily vice versa.
It wasn’t such a bad strategy after all.
By Steve
on May 24, 2008
Jason, I won’t disagree with the majority of your points regarding salaries being pared down in situations of bankruptcy or sale… but I think those are the exact reasons why drafting well and bringing in younger, cheaper players would make a team more successful. That would be part of why Ottawa and Buffalo were fine despite ownership issues.
As for the quantity over quality thing: I would argue that drafting MORE often in the first round should improve the AVERAGE QUALITY of young prospects of a team. More high round draft picks should translate to an increase in the number of quality prospects. Yes there’s quantity, but that quantity affects the overall team quality.
They’re directly related… so I don’t really see much point in splitting hairs on the matter.