Draft Picks

[DickieDunn 2,571]

Years '02 through '11.  Ten years worth of picks, Detroit's first pick compared to all the other players taken at that spot during that time frame.  I only went up to 2011 because anyone taken in that draft has more or less shown what he's going to be by now.  Drafts after that, you can make an argument that they're still young enough to improve.  The first player is the Wings' pick that year, other players are picks at that spot in other years.

19th Kindl, Koreis, Getzlaf, Korpikoski, Mitera, McMillan, Sbisa, Kreider, Bjugstad, Klefbom,

21st Sheahan, Babchuk, Mark Stuart, Wolski, Rask, Sanguenetti, Smith, Gustaffson, Moore, Noesen

27th Smith, Morris, Tambellini, J. Schultz, Finley, I. Vishnevsky, Ross, Carlsson, Paradis, Visentin, Namestnikov

30th McCollum, Slater, Shawn Belle, Rogers, Mihalik, Corrente, Ellington, Despres, Nelson, Rackell

32nd Ferraro, Vas, Ryan Stone, Bolland, T. Plante, Sneep, MacLean, Voynov, Knight, Rattie

35th Jurco, Nemec, Glazachev, Stephenson, Vlasic, F. Bouchard, Ross, Deschamps, Clifford, Rensfeldt

41st Emmerton, Lindstrom, Smaby, Bickell, Pavelec, Marshall, Sauve, Budish, Nemeth, Jeskin

58th Hudler, Colliton, Lyamin, Hagemo, Vasyunov, Spaling, Kugryshev, Blacker, Simpson, Kucherov

64th Howard, Jason Ryznar, Karsums, Barnes, Junland, Korostin, Paquette, Barrie, Renhart, Trochek

97th Franzen, Monych, Donelly, Vandeveldt, Osala, Omark, Arniel, Szwarz, Cunningham, Didier

 

So on average, at those spots you get one good player a year outside the top 20.  58 and 64 actually turned out better than 41.  Wings got the best player 2 of the ten years when they took Franzen and Howard.  Hudler and Kucherov are close.  They didn't do much with any picks before 58 unless you still have hopes that Sheahan will stop playing like he's made of glass and Smith can grow a brain, but a lot of the players taken in those spots, other than 19, didn't do a whole lot either.

 

In other words, the wings are pretty average at drafting.

[kickazz 5,459]

What if we made those 10 years from 1998 to 2008 instead

[DickieDunn 2,571]

Wings get Grigorenko, Kronwall, Tolsa, and Fischer.  Other teams likely get similar caliber players.

[kickazz 5,459]

Figured Fischer was 98 or 99

[kliq 3,763]

Wow.....crazy to see how many 1st round picks end up doing nothing. Kudus for doing the research Dickie.

Not that you did Dickie, but I hate it when people list Grigorenko as a bust. Saying he is a bust would be like saying Konstantinov was a bust post '97. You can't blame a guy for almost dying in a car accident.

Holland and co. really do a better job in the latter rounds. Or maybe they do a very good job developing lower end players.

[Buppy 1,720]

I have to challenge your conclusion.

By my count, 57 of those players either never played in the NHL, or only played a little. Another 12 are borderline; played maybe a few years. Only 31 are career players.

The Wings got 5 or 6 career players (Jurco could still slip to borderline), 2 borderline, and 2 busts. That is well above average.

While we weren't lucky enough to land a star like Getzlaf, we did get some very good players in Franzen, Hudler, and Howard. (In addition to several good players selected outside the arbitrary "first pick in a given year" limit.) Getting star players outside the high first round is pretty much all luck. It happens, but it's very rare. But getting good players who eventually become NHL players is likely far more of a skill (both the drafting and development). By any reasonable measurement, the Wings are very good at it. One of and possibly even the best in the league.

Is this going to be a thing now? Are we really going to spend the whole year trying to prove that the Wings are the worst everything in the history of anything? Don't people ever get tired of being miserable? You have to go data mining for ways to be even more miserable, then not even bother to actually do any analysis and just draw a miserable conclusion anyway? 

 

[greenrebellion 415]

Topic is meaningless without a comparison to what the league average for those draft positions should have been. People have hugely inflated expectations for how often late first and second round picks become great. 

Arbitrarily leaving out Larkin and Mantha years is also pretty silly.

[DatsyukianDekes 2,428]

Word of the day. Miserable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Echolalia 2,961]

I don't think there's any real conclusion that can be made from this data.  I have no idea what the strength of prospects was from year to year, who is doing the above drafting, what years Holland traded his "first pick" for multiple picks later in the draft, what other GMs were doing with their picks, and where Holland fits into the overall picture.  There's no way you can actually say Holland is terrible, or phenomenal, or average on this data alone.

[DickieDunn 2,571]

2 hours ago, greenrebellion said:

Topic is meaningless without a comparison to what the league average for those draft positions should have been. People have hugely inflated expectations for how often late first and second round picks become great. 

Arbitrarily leaving out Larkin and Mantha years is also pretty silly.

That's 10 years of picks at those spots.  That's a pretty good way to figure out a "league average."

 

Recent drafts weren't left out arbitrarily, it's too early to determine what those players are or will be, including Larkin and Mantha.

6 hours ago, Buppy said:

I have to challenge your conclusion.

By my count, 57 of those players either never played in the NHL, or only played a little. Another 12 are borderline; played maybe a few years. Only 31 are career players.

The Wings got 5 or 6 career players (Jurco could still slip to borderline), 2 borderline, and 2 busts. That is well above average.

 

 

Sheahan and Smith wouldn't be in the NHL if they played for a good team.

[greenrebellion 415]

41 minutes ago, DickieDunn said:

 

Recent drafts weren't left out arbitrarily, it's too early to determine what those players are or will be, including Larkin and Mantha.

 

Not too early at all, when players at their ages are putting up points at the NHL level, that means something.  Looking at your listings, I'd say that we have above average success in drafting NHL talent.  So, your data is in line with what most pundits think and that is that the Wings are pretty good at drafting.  I think the data would become even more dramatic if you looked at later rounds since we are really known for finding late round gems.

[derblaueClaus 1,668]

Great research Dickie, thanks for doing it. And I agree, the Red Wings weren't as good in drafting as we all thought. Or to be more specific: We weren't good in drafting superstars, especially defenseman.

And while I agree Echolalia that the data posted by Dickie isn't enough to prove this other data is. And that is the fact that other teams found those kind of players in the draft. Sure, some had higher draft picks than we did but especially defenseman are usually drafted with later picks. As I said before, maybe it's that the Wings just were unlucky in the past decade but if I were Holland I would take a closer look at my scouting system.

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by derblaueClaus

[ChristopherReevesLegs 7,022]

We havent drafted a superstar since 04, pair that wirh the complete mismanagement of McKees career, and im starting to wonder where Hollands head is at.

[Richdg 267]

The player that has had the best career to date that the Red Wings drafted over the last 15 years is Howard. he is a top 10 NHL goalie even though many "fans" want to run him out of town. Before Howard it was Kronwall. Yes franzen was good for a few years but injuries limited him. We had a bumper crop of draftees 20 years ago when we found Datsyuk, Z, and Homer-legit NHL stars. The RW's and Hakeen Andersson have made careers off of picking those 3. Since then we have been poor drafting overall.

It is still a bit early to judge Mantha, Larkin, Svechnikov, and Cholowski as draft picks. 2 have yet to play a NHL game and the other 2 look promising but are in no way stars.

Our last group of 1st round picks prior to Mantha have been subpar. Kindl-3rd pair filler, Smith-3rd pair filler, Sheahan-4th line filler, McCollum-not even NHL quality.

Our second round picks have been better overall. Howard, Nyquist-but his stock is falling fast, Jurco-gettting close to make or break time, Abby-had a solid career to date but not a star, etc....

[Buppy 1,720]

5 hours ago, DickieDunn said:

That's 10 years of picks at those spots.  That's a pretty good way to figure out a "league average."

...

Sheahan and Smith wouldn't be in the NHL if they played for a good team.

And the Wings are notably above that average, but I'm sure you'll just ignore that again.

Saying Sheahan and Smith wouldn't be in the NHL is just laughable. 

2 hours ago, derblaueClaus said:

Great research Dickie, thanks for doing it. And I agree, the Red Wings weren't as good in drafting as we all thought. Or to be more specific: We weren't good in drafting superstars, especially defenseman.

And while I agree Echolalia that the data posted by Dickie isn't enough to prove this other data is. And that is the fact that other teams found those kind of players in the draft. Sure, some had higher draft picks than we did but especially defenseman are usually drafted with later picks. As I said before, maybe it's that the Wings just were unlucky in the past decade but if I were Holland I would take a closer look at my scouting system.

Probably wasting my time here, but this is a very poor analysis. Sure, if people had the delusion that the Wings were somehow exceptional at finding stars with late picks, you're right. That was never true, and it isn't true with anyone. Picking outside the top half of the first round gives only around a 5% chance of getting a notably good player, and less than 1% of a star. (Goalies are an exception, since fairly few are even picked before the 3rd round.) That should not be the criteria for measuring draft success.

Even looking at picks in just the first 3 rounds the chance of finding a star is very low, and that includes defense. From 2002-2011, there were 232 defensemen drafted between 19th and 90th. Keith, Subban, Burns, and Weber are the only stars. Maybe Letang. About a dozen more good players. ~8% of getting a good player. The Wings have picked 5 of those 232. It's not unusual or even particularly unlucky to not find anyone that good. Only 13 teams have. 5 teams have been lucky enough to find two. 4 of the 5 we drafted at least became regular NHL players, although Kindl is kind of a fringe player. On the whole, only about 25% of players selected in that range make the NHL. 

We may not be the very best in the league, but we are definitively above average. 

 

2 hours ago, Richdg said:

...

Our last group of 1st round picks prior to Mantha have been subpar. Kindl-3rd pair filler, Smith-3rd pair filler, Sheahan-4th line filler, McCollum-not even NHL quality..

Kindl, Smith, and Sheahan are not actually subpar, considering the position. They are significantly better than average just by making the NHL. They are about average even counting just the NHL players.

 

I think once again this is a case of the Wings' success setting a ridiculous standard in the minds of fans. 

[PavelValerievichDatsyuk 1,935]

I really don't see the connection of your list and the conclusion. 

To me this is the wrong way to measure success at drafting. Your approach implies that players taken at a given number will be of a similar level. This is very false when comparing year to year, as you're doing, since drafts vary greatly.

Also, you use first pick. the whole argument that Wings being good at drafting has been based on success in later rounds and for volume of success. first pick doesn't look at that aspect.  

[greenrebellion 415]

Good post Buppy, you are spot on imo.