OT: Blue Jackets Behind the Draft

[bone]

I am not really sure I agree with the premise of what you are saying though.

The Oiler's rebuild started with the draft that got them Hall, or to be more exact at the deadline that year. Basically 4 years ago. The only "core" members who actually predate that are Gagner (drafted in 2007), Eberle (drafted in 2008) and Smid (by trade in .

With the exception of an almost inexpicable run in 2001-2002 the Hawks were a terrible hockey team for a decade from 1997-98 to 2007-2008.

If you look at the Chicago core the key players are Keith (2002), Seabrook (2003)Kane(2007), Toews (2006), Hossa (by FA in 2010), Campbell (by FA in 2008) and Sharp(by trade in 2005). When they won their cup 5 of the 7 key players were at least 7 years from their draft.

The key secondary players were Ladd (drafted by Carolina in 2004), Versteeg (drafted by Boston in 2004), Brouwer (drafted in 2004), Byfuglien (drafted in 2003)

The reason people tend to think Chicago rose so fast was that Kane and Toews came near the end of the process. Even the retool was based on guys like Bickell (drafted in 2004) and Hjalmarsson (drafted in 2005).

Leddy is still fairly wet behind the ears, and he is 22 which would make him older than the majority of the Oiler's core. Saad is the only recent draft choice that has played much of a role since Kane was picked. Other than him, Kruger is the only other pick that has really played at all and the jury is definitely out on his role long term.

Bottom line is it is probably two to three years too early to be comparing the Oiler rebuild to Chicago's. The Oilers have a long way to go but we just don't know how it will turn out.

It's not that different. The Oilers have one playoff appearance since 2003, and only 2 since 2001. The problem is any of the decent players they got in the drafts 2000-2006 (and several of them are exactly what we are missing from our team right now) are playing for other teams with virtually nothing to show for it with the exception of Hemsky and Dubnyk.

edited to add:
Just relooked up the Brodziak trade. It has turned out to be Krodziak and Kuemper for Roy and Bigos. Just WOW!!! Roy isn't quite yet a write off, but no one can argue Kuemper isn't further along in his development.

 

[AM]

I'd love to see if someone has the data to back that up. The argument you're making is one I've considered but at the moment have difficulty believing. The main reason for my skepticism is that if this were true why aren't more teams using the same strategy? Do the Oilers really know something that no one else has figured out? This management has got a long way to go before I start believing in that theory.



The OP says they could have traded up but chose not to. If anything your data tells me that not taking that offer was a mistake.

We should have traded all of our picks to get the first 3 picks in the darft.

That would have been good.

 

[stratedge]

There's a lot of insight in this 4th episode video... for example the CBJ GM mentions they have a "value chart" of draft picks when discussing the offer San Jose made for their pick. Then they go on to analyze a lot of different scenarios and refer to 'the math' in deciding which they want. Really interesting I didn't think they'd be into such a formulaic approach, I would have thought they'd be basing it on the specific players they thought they could get.

Also if you pause at the right moment, you can get a shot of the guys they had ranked 27-34 or so during their final scouting meeting.