While Winnipeg Jets‘ General Manager Kevin Chevaldayoff has talked a lot about moving up in the 2013 NHL Draft, fans around the city are excited about the seven picks the team will make in the first four rounds. While I agree that for a team looking to rebuild through the draft requires an accumulation of draft picks, smart scouting and careful developing, sometimes there is a natural inclination for fans to overvalue these picks and raise our expectations a little too high.
Thanks to the playoff success of the Chicago Blackhawks (thanks Johnny Oduya) and the Jets failure (in a good way) to sign Daulton Leveille, they own picks 13, 43, 59, 61, 74, 91 and 104 come Sunday. We’ll look at draft selections made at those picks from 1997-2007. Why that range? That era is neither too far away that scoring in the NHL has dramatically changed, nor too close that there are many prospects still waiting to push into the NHL. (Also, a bit of selfish reasons as I already have the data pulled for this Mark Scheifele article from a few weeks ago).
Overall
In these seven total picks for eleven drafts we have 77 draft selections. I semi-arbitrarily selected 100 games played in the NHL to be the threshold for bust pick or not. The reasoning behind this was at least three half seasons and then subtracting some games for injury leeway.
| Total | Successes | Busts | Bust % | |
| Forwards | 43 | 16 | 27 | 63% |
| Defense | 29 | 9 | 20 | 69% |
| Goalies | 5 | 0 | 5 | 100% |
| Picks | 77 | 25 | 52 | 68% |
While not a pretty picture, with the Jets owning seven selections in this period, it could mean about 2-4 NHL players. Of course, this includes fourth line pylon players like Chris Thorburn who have crossed this threshold.
Individual Picks
While the accuracy starts to go out the window with sample size shrinking to this low, let's just take a peek at each individual pick over this time period.
| Selection | Success | Bust | Bust % | Forwards | Defense | Avg GP | Avg F GP | Avg F PTS/GP | Avg D Gp | Avg D Pts/Gp |
| 13 | 8 | 3 | 27% | 9 | 1 | 382 | 361 | 0.47 | 591 | 0.32 |
| 43 | 4 | 7 | 64% | 5 | 6 | 168 | 108 | 0.08 | 219 | 0.20 |
| 59 | 0 | 11 | 100% | 7 | 2 | 7 | 11 | 0.06 | 0 | 0.00 |
| 61 | 5 | 6 | 55% | 3 | 8 | 145 | 282 | 0.26 | 93 | 0.11 |
| 74 | 1 | 10 | 91% | 5 | 4 | 42 | 92 | 0.18 | 0 | 0.00 |
| 91 | 4 | 7 | 64% | 6 | 4 | 152 | 206 | 0.27 | 108 | 0.12 |
| 104 | 2 | 9 | 82% | 7 | 4 | 52 | 52 | 0.06 | 50 | 0.03 |
The fluctuations in the busts % should cause alarm bells to ring about how telling this sample size is. The point of this exercise isn't to show the exact value of a player at each spot (as this has been done with far greater accuracy before), but to show the general trends which should be expected of draft picks.
Points per game played was included for comparison sake. Related aside, Alexander Burmistrov – who was rushed into the NHL – is pissed on by some for poor offensive production. He is sitting at 0.30 pts/GP. That is more production than we should we should reasonably expect on from anybody outside of pick #13 and even pick #13 has busted a quarter of the time.
The Other Side
As they say: hope for the best, plan for the worst, and expect somewhere in the middle.
Now that your hopes and dreams have been crushed, here is some data just to cheer you up and raise your hopes.
Pick 13
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Alexander Semin
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: Ron Hainsey
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Daniel Cleary, Ron Duguay, Craig Janney
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Derek Morris, Phil Russell
Pick 43
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Matt Pettinger
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: PK Subban
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Pat Verbeek
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Mike O’Connell
Pick 59
Best forward PtS/GP in data set: Ivan Huml
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: (none)
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Michael Nylander
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Marc Bergevin, Tom Poti
Pick 61
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Wayne Simmonds
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: Johny Boychuk
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Paul MacDermid
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Craig Ludwig, Jason Woolley
Pick 74
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Clark MacArthur
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: (none)
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Sergei Federov
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Terry McDonald (with 8 games played…. sad)
Pick 91
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Mike Comrie
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: Alexander Edler
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Marc Savard
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Alexander Edler
Pick 104
Best forward PTS/GP in data set: Philippe Dupuis
Best defenseman PTS/GP in data set: Aaron Rome
Best ever forward(s) per HockeyDB: Shaun Van Allen
Best ever defensemen per HockeyDB: Machal Rozsival
One More Comparison
The 2013 draft is being called the deepest since 2003. Lets take a look at who went in these spots 10 years ago:
13 – Dustin Brown
43 – Josh Hennessy (Patrice Bergeron went at 45)
59 – Michal Barinka (David Backes went at 62)
61 – Maxim Lapierre
74 – Clarke MacArthur
91 – Martin Sagat (Alexander Sulzer went at 92)
104 – Philippe Dupuis (Jan Hejda went at 106)
Everybody is familiar with Brown, Lapierre and MacArthur, but there are a number of who? what? players there.
Landing three regular NHLers in this draft would be a huge win for Chevy. Anything more than that would be phenomenal.
Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
