Prospect Info: Sharks Prospect Info & Discussion Megathread XXI: "New, improved, and wayyyy too much info" Edition

[Jargon]

All Lund and/or Havelid need to do is be a useful piece in a trade or a depth player of some sort and if Bystedt is a regular 3C, it's an acceptable result for the trade. But it's understandable to think maybe we'd have more of an impact player for our rebuild if we used that 11th overall pick on someone like McGroarty. The thought process then for Grier still made plenty of sense. Trying to get more useful prospects for a rebuild on pretty much day one makes sense but it's also difficult to expect anything when he just got there too.

Yeah the move made sense particularly when you look at our pipeline back then. It was so f***ing awful he needed to do what he could to try and grab as many guys as possible.

 

[Gecklund]

The human element. They are reactionary and risk adverse, many GMs and scouts are underqualified. Some of them do learn, most don't. They also want to find the miracle player like a Stone or Benn.

So are you more qualified than these GMs and scouts?

All Lund and/or Havelid need to do is be a useful piece in a trade or a depth player of some sort and if Bystedt is a regular 3C, it's an acceptable result for the trade. But it's understandable to think maybe we'd have more of an impact player for our rebuild if we used that 11th overall pick on someone like McGroarty. The thought process then for Grier still made plenty of sense. Trying to get more useful prospects for a rebuild on pretty much day one makes sense but it's also difficult to expect anything when he just got there too.

Yeah definitely. Again the value of the trade I absolutely loved. I’m probably a bit too much of a prospect nerd but I definitely would have gone a different direction with the picks. Lund I had ranked towards the end of the second. I just don’t love his ceiling. Definitely something that if the sharks don’t like their options at an early pick (like 11) again I’d be fine with doing again though.

I forgot to quote it and am on dreaded HF mobile but I do agree with the other post that I have more trust in the current brains in charge but at the same time am hesitant. DWjrs drafts looked great a year or two out too. Currently the picks tend to be higher. Kind of one of those wait and see though.

 

[timorous me]

DWjrs drafts looked great a year or two out too. Currently the picks tend to be higher. Kind of one of those wait and see though.

Did they actually look great a couple years out, or was that mostly just to our verrrrrry desperate eyes?

 

[Gecklund]

Did they actually look great a couple years out, or was that mostly just to our verrrrrry desperate eyes?

I mean Bordeleau was a PPG in the NCAA, Robins PPGish in the WHL, Coe PPG in the OHL, Gushchin also a PPGish in the USHL I think it was, Oberg looked great in the SHL, Raska just being his pesky self so yes it did look great a couple years out.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I mean Bordeleau was a PPG in the NCAA, Robins PPGish in the WHL, Coe PPG in the OHL, Gushchin also a PPGish in the USHL I think it was, Oberg looked great in the SHL, Raska just being his pesky self so yes it did look great a couple years out.

Goes to show how things can change. Even at the NHL level.

Think about the Kevin Labanc example; in 2019 if you had said that in two years Jacob Middleton would be the more valuable player, you'd have been institutionalized.

 

[Zarzh]

So are you more qualified than these GMs and scouts?

I don't think it is particularly hard to beat the field and every team would benefit from someone stopping them from doing something stupid. The job of the scout is to identify the other players, like defensive defensemen and checking line forwards or to find upside where there isn't an easy pick.

 

[OrrNumber4]

How does how the Sharks fare compare to the rest of the league? that'd be interesting to look at.

Also, Hertl was not the best pick, Vasilevskiy was still on the board.

So, the thing is...this kind of analysis works particularly well for the Sharks. During this period (2005 to 2019), the Sharks had consistency in their front office, including the same GM, scouting staff, and developmental team. Not to mention Burke as head scout for the entire timeframe (aside from two years sharing with his nepotism jr.); it becomes easier to draw broader conclusions about their drafting effectiveness.

However, this stability isn't mirrored across the rest of the league, particularly with GM roles. So you can't really get enough of a sample size to do the analysis.

For the sake of curiosity, I pretended that GMs had no role in scouting. But let me stress that this is untrue; GMs can and are very influential.

Having tainted the analysis from the start...

Eyeballing the drafting from memory, and removing Vegas and Seattle, you have 6 teams that are outliers in BPA "ratio": Dallas, Chicago, and Tampa Bay as "good", and Edmonton, Montreal, and Vancouver as bad. Interestingly, all three struggling teams are Canadian, which might suggest a confounding variable—though it could just be a coincidence. Note that I mentally double-counted goalies; for instance, in 2012, while Vasilevskiy was the standout pick, I still recognized players like Forsberg, Hertl, and Teravainen as BPA despite them being drafted earlier.

However, the interesting part came when I looked at personnel turnover (only GM/scouting/AHL coaching and notable development staff!). Excluding Arizona and Winnipeg for obvious reasons, and disregarding retirements, I found that while no team had exceptionally high turnover, five teams exhibited notable stability: Chicago, Dallas, Tampa Bay, San Jose, and Detroit.

For Chicago, Dallas, and Tampa Bay, the tempting explanation is good drafting = job security. But San Jose and Detroit, despite having BPA ratios that didn't stick out, still had fairly low turnover. So to me, that points to a lack of accountability for the Sharks.