Value of: Draft picks are often overvalued.

[HarrySPlinkett]

Draft picks are often overvalued.What is the true value of draft picks based on their rank?
View attachment 816379View attachment 816380https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

Depends where your team is in their cycle - a bunch of prime aged stars need that extra 5/6D or top-9 forward more than they need some teenager in Finland who’s five years away from taking a regular shift.

A team with no stars and no skill in a less than desirable market needs all the lottery tickets they can get their hands on, because they can only survive with a foundation of young players for whom making the NHL is the ultimate dream, not playing in the tri state area. Or Florida.

 

[HabsAddict]

There should be some kind of breakdown for the first round.

I'm guessing the scale drops to 25-27% make it in the 25-32 pick range. So it's not as valuable as people think.

Another isdue i have is people valuing players as if they made it to the NHL when in fact they are just a stat.

A player like Barron is already in the NHL. Trading him for a 2nd rounder with 17% of making it is stupid. Even a late 1st rounder is questionable if only 1 in 4 make it.

Which brings me to.... trading a top 6-8 pick must bring back a young center that is already playing in the NHL and producing, even if it's in moderate quantities. Telling me that a certain draft prospect picked in the late teens and 20s has "immense potential" means absolutely nothing.

 

[God]

Well in Montreal's cup run in '21, Kotkaniemi, Suzuki and Caufield all played a big role.
Robert Thomas in St. Louis too.

Robert Thomas had 6 points in 21 games, and no offense but that Montreal finals run was kind of a fluke.

 

[Lolonegoal]

The 1st round needs to be split into its own pie. (Of course, there are also lookup tables that go pick-by-pick for this... but the point being there is a huge difference between top-10 and top-5 picks in the 1st round vs. later 1sts in terms of quality).

There should be some kind of breakdown for the first round.

I'm guessing the scale drops to 25-27% make it in the 25-32 pick range. So it's not as valuable as people think.

Another isdue i have is people valuing players as if they made it to the NHL when in fact they are just a stat.

A player like Barron is already in the NHL. Trading him for a 2nd rounder with 17% of making it is stupid. Even a late 1st rounder is questionable if only 1 in 4 make it.

Which brings me to.... trading a top 6-8 pick must bring back a young center that is already playing in the NHL and producing, even if it's in moderate quantities. Telling me that a certain draft prospect picked in the late teens and 20s has "immense potential" means absolutely nothing.

It's almost not worth it because the picks that are actually worth something are almost never dealt, and in recent history when they have been its because they screwed up which pick to protect or didn't protect thinking they would be competitive. We have to go back to 2020 to even have see a top 5 pick dealt, and there's only been two top 10 picks dealt since then. S

So the point being, almost all pick deals involve competitive teams dealing their late 1st which has roughly a 1/3rd chance of being an NHL player and as OP, I think, correctly states, are overvalued by observers.

Here's a list of picks that have been dealt over the last 5 years:

Chychrun trade - 12th overall
Horvat trade - 17th overall
Hagel trade - 19th overall
Provorov trade - 22nd overall
Ekholm trade - 24th overall
O'Reilly trade - 25th overall
Orlov trade - 28th overall
Tarasenko trade - 29th overall
Chariot trade - 31st overall
Newhook trade - 31st overall
Hronek trade - 17th overall
Lindholm trade - 22nd overall
Eichel trade - 16th overall
Jones trade - 11th and 31st overall
Debrincat trade - 7th overall
Dach trade - 13th overall
Fiala trade - 19th overall
Mrazek trade - 25th overall
Toffoli trade - 26th overall
Kotkaniemi offer sheet - 26th overall
Dvorak trade - 27th overall
Reinhart trade - 28th overall
Kuemper trade - 29th & 32nd overall
Copp trade - 30th overall
Ekman-Larsson trade - 9th overall
Ristolainen trade - 13th overall
Mantha trade - 14th & 22nd overall
Foligno trade - 24th overall
Zucker trade - 25th overall
Savard trade - 11th & 31st overall


Karlsson trade - 3rd overall
Marleau trade - 16th overall
Kapanen trade - 15th overall
Hall trade - 18th overall
Miller trade - 20th overall
Sklei trade - 22nd overall
Backes trade - 27th overall
Goodgrow trade - 31st overall
Duchene trade - 4th overall
(another) Duchene trade - 19th overall
Hayes trade - 20th overall
Muzzin trade - 22nd overall
E. Kane trade - 29th overall
O'Reilly trade - 31st overall


The link OP posts actually does have a break down of probability per draft position and not just round, as well.

 

[bigbadbruins1]

The value is in the fact they are cost controlled. If you trade all your draft picks constantly you will have a team with ~5-10 overpaid players and ten complete garbage dump players that are so bad they can't command more than the league minimum.
That leaves you with a very middling team, if not worse.
a 20 year old 10 goal scorer at 750k is worth significantly more than a 10 goal scorer at 2-3 million. repeat this however many times to make a team and you have the value in a draft pick.

 

[cwede]

the most meaningful stat which I have seen recently,
re the topic of contenders trading 1st's, is this:
in last 20+ years, only 2 teams who traded 1sts' for rentals won the Cup
and one of those was 'Canes, way back in '06

those are the trades that seem riskiest, even dumbest, to me,
(and my team has been guilty of this)

 

[DiglettDangles]

Robert Thomas had 6 points in 21 games, and no offense but that Montreal finals run was kind of a fluke.

It was a "fluke" because no one expected MTL to get that far unless the kids carried us there (with Old Man Price tbf)

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

the most meaningful stat which I have seen recently,
re the topic of contenders trading 1st's, is this:
in last 20+ years, only 2 teams who traded 1sts' for rentals won the Cup
and one of those was 'Canes, way back in '06

those are the trades that seem riskiest, even dumbest, to me,
(and my team has been guilty of this)

Not that it makes the argument any less compelling, but someone miscounted. It’s 4 post-lockout (Weight, Kaberle, Vermette, Savard).

 

[Vegan Knight]

So 6th round picks are more valuable than 5th round picks lol

"Well I can give you that guy for a 6th rounder."
"No, 6th rounder is a little bit much, how about a 5th?"

In all seriousness, what are teams prioritizing or valuing as a 6th round pick that they should be doing a round earlier? Goaltending maybe?

 

[God]

It was a "fluke" because no one expected MTL to get that far unless the kids carried us there (with Old Man Price tbf)

Ok, assuming it's not a fluke, then if the kids on ELCs carried the Habs to the cup finals then they surely wouldn't have been this bad since 2021. And even you realize that.

Ever since the Blackhawks won in 2010 with Toews, Kane, and Byfuglien on ELCs, people have just assumed that draft picks are magical value becuase they're tied to ELCs. And they are if you manage to hit with your picks AND your roster. But that requires a perfect storm and is pretty much never the case, especially for teams in a rebuild.

 

[Edgelord]

It's almost not worth it because the picks that are actually worth something are almost never dealt, and in recent history when they have been its because they screwed up which pick to protect or didn't protect thinking they would be competitive. We have to go back to 2020 to even have see a top 5 pick dealt, and there's only been two top 10 picks dealt since then. S

So the point being, almost all pick deals involve competitive teams dealing their late 1st which has roughly a 1/3rd chance of being an NHL player and as OP, I think, correctly states, are overvalued by observers.

Here's a list of picks that have been dealt over the last 5 years:

Chychrun trade - 12th overall
Horvat trade - 17th overall
Hagel trade - 19th overall
Provorov trade - 22nd overall
Ekholm trade - 24th overall
O'Reilly trade - 25th overall
Orlov trade - 28th overall
Tarasenko trade - 29th overall
Chariot trade - 31st overall
Newhook trade - 31st overall
Hronek trade - 17th overall
Lindholm trade - 22nd overall
Eichel trade - 16th overall
Jones trade - 11th and 31st overall
Debrincat trade - 7th overall
Dach trade - 13th overall
Fiala trade - 19th overall
Mrazek trade - 25th overall
Toffoli trade - 26th overall
Kotkaniemi offer sheet - 26th overall
Dvorak trade - 27th overall
Reinhart trade - 28th overall
Kuemper trade - 29th & 32nd overall
Copp trade - 30th overall
Ekman-Larsson trade - 9th overall
Ristolainen trade - 13th overall
Mantha trade - 14th & 22nd overall
Foligno trade - 24th overall
Zucker trade - 25th overall
Savard trade - 11th & 31st overall


Karlsson trade - 3rd overall
Marleau trade - 16th overall
Kapanen trade - 15th overall
Hall trade - 18th overall
Miller trade - 20th overall
Sklei trade - 22nd overall
Backes trade - 27th overall
Goodgrow trade - 31st overall
Duchene trade - 4th overall
(another) Duchene trade - 19th overall
Hayes trade - 20th overall
Muzzin trade - 22nd overall
E. Kane trade - 29th overall
O'Reilly trade - 31st overall


The link OP posts actually does have a break down of probability per draft position and not just round, as well.


View attachment 816470


View attachment 816471

I wonder whats driving that down spike in the middle of the 1st round?

So 6th round picks are more valuable than 5th round picks lol

"Well I can give you that guy for a 6th rounder."
"No, 6th rounder is a little bit much, how about a 5th?"

In all seriousness, what are teams prioritizing or valuing as a 6th round pick that they should be doing a round earlier? Goaltending maybe?

I saw that as well, be interesting to get to the why of it.

 

[jfhabs]

Lumping the 1st overall pick into the same category as the 32nd overall pick essentially makes this data meaningless, I would say.

Doesn't make it meaningless, but it would validate the OP even more if he removes the first 15th selections since teams trading away 1st round picks are in the playoffs anyway...

 

[Lolonegoal]

the most meaningful stat which I have seen recently,
re the topic of contenders trading 1st's, is this:
in last 20+ years, only 2 teams who traded 1sts' for rentals won the Cup
and one of those was 'Canes, way back in '06

those are the trades that seem riskiest, even dumbest, to me,
(and my team has been guilty of this)

I honestly don't think that's a meaningful stat in any way.

#1: There's 32 teams competing for the cup. If you can do something that has shown to get a cup every 10 years, you've just tripled your odds. Even if we eliminate teams and say the 16 that make the playoffs, hell, even narrow it down to say 10, that are legitimately competitive and buying, then we're still at about the same odds.

#2: The repercussions of dealing draft picks are future consequences, so dealing one doesn't have a single negative immediate impact on your team. Unless you're implying adding players at the deadline messes with the chemistry of a team.. which in that cases you'd need to include any and all deadline acquisitions and not just ones that involved 1st round picks.

#3: There's countless trade deadline deals that involve 1st round pick equivalents for rentals, such as former 1st round picks, or top prospects, which were used to acquire players that impacted cup winners. For example:

2023- Vegas trade former 1st rounder Zach Dean for Baarbashev who played on a line with Eichel and Marchesault

2022 - Colorado trade former 1st rounder Justin Barron (and a 2nd) for Arturri Lekhonen who had 4 GWG in the playoffs, twice as many as any other player on the team.

2021 - Tampa trades a 1st rounder for David Savard

2020 - Tampa trade and 1st rounder and a former 1st round pick Nolan Foote for Blake Coleman.
Tampa trade another 1st round pick for Barclay Gooddrow

2019 - St.Louis doesn't make a trade, mainly because they weren't a contender. They were the worst team in the league at a point in the season.

2015-2017 - No significant pick trades, but Pittsburgh won two of those years and was almost dynasty level good.

2014 - Chicago trade a 1st for Antoine Vermette who was huge for faceoffs.

2013 - Los Angeles gets Gaborik for a 2nd, 3rd and prospect, and he had 11 goals and 22 points.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

Pretty much. The ol' you traded a 4th for thar scrub???

That probability whomever is drafted with that 4th round pick being as good as thar scrub is low.

 

[Raistlin]

GMs like draft picks because its a "stay/hold" on their performance evaluation. you cannot really judge how they are doing until you can definitively file the player into the that-pick-is-a-bust pile. its another lottery ticket in their farm, cannot go wrong with it.

Only 2 types of GMs are confident enough to trade their high picks, one thinks they know what they are doing and are going for it. Or two, they are desperate for on ice performance now to keep their jobs.

 

[Robtom18]

Draft picks are often overvalued.What is the true value of draft picks based on their rank?
View attachment 816379View attachment 816380https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

It all depends on which team is drafting. Blues are amazing at drafting.

 

[samsagat]

Draft picks are often overvalued.What is the true value of draft picks based on their rank?
View attachment 816379View attachment 816380https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

This is the number of players actually playing (>99g) in the NHL by round

Not the probability of drafting a >99g player for each round.

For those who haven't noticed.

 

[Strangle]

Draft picks are often overvalued.What is the true value of draft picks based on their rank?
View attachment 816379View attachment 816380https://dobberprospects.com/2020/05/16/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

Every superstar in the league has come out of the draft

 

[Ainsy01]

Whats the breakdown of first round percentage. Gotta think the top 10 is like 70% while the last 10 is like 20%

 

[Beukeboom Fan]

Ya think?

Outside of the top ten picks in an average year (fifteen on a really good year), the chances of any particular player becoming a really good, not even a star, player aren't that great let alone those in the later rounds. Are there some gems that are picked really late? Sure, but they're the exception that gets talked about all the time. If later round picks became serviceable players on a regular basis then it wouldn't be anything special.

It cracks me up reading posters here who get really excited to get mid to late second round picks in exchange for one of their team's generic players (someone who's relatively easy to replace with another serviceable NHL player). Sure you 'might' get a good player ... but even with teams who have a great scouting dept ... you probably aren't.

But much like buying a lottery ticket, until the actual drawing (or the player getting a chance to play in the NHL) ... it sure is fun to dream.

I'm a Hawks fan. When the Hawks were good - the following contributed significantly while being drafted in 2nd round:
Duncan Keith
Corey Crawford
Dave Bolland
Bryan Bickell

After the 2nd round:
Niklas Hjalmarsson (4th)
Troy Brouwer (7th)
Dustin Byfuglien (8th)
Marcus Kruger (5th)
James Wisniewski (5th) (gone before the Cup wins)

That is essentially almost half the roster that was drafted and developed into guys who made KEY contributions to Cup wins. That success deep in the draft was just as (or more) important to the Hawks as drafting Toews & Kane IMO.

I don't think that anyone should be giddy over a 2nd round DP, because like you said, most of them don't make it. The thing is though - when they do make it they can be absolutely huge for the status of your franchise.

Every superstar in the league has come out of the draft

Panarin?

Way back in the day - Belfour.

 

[ole ole]

Draft picks are just like currency. To a team trying to win the Stanley Cup, a very late 1st round pick is not that useful. So if they can trade it for someone that can help them now, they would. When MTL got that 1st round pick from the Jets for Monahan, it’s just another bullet in the chamber. They can use it as currency and flip it in a deal for some other player(s). or they can hold it and make a selection. If they use it to select a player, he will just be another prospect cooking for them down in their farm. Maybe will turn out something, maybe will be nothing. While the Jets got themselves a player that hopefully for them can help them make a deep run this year. Both teams got what they were looking for.

Great post.

The 1st round needs to be split into its own pie. (Of course, there are also lookup tables that go pick-by-pick for this... but the point being there is a huge difference between top-10 and top-5 picks in the 1st round vs. later 1sts in terms of quality).

I would think everyone knows this.

 

[ole ole]

Ya think?

Outside of the top ten picks in an average year (fifteen on a really good year), the chances of any particular player becoming a really good, not even a star, player aren't that great let alone those in the later rounds. Are there some gems that are picked really late? Sure, but they're the exception that gets talked about all the time. If later round picks became serviceable players on a regular basis then it wouldn't be anything special.

It cracks me up reading posters here who get really excited to get mid to late second round picks in exchange for one of their team's generic players (someone who's relatively easy to replace with another serviceable NHL player). Sure you 'might' get a good player ... but even with teams who have a great scouting dept ... you probably aren't.

But much like buying a lottery ticket, until the actual drawing (or the player getting a chance to play in the NHL) ... it sure is fun to dream.

I think the reason some seem to get excited over getting a late rd pick has more to do with 80% of the board shitting on a team / player claiming he's not worth near a 1st rd pick with outlandish remarks. When said team gets the 1st rd pick they were claiming they were gonna get than yes they like to let the pack of wolves know they got it right.
Still some will come around still trying to downplay the trade using other reasons.

I'm a Hawks fan. When the Hawks were good - the following contributed significantly while being drafted in 2nd round:
Duncan Keith
Corey Crawford
Dave Bolland
Bryan Bickell

After the 2nd round:
Niklas Hjalmarsson (4th)
Troy Brouwer (7th)
Dustin Byfuglien (8th)
Marcus Kruger (5th)
James Wisniewski (5th) (gone before the Cup wins)

That is essentially almost half the roster that was drafted and developed into guys who made KEY contributions to Cup wins. That success deep in the draft was just as (or more) important to the Hawks as drafting Toews & Kane IMO.

I don't think that anyone should be giddy over a 2nd round DP, because like you said, most of them don't make it. The thing is though - when they do make it they can be absolutely huge for the status of your franchise.


Panarin?

Way back in the day - Belfour.

Martin St Louis

 

[ole ole]

the most meaningful stat which I have seen recently,
re the topic of contenders trading 1st's, is this:
in last 20+ years, only 2 teams who traded 1sts' for rentals won the Cup
and one of those was 'Canes, way back in '06

those are the trades that seem riskiest, even dumbest, to me,
(and my team has been guilty of this)

Ask those 2 teams if they think it was dumb?

 

[HabsAddict]

It's almost not worth it because the picks that are actually worth something are almost never dealt, and in recent history when they have been its because they screwed up which pick to protect or didn't protect thinking they would be competitive. We have to go back to 2020 to even have see a top 5 pick dealt, and there's only been two top 10 picks dealt since then. S

So the point being, almost all pick deals involve competitive teams dealing their late 1st which has roughly a 1/3rd chance of being an NHL player and as OP, I think, correctly states, are overvalued by observers.

Here's a list of picks that have been dealt over the last 5 years:

Chychrun trade - 12th overall
Horvat trade - 17th overall
Hagel trade - 19th overall
Provorov trade - 22nd overall
Ekholm trade - 24th overall
O'Reilly trade - 25th overall
Orlov trade - 28th overall
Tarasenko trade - 29th overall
Chariot trade - 31st overall
Newhook trade - 31st overall
Hronek trade - 17th overall
Lindholm trade - 22nd overall
Eichel trade - 16th overall
Jones trade - 11th and 31st overall
Debrincat trade - 7th overall
Dach trade - 13th overall
Fiala trade - 19th overall
Mrazek trade - 25th overall
Toffoli trade - 26th overall
Kotkaniemi offer sheet - 26th overall
Dvorak trade - 27th overall
Reinhart trade - 28th overall
Kuemper trade - 29th & 32nd overall
Copp trade - 30th overall
Ekman-Larsson trade - 9th overall
Ristolainen trade - 13th overall
Mantha trade - 14th & 22nd overall
Foligno trade - 24th overall
Zucker trade - 25th overall
Savard trade - 11th & 31st overall


Karlsson trade - 3rd overall
Marleau trade - 16th overall
Kapanen trade - 15th overall
Hall trade - 18th overall
Miller trade - 20th overall
Sklei trade - 22nd overall
Backes trade - 27th overall
Goodgrow trade - 31st overall
Duchene trade - 4th overall
(another) Duchene trade - 19th overall
Hayes trade - 20th overall
Muzzin trade - 22nd overall
E. Kane trade - 29th overall
O'Reilly trade - 31st overall


The link OP posts actually does have a break down of probability per draft position and not just round, as well.


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View attachment 816471

The first graph is what i thought it would look like.

Once past the top 5 it starts to slide fast on a curve.

Even then, 100 games doesn't mean much if its 4th line scrubs.

I like to see a graph on points vs draft position. I bet that slide is far worse.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Lumping the 1st overall pick into the same category as the 32nd overall pick essentially makes this data meaningless, I would say.

https://dobberprospects.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Probability-of-becoming-NHL-player-per-pick-top-60.png