Late to this discussion, but just wanted to pop in and sort of disagree
I dont feel any urgency to use draft picks on goalies and have some stats to back it up;
- Both our current goalies are undrafted.
- Our latest high drafted goalies are Samsonov and Vanecek, both driven out of town.
- Our high goalie picks before that were quite succesful (Varlmaov, Neuvirth), but also were sidelined by a 4th rounders Holtby & Grubauer.
- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season, there is almost double more undrafted goalies than 1st round picks.
- of all goalies who have played NHL games this season there is 40 goalies that have been drafted in top3 rounds and only half of those are still where they were drafted.
(Namedropping)
From the list of NHL goalies in 2024, these were amongst the goalies who were drafted later than 3rd (or undrafted);
Juuse Saros, Igor Shesterkin, Jeremy Swayman, Connor Hellebuyck, Linus Ullmark, Sergei Bobrovsky, Alexander Georgiev, Charlie Lindgren, Logan Thompson, Joey Daccord, Karel Vejmelka, Philipp Grubauer
Just noting what everyone already knows. Goalies are voodoo. Especially drafting goalies. My strategy would be using the draft picks for high end potential and look for goalies by trade/free agency.
Also in case you happen to find yourself a reliable starter that you will use for the next decade as your cornerstone piece, you wont have room for high upside young goalies and will have to take a value-loss eventually. For example: Yaroslav Askarov.
Just for fun, here are goalies drafted between 2010-2020, thats quite a lot of misses for goalies in the first 3 rounds, and judging by it id say its pretty much as "easy" to find your franchise goalie from 4th round than it is from 1st round ;
2010 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Jack Campbell & (27) Mark Visentin
2nd round ; (49) Calvin Pickard & (58) Kent Simpson
3rd round ; (84) Scott Wedgewood
4 to later ; (112) Philipp Grubauer, (141) Petr Mrazek, (187) Frederik Andersen
2011 (total goalies drafted; 19)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (38) Magnus Hellberg, (39) John Gibson, (49) Christopher Gibson
3rd round ; (62) Samu Perhonen, (71) David Honzik, (88) Jordan Binnington
4 to later ; (164) Laurent Brossoit, (188) Anton Forsberg
2012 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (19) Andrei Vasilevskiy & (24) Malcolm Subban
2nd round ; (31) Oscar Dansk & (45) Anthony Stolarz
3rd round ; (62) Joonas Korpisalo, (69) Daniel Altshuller, (75) Jon Gillies, (76) Chris Driedger, (80) Jake Paterson, (83) Matt Murray, (87) Frederik Andersen AGAIN
4 to later ; (130) Connor Hellebuyck, (163) Linus Ullmark
2013 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (36) Zach Fucale, (44) Tristan Jarry, (54) Philippe Desrosiers, (59) Eric Comrie
3rd round ; (63) Spencer Martin, (70) Eamon McAdam, (78) Marcus Hogberg
4 to later ; (99) Juuse Saros
2014 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (34) Mason McDonald, (36) Thatcher Demko, (37) Alex Nedeljkovic, (39) Vitek Vanecek, (59) Brandon Halverson
3rd round ; (61) Jonas Johansson, (76) Elvis Merzlikins, (78) Ilya Sorokin
4 to later ; (94) Ville Husso, (109) Kaapo Kahkonen, (118) Igor Shesterkin
2015 (total goalies drafted; 24)
1st round ; (22) Ilya Samsonov
2nd round ; (42) MacKenzie Blackwood
3rd round ; (70) Felix Sandstrom, (75) Dan Vladar, (76) Adin Hill, (77) Sam Montembeault, (86) Mike Robinson, (90) Matej Tomek
4 to later ; (145) Karel Vejmelka, (199) Joey Daccord
2016 (total goalies drafted; 18)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (48) Carter Hart, (54) Tyler Parsons, (55) Filip Gustavsson, (59) Evan Fitzpatrick
3rd round ; (62) Joseph Woll, (75) Jack LaFontaine, (83) Wouter Peeters, (88) Connor Ingram
4 to later ; -
2017 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (26) Jake Oettinger
2nd round ; (54) Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
3rd round ; (64) Michael DiPietro, (72) Matthew Villalta, (78) Stuart Skinner, (80) Kirill Ustmenko, (86) Daniil Tarasov, (88) Keith Petruzzelli
4 to later ; (111) Jeremy Swayman, (199) Cayden Primeau
2018 (total goalies drafted; 28)
1st round ; -
2nd round ; (39) Olof Lindholm & (62) Olivier Rodrigue
3rd round ; (64) Justus Annunen, (72) Jakub Skarek, (84) Jesper Eliasson, (85) Lukas Dostal
4 to later ; (107) Joel Hofer, (136) Akira Schmid, (143) Samuel Ersson
2019 (total goalies drafted; 22)
1st round ; (13) Spencer Knight
2nd round ; (36) Pyotr Kochetkov, (37) Mads Sogaard, (59) Hunter Jones
3rd round ; (67) Erik Portillo, (71) Hugo Alnefelt, (85) Ilya Konovalov, (87) Lukas Parik, (93) Colten Ellis
4 to later ; (156) Arturs Silovs, (202) Trent Miner, (214) Dustin Wolf
2020 (total goalies drafted; 21)
1st round ; (11) Yaroslav Askarov
2nd round ; (46) Drew Commesso & (52) Joel Blomqvist
3rd round ; (71) Leevi Merilainen, (77) Calle Clang, (84) Nico Daws
4 to later ; (212) Devon Levi
