Howson's Drafting

[mt-svk]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

 

[Mayor Bee]

On a related note, since MB brought it up recently, I thought I'd mention Craig Patrick's 16 year draft history as the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

....

Take a good look at that list, folks. With the exception of Jagr and the last 4, Patrick wasn't picking in the top 10 and still managed to get some decent NHL contributors and in the case of Orpik, Straka and Naslund, some pretty damn good players. Anyone who wants to run our GM's track records against that, be my guest.

Let's take a look at Round 2, in 16 years.
Richard Park and Alex Goligoski are the only two to play 100 NHL games (17 picks)
Round 3: Kris Letang, Dan Carcillo, Erik Christensen, Josef Melichar, J-S Aubin, Sven Butenschon, Dave Roche, and Joe Dziedzic all had 100 NHL games. Letang's the only one who's provided anything beyond a third pairing, third line, or backup goalie. (23 picks)
Round 4: Chris Tamer, Michal Rozsival, Ryan Malone, Michel Ouellet, Tomas Surovy, Paul Bissonnette, and Tyler Kennedy all hit 100 games. (16 picks)
Round 5: Jan Hrdina, Rob Scuderi, and David Koci had 100 games. Koci is/was completely useless.
Round 6: Patrick Lalime and Ian Moran had 100 games.
Round 7: Serge Aubin, Tom Kostopoulos
Round 8: Andrew Ference, Maxime Talbot
Round 9: Toby Petersen, Matt Moulson (didn't sign, lost him for nothing)
Round 10: None
Round 11: Hans Jonsson
Round 12: None

Now, these are all for merely 100 games. Let's break it down by levels, for Rounds 2-12.

250-499 games - Ian Moran, Patrick Lalime, Serge Aubin, Josef Melichar, Toby Petersen, Maxime Talbot, Erik Christensen, Matt Moulson, Dan Carcillo, Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski
500-749 games - Chris Tamer, Jan Hrdina, Rob Scuderi, Ryan Malone, Tom Kostopoulos
750-999 games - Michal Rozsival, Andrew Ference,
1000+ games - None

All-Stars - Patrick Lalime (1), Kris Letang (2)

To briefly hit on the first-rounders.
- We all know the story with Fleury, Staal, Crosby, and Malkin
- Jagr fell to 5th. There's a story that Vancouver (picking 2nd) interviewed the top prospects and asked them all, "If you were in our place, who would you draft?" ALL of them said Jagr. Vancouver took Petr Nedved. There was also fear that Jagr would have to serve in the Czechoslovakian Army.
- Naslund fell. He was projected to be a top-10 pick, but drafting European players was still in its infancy. Europeans in the first round of 1991 were Peter Forsberg, Naslund, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Rucinsky, and Niklas Sundblad (drafted by Calgary, so doomed to failure). The second round had Ziggy Palffy, Sandis Ozolinsh, Jozef Stumpel, and Martin Hamrlik (drafted by Hartford, which was worse than Calgary).
- Straka was 20 years old when he was drafted, taken three spots after Dmitri Kvartalnov (who was 26).
- Good for Brooks Orpik.

My point isn't to bury Patrick. He's a damned good hockey mind, but to act like he had a sterling draft record with Pittsburgh outside of the top-5 isn't backed up by anything. There's a lot of depth players, a lot of guys who never came close to the NHL, and a couple who turned out nicely.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

This is how I feel.

 

[JACKETfan]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

I agree and add the following observations:

-coaching turnover. (Compare to Trotz for example)

-drafting player that fits the team/coach (Z, Filatov)

-club atmosphere and character

 

[Skraut]

-coaching turnover. (Compare to Trotz for example)

But I heard on HFBoards that firing someone and creating more turnover is the solution to EVERY problem!

 

[JACKETfan]

But I heard on HFBoards that firing someone and creating more turnover is the solution to EVERY problem!

I think we've learned the hard way that our GMs have been the biggest problem, because they did all the drafting, hiring and firing. ...and that means the blame is squarely on the owners, right?

 

[blahblah]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

Sadly that is what the fans of crappy teams say to make themselves feel better that their latest "new hope/favorite player" crashed and burned.

 

[NotWendell]

This is why simply going off games played is only slightly meaningful. It's a lens that finds Mike Rupp to have been as good a pick as Ryan Suter because both have 500 NHL games. No consideration for who else was on the board, what caliber player was actually picked, or anything else like that.

We can go by All-Stars drafted, which would be a bit more meaningful. It wouldn't be perfect by any means, since good second-liners don't usually make the ASG, but it's another piece to a larger puzzle.

Doug MacLean: 1 (Rick Nash)
Don Waddell (a dismal drafter as well): 3 (Dany Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk, Tobias Enstrom), plus three more players better than Dougie's second-best pick of Klesla (Braydon Coburn, Kari Lehtonen, Ondrej Pavelec. I could argue for Bryan Little as well, but that's just laboring the point.)

All-Stars is a better gauge because what we haven't had is IMPACT PLAYERS beyond Nash and a couple others.

 

[Nordique]

Criteria of NHL games played of a player that has been drafted and developed successfully.

Forwards – Defenseman Goaltenders
1997-2004 - 125-200 NHL Games required 51-100 NHL Games Played
2005-2006 - 80 NHL Games required 25-50 NHL Games Played

This is the problem with quantitative analysis of draft success. There is a big difference between playing 125 games in the NHL and being drafted and developed successfully. You can't quantify drafting success so simply. You have to analyze every pick, relative to the picks made immediately before and after that pick.

 

[Viqsi]

I think we've learned the hard way that our GMs have been the biggest problem, because they did all the drafting, hiring and firing. ...and that means the blame is squarely on the owners, right?

I blame the fans, for not realizing that Doug MacLean would be crap and therefore protesting his removal from Day 1.

 

[KeithBWhittington]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

I agree mostly, developing has been better, taking into consideration that our "skill players" still seem like they aren't panning out exactly as we like. Is Howson a head and shoulders better drafter than MacLean? probably not, but one thing that I continue to like that he's done since the beginning is drafting College-Bound players. The development system in College seems to prepare these kids better for what they'll see at the NHL level from their opposition, or, at the very least, gives them a leg up on kids coming from Juniors into the AHL.

One guy that has impressed me is Cody Goloubef. Just this past season, some, including myself, thought that maybe he was quickly falling out of he picture to compete for an NHL job simply due to to the amount of "more talented" guys that were brought in or that seemed to leapfrog him, on Defense (Erixon, Moore, Murray, Savard)

 

[Mayor Bee]

I agree and add the following observations:

-coaching turnover. (Compare to Trotz for example)

-drafting player that fits the team/coach (Z, Filatov)

-club atmosphere and character

I'll disagree to a point, only because the lengthy tenure of Trotz and Ruff is extraordinarily uncommon in pro sports history. It requires both a particular type of personality (that is in itself uncommon in coaches) and an almost superhuman ability to adapt quickly and effectively (which is also extremely uncommon in coaches). To get the combination of the two is almost unheard of.

With that in mind, drafting players that fit a particular type of mold isn't a good thing either. How big of a disaster would it have been to have taken someone who fit Gallant's system or mentality, or Dougie's system or mentality? Great players throughout history have been loose to a fault, have been wound way too tight, have been overconfident, have been neurotic to the point of mental breakdowns, have been fire-breathing leaders, have been shoulder-to-the-wheel followers. There's not a common personality type, or even a particularly narrow range of types.

 

[JacketsDavid]

I think that our problem wasnt drafting but development of players.

I totally agree.

Now I really only follow the first round, but seems like the only surprise pick at the time was Pascal - just because we had Tugger and the goalie of the future Denis.

Seems like alot of folks look back on the Zherdev pick as a mistake, but at the time I didn't think it was a reach.

But just seems like from my perspective (first round only) we generally pick the best available. It's what we do with them afterwards.

 

[CapnCornelius]

To briefly hit on the first-rounders.
- We all know the story with Fleury, Staal, Crosby, and Malkin
- Jagr fell to 5th. There's a story that Vancouver (picking 2nd) interviewed the top prospects and asked them all, "If you were in our place, who would you draft?" ALL of them said Jagr. Vancouver took Petr Nedved. There was also fear that Jagr would have to serve in the Czechoslovakian Army.
- Naslund fell. He was projected to be a top-10 pick, but drafting European players was still in its infancy. Europeans in the first round of 1991 were Peter Forsberg, Naslund, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Rucinsky, and Niklas Sundblad (drafted by Calgary, so doomed to failure). The second round had Ziggy Palffy, Sandis Ozolinsh, Jozef Stumpel, and Martin Hamrlik (drafted by Hartford, which was worse than Calgary).
- Straka was 20 years old when he was drafted, taken three spots after Dmitri Kvartalnov (who was 26).
- Good for Brooks Orpik.

My point isn't to bury Patrick. He's a damned good hockey mind, but to act like he had a sterling draft record with Pittsburgh outside of the top-5 isn't backed up by anything. There's a lot of depth players, a lot of guys who never came close to the NHL, and a couple who turned out nicely.

This is the problem with you, MB--there's always an excuse or a qualification. I could give two hoots whether player X "fell." Cam Fowler fell too. Does Murray not get credit for drafting him because of pre-draft rankings that had him higher?

Which goes to another complaint I have--your over-reliance on pre-draft rankings. Is it or is it not the job of a GM and his scouts to analyze players and make a determination of what is best for the team? If not, let's fire all of our scouts and just rely on pre-draft rankings. Then we can just blame Central Scouting or whatever other person responsible when things go wrong.

As for Patrick and the later rounds, you miss a huge corrolary to the "Dougie Rule" that someone brought up above. The thesis has been that Doug rushed players and thus resulted in having a higher percent of "career NHL players" simply because he was playing guys that he shouldn't have. Well, there is a corrolary to that for Craig Patrick. For all but 3 of Patrick's years as GM, there was a guy named Mario Lemieux who played for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He took up 1 of the 6 forward spots on the roster. For 11 years Jaromir Jagr was on the Pittsburgh Penguins, taking another top forward position. For 8 years Ron Francis was on the Penguins top 6. For 9 years Marty Straka was a Pen. For 6 years Joey Mullen was a Pen. For 8 years Kevin Stevens was a Pen. Tomas Sandstrom for 4 years. Bryan Trottier for 3 years. Recchi for 3 years. Alex Kovalev for 5 years. And that doesn't even go to short-term players like Lu Robitaille or Petr Nedved. So, with all of this talent do you think there was much room on the roster for guys drafted in Round 6? Do you think the Pens were actively working to develop 4th round talent to challenge Kevin Stevens for a roster spot?

This goes to my complaint about your Detroit Red Wings critique. There are two reasons it breaks down. For one, when you develop a Lidstrom who plays on your back end for 20 years, guess what? There are fewer roster spots to fill. Secondly, when you are the Pens of the 90's or the Wings through today (all though this may be the year they finally start their fall from grace) taking time to develop players is not the most efficient use of resources. You are already close to what you need to win. So, you go out and use free agency and get a known commodity, again reducing the number of roster spaces available for picks.

The end result is that the bar is raised for any prospect hoping to make the team. Neither the Wings, nor Patrick's Pens, were going to put an inexperienced kid in and have him struggle through an 82 game season. So, were Patrick's picks or the Wings picks that bad, or was it that they swung for the fences with high risk/high reward picks because they had no immediate needs to fill?

Contrast that with Howson. The draft is much more important for the Jackets because no free agent wants to sign with this GM. Simply doing an average job isn't good enough and doing a below average job is unacceptable. Doing "well" in late rounds and loading up on depth players is not going to turn it around. Howson has to find All Star caliber players. To date he's yet to draft and develop a player the equal of a Nash or even a Klesla.

 

[Anisimovs AK]

Let's take a look at Round 2, in 16 years.
Richard Park and Alex Goligoski are the only two to play 100 NHL games (17 picks)
Round 3: Kris Letang, Dan Carcillo, Erik Christensen, Josef Melichar, J-S Aubin, Sven Butenschon, Dave Roche, and Joe Dziedzic all had 100 NHL games. Letang's the only one who's provided anything beyond a third pairing, third line, or backup goalie. (23 picks)
Round 4: Chris Tamer, Michal Rozsival, Ryan Malone, Michel Ouellet, Tomas Surovy, Paul Bissonnette, and Tyler Kennedy all hit 100 games. (16 picks)
Round 5: Jan Hrdina, Rob Scuderi, and David Koci had 100 games. Koci is/was completely useless.
Round 6: Patrick Lalime and Ian Moran had 100 games.
Round 7: Serge Aubin, Tom Kostopoulos
Round 8: Andrew Ference, Maxime Talbot
Round 9: Toby Petersen, Matt Moulson (didn't sign, lost him for nothing)
Round 10: None
Round 11: Hans Jonsson
Round 12: None

Now, these are all for merely 100 games. Let's break it down by levels, for Rounds 2-12.

250-499 games - Ian Moran, Patrick Lalime, Serge Aubin, Josef Melichar, Toby Petersen, Maxime Talbot, Erik Christensen, Matt Moulson, Dan Carcillo, Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski
500-749 games - Chris Tamer, Jan Hrdina, Rob Scuderi, Ryan Malone, Tom Kostopoulos
750-999 games - Michal Rozsival, Andrew Ference,
1000+ games - None

All-Stars - Patrick Lalime (1), Kris Letang (2)

To briefly hit on the first-rounders.
- We all know the story with Fleury, Staal, Crosby, and Malkin
- Jagr fell to 5th. There's a story that Vancouver (picking 2nd) interviewed the top prospects and asked them all, "If you were in our place, who would you draft?" ALL of them said Jagr. Vancouver took Petr Nedved. There was also fear that Jagr would have to serve in the Czechoslovakian Army.
- Naslund fell. He was projected to be a top-10 pick, but drafting European players was still in its infancy. Europeans in the first round of 1991 were Peter Forsberg, Naslund, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Rucinsky, and Niklas Sundblad (drafted by Calgary, so doomed to failure). The second round had Ziggy Palffy, Sandis Ozolinsh, Jozef Stumpel, and Martin Hamrlik (drafted by Hartford, which was worse than Calgary).
- Straka was 20 years old when he was drafted, taken three spots after Dmitri Kvartalnov (who was 26).
- Good for Brooks Orpik.

My point isn't to bury Patrick. He's a damned good hockey mind, but to act like he had a sterling draft record with Pittsburgh outside of the top-5 isn't backed up by anything. There's a lot of depth players, a lot of guys who never came close to the NHL, and a couple who turned out nicely.

Thats the rub though. When he had high picks he capitalized on them, Maclean(and to a much lesser extent Howson) did not. The fact that he also got some nice depth players too is why the Pens were successful. Combine Patrick's picks and make an NHL team.

Jagr-Crosby-Naslund
Malone-Malkin-Straka
Kennedy-Staal-Carcillo
Kostopoulous(sp?)-Talbot-Aubin

Letang-Orpik
Roszival-Goligoski
Ference-Scuderi

Fleury
Lalime.

seems pretty stout

 

[CapnCornelius]

Thats the rub though. When he had high picks he capitalized on them, Maclean(and to a much lesser extent Howson) did not.

Too a much lesser extent?

Alexandre Picard. Nikita Filatov. Pascal LeClaire. Trading a pick for Jeff Carter. Those results are equally poor. But Doug cashed in on Rick Nash and a defensman in Rusty Klesla who continues to play 18-20 minutes (when healthy). Scott Howson is still waiting and hoping that one of the players he's drafted turns into a player of their caliber with similar drafting position as what his predecessor had. Which is to say nothing of Howson's overall failure to develop a team.

 

[FlaggerX]

Too a much lesser extent?

Alexandre Picard. Nikita Filatov. Pascal LeClaire. Trading a pick for Jeff Carter. Those results are equally poor. But Doug cashed in on Rick Nash and a defensman in Rusty Klesla who continues to play 18-20 minutes (when healthy). Scott Howson is still waiting and hoping that one of the players he's drafted turns into a player of their caliber with similar drafting position as what his predecessor had. Which is to say nothing of Howson's overall failure to develop a team.

Picard was a MacLean pick.

Filatov was a bust, thanks to attitude.

Voracek is still a top sixer. John Moore looks like a real player, so does the Johan. Calvert? Atkinson? Savard? Incomplete on Boone Jenner or Murray, but I think overall Howson clearly outperformed MacLean in the draft. Not good enough obviously, but the jury will be out on a lot of his picks

 

[Mayor Bee]

This is the problem with you, MB--there's always an excuse or a qualification. I could give two hoots whether player X "fell." Cam Fowler fell too. Does Murray not get credit for drafting him because of pre-draft rankings that had him higher?

Which goes to another complaint I have--your over-reliance on pre-draft rankings. Is it or is it not the job of a GM and his scouts to analyze players and make a determination of what is best for the team? If not, let's fire all of our scouts and just rely on pre-draft rankings. Then we can just blame Central Scouting or whatever other person responsible when things go wrong.

Oh, what a bunch of garbage.

Understand that I read and analyze things like a historian, which means collecting as much information as possible to establish the time and place. It's why I don't give Detroit credit for "uncovering a gem" with Jimmy Howard; he was a consensus top-20 pick who inexplicably fell into the laps at #64. Same thing with Calle Jarnkrok. That's off the top of my head; if I felt like going on, I could name 100 more who fell a decent amount.

Good for Anaheim for getting Fowler, or Phoenix with Gormley. Neither one of them deserves any credit for "finding a gem", when the extent of their involvement was to run up to the podium like madmen.

As for Patrick and the later rounds, you miss a huge corrolary to the "Dougie Rule" that someone brought up above. The thesis has been that Doug rushed players and thus resulted in having a higher percent of "career NHL players" simply because he was playing guys that he shouldn't have. Well, there is a corrolary to that for Craig Patrick. For all but 3 of Patrick's years as GM, there was a guy named Mario Lemieux who played for the Pittsburgh Penguins. He took up 1 of the 6 forward spots on the roster. For 11 years Jaromir Jagr was on the Pittsburgh Penguins, taking another top forward position. For 8 years Ron Francis was on the Penguins top 6. For 9 years Marty Straka was a Pen. For 6 years Joey Mullen was a Pen. For 8 years Kevin Stevens was a Pen. Tomas Sandstrom for 4 years. Bryan Trottier for 3 years. Recchi for 3 years. Alex Kovalev for 5 years. And that doesn't even go to short-term players like Lu Robitaille or Petr Nedved. So, with all of this talent do you think there was much room on the roster for guys drafted in Round 6? Do you think the Pens were actively working to develop 4th round talent to challenge Kevin Stevens for a roster spot?

It has nothing to do with whether there was room on the Penguins roster for them at that time. It has to do with the fact that they were simply not good prospects; they failed to develop into AHL or IHL players, and had no trade value. The only player who got stuck behind legitimately superior players and ended up being moved was Markus Naslund, and even then it was for Alek Stojanov (who could barely remain upright).

You ask whether they were working to develop a challenge for Kevin Stevens. Stevens is a great example of the importance of developing talent. As a result of 5 seconds with Rich Pilon, he went from an elite power forward to someone who ended up on the bench in Boston for floating through games. His downfall led to the need to acquire "toughness" (like Stojanov), even if his particular style couldn't be replicated.

And if not to acquire and develop talent, why even use the draft picks?

This goes to my complaint about your Detroit Red Wings critique. There are two reasons it breaks down. For one, when you develop a Lidstrom who plays on your back end for 20 years, guess what? There are fewer roster spots to fill. Secondly, when you are the Pens of the 90's or the Wings through today (all though this may be the year they finally start their fall from grace) taking time to develop players is not the most efficient use of resources. You are already close to what you need to win. So, you go out and use free agency and get a known commodity, again reducing the number of roster spaces available for picks.

And this has nothing to do with an expansion team who starts off needing talent at every single position.

The end result is that the bar is raised for any prospect hoping to make the team. Neither the Wings, nor Patrick's Pens, were going to put an inexperienced kid in and have him struggle through an 82 game season. So, were Patrick's picks or the Wings picks that bad, or was it that they swung for the fences with high risk/high reward picks because they had no immediate needs to fill?

Well, there's a reason why Detroit has been consistently near the top for the last 20 years and the Penguins went through a cataclysmic slump that saw them hit 10,000 in average attendance and nearly move.

Contrast that with Howson. The draft is much more important for the Jackets because no free agent wants to sign with this GM. Simply doing an average job isn't good enough and doing a below average job is unacceptable. Doing "well" in late rounds and loading up on depth players is not going to turn it around. Howson has to find All Star caliber players. To date he's yet to draft and develop a player the equal of a Nash or even a Klesla.

Voracek was better than Klesla. And even in Klesla's case, it took him 7 years to even look like an everyday NHL player.

 

[EspenK]

Who cares now. They both sucked. Hope the new guy does better.

 

[Viqsi]

Who cares now. They both sucked. Hope the new guy does better.

And we're already starting the revisionist history! Gotta love it.

How soon until Ryan Murray becomes a [insert new guy's name here] draftee?

 

[Doug19]

Who cares who drafted him, just be glad it's not up to Howson to attempt to develop him properly.

 

[Mayor Bee]

And we're already starting the revisionist history! Gotta love it.

How soon until Ryan Murray becomes a [insert new guy's name here] draftee?

Nikitin's already been assigned to Patrick (when he was excellent last year) before reverting back to Howson this year.

I don't get it. I'm as stubborn and argumentative as they get, yet I have no problem giving Doug MacLean (who I couldn't stand) credit for the good things he did. Why are so many others incapable of doing the same?

 

[EspenK]

And we're already starting the revisionist history! Gotta love it.

How soon until Ryan Murray becomes a [insert new guy's name here] draftee?

As soon as he proves he was a better choice than Galchenyuk ?

 

[Viqsi]

Nikitin's already been assigned to Patrick (when he was excellent last year) before reverting back to Howson this year.

I don't get it. I'm as stubborn and argumentative as they get, yet I have no problem giving Doug MacLean (who I couldn't stand) credit for the good things he did. Why are so many others incapable of doing the same?

Apparently because G-d forbid the Eternal Damnation target get any credit for anything constructive, good, neutral, or even simply "not bad". It's a sign of weakness or something.

 

[MattTheMask]

I guess JD decided after reading this thread, he had enough. Away with Howson! This can now be considered, the thread that got Scott Howson fired. In similar fashion to how Lori Schmidt got Scott Arniel fired