Prospect Info: The 2024-2025 Prospects Thread

[Tables of Stats]

You don't have to look up every prospect.

Vancouver Canucks - In the System - Elite Prospects

Statistical overview of all Vancouver Canucks prospects.

www.eliteprospects.com

Elite Prospects is okay, but it doesn't list every stat you might want. I mostly use it just to see if a player played that night, so I can go find their actual stats.

 

[arttk]

Yeah I get that but they paid a premium for a couple guys. When the time comes and the prospects are ready, do you think teams are going to pay a premium when Van is going to need to get rid of some to make room. If I was a GM, Id be saying you're getting "75 cents on the dollar". Not our problem you backed yourself into a corner.

that’s a separate point than your original point.

Well we had no issue getting a 3rd for Soucy and he played like absolute ass this season and had a NTC.

 

[ManVanFan]

that’s a separate point than your original point.

Well we had no issue getting a 3rd for Soucy and he played like absolute ass this season and had a NTC.

Soucy wasn't great this year no but he wasn't ass. That was Juulsen. Shows what a capable D goes for. Helps this draft sucks and a 3rd is probably what a 4th would normally be.

If Van doesn't trade for Dragon, Canucks are drafting inside the top 10 and like 14th with the Rangers pick. Grabbing Dragon in free agency.

 

[arttk]

Soucy wasn't great this year no but he wasn't ass. That was Juulsen. Shows what a capable D goes for. Helps this draft sucks and a 3rd is probably what a 4th would normally be.

If Van doesn't trade for Dragon, Canucks are drafting inside the top 10 and like 14th with the Rangers pick. Grabbing Dragon in free agency.

I mean Juulsen was beyond ass.. he’ll Desharnais was also f***ing ass and he got a 5th somehow. D holds a lot of value.

There is no certainty that MP would come as a UFA or he wouldn’t sign with another team that trades for him at the deadline. Not getting him would’ve lead to even more uncertainty around our D for next season.

 

[ManVanFan]

I mean Juulsen was beyond ass.. he’ll Desharnais was also f***ing ass and he got a 5th somehow. D holds a lot of value.

There is no certainty that MP would come as a UFA or he wouldn’t sign with another team that trades for him at the deadline. Not getting him would’ve lead to even more uncertainty around our D for next season.

The good news is that they can bury a lot of them, if they need too. Problem will be when they can't or if someone steals a spot from someone.

 

[Tables of Stats]

here's bader's 2020 list. i haven't really looked at it yet but post your "best" 2020 list and let's compare

The Hockey Prospecting Top 32 (2020)

We introduce the final Hockey Prospecting rankings of the top 32 for the 2020 draft! The rankings factor in the probabilities from the model, but also age, runway left to improve, league-specific p…

hockeyprospecting.com

I intend to dig deeper and look at the expected value of a player taken at that draft ranking in the last 15 years, but even without doing that, it's very clear that Bader's model is dead last. 12 complete busts in 32 picks versus 10 for Button, 7 for McKenzie, 10 for THN, and 7 for the actual draft.

I choose to rank Mukhamadullin and Brisson as busts, as well as any player with less than 20 NHL games played. Khusnutdinov, Bourque, Lapierre, Reichel, Colangelo, and Berard could all be classed as busts, which brings the numbers to 17, 12, 9, 12, and 10, respectively.*

I'll do more analysis later, but I think I've been pretty fair in what gets counted as a bust with both sets of the above players.

*Amirov has to be labelled as a bust, but he's the biggest what-if of the draft, given his tragic passing.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MND4sUIP7rWR7yirCjX-kyAS6FxCeycscffkn2KoaAI/edit?gid=0#gid=0

 

[David Bruce Banner]

I miss the Potato Draft.

 

[arttk]

The good news is that they can bury a lot of them, if they need too. Problem will be when they can't or if someone steals a spot from someone.

This is not really an issue in the short and medium term, we get a ton of injuries and we really only have 3 guys pushing for spots, Willander, Mancini and KK and all 3 of them can spend time in the AHL.

I think the year after, one of them should have a spot locked down and then ideally we have Mynio added to the list of 3 players pushing for a callup spot.

 

[MS]

Show me some actual proof that I'm wrong. Your opinion is how I'm wrong. I don't know you form a hole in the ground but I guarantee if you are on message boards like me, your opinion holds equal weight to mine. So I guess in my opinion. You're wrong. Bader's opinion's wrong, mine's wrong, the next guy's is wrong.

If the Canucks have such stud D players that no other teams have, why the hell does the GM feel the need to add so many D.

I mean, you can't provide a mathematical proof of where a prospect sits (and the fact that your brain even goes that direction might be your problem) but it's pretty obvious common sense.

Willander is an 11th overall pick who was arguably the best defender at the 2025 WJCs and is one of the best-skating D prospects in hockey.

Lekkerimaki is a mid-1st who was the 2024 WJC MVP and was the best U21 goal scorer in the AHL last season.

EP2 is a 6'4 unicorn with elite skating and a mean streak who stepped straight into the NHL and nailed down a regular job at age 20.

These are all guys who would be in the #1-3 spots of pretty much any prospect pool in the NHL.

It isn't rocket science or a controversial opinion to say that all of these guys are top-50ish prospects in the NHL. From there, in a league with 32 teams it's pretty simple math that an average prospect pool would have roughly 1.5 top-50ish prospects. And if we have 3 and a model ranks us at 30/32, the model might have a problem.

And in this case, the problem is that 4 of our top 5 prospects are defense-oriented or two-way defenders who don't put up gaudy PP stats, so these NHLe models think that a 5'8 winger from the Q who scored 90 points last year is a better prospect.

The main issue with virtually every prospect model is that they're all entirely based on points and are disguised as this genius-level math. It's like having an NHL player model that tells you Sven Baertschi is a better player than Chris Tanev.

Most B-List websites are also pretty terrible. IMO Button is basically the only person in the prospect circle whose opinion is actually valuable.

Yeah, these models are all done by guys who think they're smart because they took a 1st year Statistics course and have figured out how to do an NHLe sort of thing to rate prospects based on point totals relative to league. And they're all crap because you simply can't rate prospects effectively this way.

Like, at the point where EP2 was recalled to the NHL any/all of these models would have had him as an inferior prospect to Hunter Brz, when in actual fact you wouldn't have traded EP2 for 5 Hunter Brzes.

 

[Hansen]

I mean, you can't provide a mathematical proof of where a prospect sits (and the fact that your brain even goes that direction might be your problem) but it's pretty obvious common sense.

Willander is an 11th overall pick who was arguably the best defender at the 2025 WJCs and is one of the best-skating D prospects in hockey.

Lekkerimaki is a mid-1st who was the 2024 WJC MVP and was the best U21 goal scorer in the AHL last season.

EP2 is a 6'4 unicorn with elite skating and a mean streak who stepped straight into the NHL and nailed down a regular job at age 20.

These are all guys who would be in the #1-3 spots of pretty much any prospect pool in the NHL.

It isn't rocket science or a controversial opinion to say that all of these guys are top-50ish prospects in the NHL. From there, in a league with 32 teams it's pretty simple math that an average prospect pool would have roughly 1.5 top-50ish prospects. And if we have 3 and a model ranks us at 30/32, the model might have a problem.

And in this case, the problem is that 4 of our top 5 prospects are defense-oriented or two-way defenders who don't put up gaudy PP stats, so these NHLe models think that a 5'8 winger from the Q who scored 90 points last year is a better prospect.



Yeah, these models are all done by guys who think they're smart because they took a 1st year Statistics course and have figured out how to do an NHLe sort of thing to rate prospects based on point totals relative to league. And they're all crap because you simply can't rate prospects effectively this way.

Like, at the point where EP2 was recalled to the NHL any/all of these models would have had him as an inferior prospect to Hunter Brz, when in actual fact you wouldn't have traded EP2 for 5 Hunter Brzes.

The high picks arent beeg and the beeg guy wasnt a high draft pick. Basically to all NHL prospect think tanks that means "must be mid"

Crazy to think how deep our D prospect pool would be if we still had Brzustewicz (mildly bothered that we dealt him after I committed to memorizing his name) with Kudryavtsev looking like a legit NHL prospect and Mynio as a pretty good maybe coming in

 

[ManVanFan]

I mean, you can't provide a mathematical proof of where a prospect sits (and the fact that your brain even goes that direction might be your problem) but it's pretty obvious common sense.

Willander is an 11th overall pick who was arguably the best defender at the 2025 WJCs and is one of the best-skating D prospects in hockey.

Lekkerimaki is a mid-1st who was the 2024 WJC MVP and was the best U21 goal scorer in the AHL last season.

EP2 is a 6'4 unicorn with elite skating and a mean streak who stepped straight into the NHL and nailed down a regular job at age 20.

These are all guys who would be in the #1-3 spots of pretty much any prospect pool in the NHL.

It isn't rocket science or a controversial opinion to say that all of these guys are top-50ish prospects in the NHL. From there, in a league with 32 teams it's pretty simple math that an average prospect pool would have roughly 1.5 top-50ish prospects. And if we have 3 and a model ranks us at 30/32, the model might have a problem.

And in this case, the problem is that 4 of our top 5 prospects are defense-oriented or two-way defenders who don't put up gaudy PP stats, so these NHLe models think that a 5'8 winger from the Q who scored 90 points last year is a better prospect.

Is an entire prospect pool 3 players?

 

[Mr. Canucklehead]

I think we've strayed a fair bit from the intent of the thread. This is to discuss Vancouver Canucks prospects.

There's an interesting discussion to be had in terms of comparing prospects models, and I think if you wish to continue that, please start a seperate thread to do so.

If you do not like a thread, post, or its contents, you are also free not to comment on it. There's no need to get snarly with one another.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Well just read through 4 pages of mostly drivel. Figured out quickly though to ignore the battle between stats and manfan ... thanks to those that actually post information rather than opinions.

Hopefully Lekk makes a decent NHLer starting next year.

Think EP2 and Willy are going to have impressive careers. I know our forwards and forward prospect pool need help, but I hope we don't trade either of Willy or EP2. And Mancini won't garner what he is worth.

As previously mentioned:

Hughes Hronek
MP Meyers
EP2 Willander
Forbort Mancini

With

Mynio and KK in the wings.

I don't think Juulsen makes the team next year. (he didn't have a good year last year. but I like the player. He's close to a legit NHLer sometimes, but not regularly.)

 

[SelltheTeamFrancesco]

The main issue with virtually every prospect model is that they're all entirely based on points and are disguised as this genius-level math. It's like having an NHL player model that tells you Sven Baertschi is a better player than Chris Tanev.

Most B-List websites are also pretty terrible. IMO Button is basically the only person in the prospect circle whose opinion is actually valuable.

Button always gonna be the goat for his Virtanen ranking.

 

[WTG]

The main issue with virtually every prospect model is that they're all entirely based on points and are disguised as this genius-level math. It's like having an NHL player model that tells you Sven Baertschi is a better player than Chris Tanev.

Most B-List websites are also pretty terrible. IMO Button is basically the only person in the prospect circle whose opinion is actually valuable.

I agree. It's crazy how little analysis is out there for prospects. You see the same old regurgitated talking points from "experts" but they don't even watch the prospect play you just heard some say something from some one who heard someone else say something.

I always respect people that actually watch prospects play. It just gives you so much more insight on how good a prospect is. It's the reason I like making play-by-play videos when analyzing a prospect because it allows others to see my thought process rather than just going boxscore hunting. You might disagree with me on certain things (see Brz last season), but at least you know how I got to that conclusion.

 

[iceburg]

D-Petey, 2022, 3rd round
Kudryavtsev 2022 7th round
Mancini, 2022 5th round
Mynio, 2023 3rd round

This is why you don't casually "throw-in" later round draft picks in trades.

 

[wetcoast]

D-Petey, 2022, 3rd round
Kudryavtsev 2022 7th round
Mancini, 2022 5th round
Mynio, 2023 3rd round

This is why you don't casually "throw-in" later round draft picks in trades.

Aren't these guys the exception to the rule though?

 

[MS]

D-Petey, 2022, 3rd round
Kudryavtsev 2022 7th round
Mancini, 2022 5th round
Mynio, 2023 3rd round

This is why you don't casually "throw-in" later round draft picks in trades.

Two of those guys aren't later-round picks.

Trading 5th-7th rounders is totally irrelevant. If you have fewer picks in 2020 all it means is that you have more contract slots to sign guys like Sasson and Bains in 2022 or 2023, and the calibre of prospect you get via UFA signing vs. late-round pick is no different.

 

[vancityluongo]

Two of those guys aren't later-round picks.

Trading 5th-7th rounders is totally irrelevant. If you have fewer picks in 2020 all it means is that you have more contract slots to sign guys like Sasson and Bains in 2022 or 2023, and the calibre of prospect you get via UFA signing vs. late-round pick is no different.

in fairness, benning essentially treated all picks as late round picks, and had no conception of the difference in value between a 5th and a 3rd

thankfully we're (hopefully) on the other side of that (soucy trade)

 

[iceburg]

Aren't these guys the exception to the rule though?

Sure, if the analysis is "more likely than not". But as percentages, from the 3rd round down there's still a decent chance of players having success. For example, according to the linked article below, the chance of a player playing more than 300 games (a marker of sustained success) is 17% if drafted in the 3rd round and 6.4% if drafted in the 7th round. While it's still not likely they will succeed, it's not nothing.

Success Rates of NHL Draft Picks - The Hockey Writers NHL Entry Draft Latest News, Analysis & More

Scouting and luck combine to make for a successful draft in the NHL. Here are the success rates of the top 32 picks & each individual round.

thehockeywriters.com

Two of those guys aren't later-round picks.

Trading 5th-7th rounders is totally irrelevant. If you have fewer picks in 2020 all it means is that you have more contract slots to sign guys like Sasson and Bains in 2022 or 2023, and the calibre of prospect you get via UFA signing vs. late-round pick is no different.

Splitting hairs a little and perhaps "later " was a poor choice of words to make my point. 2nd and 3rd round picks get tossed in all the time. They are not without value.

I take your point that there are other means to acquire players with similar value. But I could argue that the chance of hitting a homerun with a later round pick is less (eg Forsling). I appreciate that Forsling bounced around a bit before finally getting established. Bottom line, the more shots on goal the better. Contract slots go to the ones that pop.

 

[thecupismine]

The biggest issue I have with the models right now is they aren't taking into acount that the number of powerplay positions available for defenseman have effectively been cut in half over the last decade, and that point scoring for dmen has been consolidated to the number 1 pp guy. When you model out future NHL careers using point totals with how the game has changed, it's going to be a suspect proposition.

If you aren't top 30 in the league offensively, you aren't getting a PP1 slot, so you have to be a good two way guy who can PK to see any minutes. Since Alvin & Rutherford took over, the Canucks have been very astute in noticing this, and have taken guys who profile as good two way players both early and later in the draft.

They aren't drafting towering pylons who can't move the puck - they're very specifically going for the guys for the 0.5ppg dmen who only see PP time late in their junior careers (good for developing puck skills), and are mobile defenders. This ensures whoever progresses to the next level doesn't get held back by their puck moving (Logan Stanley's of the world), and that they can focus on building up their defensive game at each level.

It's why I was completely fine with them moving Hunter Brzustewicz, as his NHL projection is a lot murkier than guys like Willander, EP2, Mynio, and KK. All that to say I'm really happy with the way the team has drafted and filled out it's defensive ranks with limited draft capital. It's been generally hit after hit (based on current progress), and it bodes well for the future of the blueline.

 

[MS]

Sure, if the analysis is "more likely than not". But as percentages, from the 3rd round down there's still a decent chance of players having success. For example, according to the linked article below, the chance of a player playing more than 300 games (a marker of sustained success) is 17% if drafted in the 3rd round and 6.4% if drafted in the 7th round. While it's still not likely they will succeed, it's not nothing.

Success Rates of NHL Draft Picks - The Hockey Writers NHL Entry Draft Latest News, Analysis & More

Scouting and luck combine to make for a successful draft in the NHL. Here are the success rates of the top 32 picks & each individual round.

thehockeywriters.com

There's a difference between 'playing games' and 'having actual value'. In an average 2nd or 3rd round, maybe 4-6 players out of 32 ever actually carry substantial value. If you trade 5 or 6 2nds, you really only need to get one good asset back in all those trades to offset the future pick value that has been lost.

Splitting hairs a little and perhaps "later " was a poor choice of words to make my point. 2nd and 3rd round picks get tossed in all the time. They are not without value.

I mean, when Benning throws a 2nd into a Sutter-Bonino deal where we were already getting the worst player on the worse contract ... yeah, that's bad. Those picks do have value, although in my eyes that value is overrated.

For late-round picks, I'll repost what I posted on this a couple years ago, updated for changes since then :

__________

We've had a lot of discussion here about pick values and surpluses and a lot of disagreement about my takes on this. I just wanted to take the time to go through mid-late round picks in particular and why I don't really value them highly.

I'm going to go back to 2005 and the start of the cap era and current ELCs etc. and go through every pick in round 4-7 since that time through 2022 vs. every free agent signing we've given a first NHL contract to. Guys who played a few NHL games are yellow, guys who became NHL regulars are green, guys who became impact players are green and bolded. I might have missed a guy or two who were undrafted FA signings, but I think I'm pretty close.

Draft picks:
Alex Vincent
Matt Bucher
Kris Fredheim
Mario Bliznak
Sergei Shirokov
Juraj Simek
Evan Fuller
CA M***ier
Ilya Kablukov
Taylor Matson
Dan Gendur
Prabh Rai
Mats Froshaug
Morgan Clark
Jeremy Price
Peter Andersson
Joe Cannata
Steven Anthony
Pat McNally
Adam Polasek
Alex Friesen
Jonathan Ialahti
Sawyer Hannay
Joe Labate
Ludwig Blomstrand
Frank Corrado
Pathrik Westerholm
Henrik Tommernes
Ben Hutton
Wes Myron
Matthew Beattie
Jordan Subban
Anton Cedarholm
Mike Williamson
Miles Liberati
Gustav Forsling
Kyle Pettit
Mackenze Stewart
Carl Neill
Adam Gaudette
Lukas Jasek
Tate Olson
Cole Candela
Jakob Stukel
Rodrigo Abols
Brett McKenzie
Jack Rathbone
Kristoffer Gunnarsson
Petrus Palmu
Matt Brassard
Toni Utunen
Artem Manukyan
Matt Thiessen
Ethan Keppen
Carson Focht
Arturs Silovs
Karel Plasek
Jack Malone
Aiden McDonough
Arvid Costmar
Jacob Trusott
Dmitri Zlodeev
Viktor Persson
Hugo Gabrielsson
Connor Lockhart
Lukas Forsell


66 picks
13/66 played NHL games (19.7%)
3/66 NHL regulars (4.5%)
1/60 impact player (1.5%)

UFA ELCs
Rick Rypien
Alex Burrows
Patrick Coulombe
Shaun Heshka
PC Labrie
Eric Walsky
Evan Oberg
Aaron Volpatti
Chris Tanev
Bill Sweatt
Lee Sweatt
Eddie Lack
Stefan Schneider
Sebastian Erixon
Darren Archibald
Kellan Lain
Jeremie Blain
Dane Fox
Evan McEneny
Mike Zalewski
Ronalds Kenins
Joacim Eriksson
Ashton Sautner
Troy Stecher
Michael Carcone
Tom Nilsson
Yan-Pavel Laplante
Michael Garteig
Zack MacEwen
Phillip Holm
Griffin Molino
Jalen Chatfield
Brogan Rafferty
Josh Teves
Mitch Eliot
Jake Kielly
Andrei Kuzmenko
Nils Aman
Arshdeep Bains
Filip Johansson
Max Sasson
Akito Hirose
Cole McWard
Nikita Tolopilo
Tristan Nielsen
Christian Felton

46 signings
32 played NHL games (69.6%)
10 became NHL regulars (21.7%)
3 became impact players (6.5%)

___________

First off, the hit rates on draft picks are obviously really bad. We're worse than most, but this kind of serves to show how little value pick surpluses actually contribute.

Second, the difference between mid-late round draft picks and undrafted FA signings is absolutely incredible. Like 400% better for the FA signings. And these are the exact same scouts making the recommendations.

So when people act like getting extra mid-late round draft picks is somehow driving success, it's like ... huh? No they aren't. They generate little value, and if you don't have them, you're probably just going to sign extra FA prospects to fill your system, which often have better hit rates. Like, these picks don't matter. They don't do anything for you. The alternative might actually be better.

I think it's worth it to have a mix of pipelines, but I sure as shit don't put really any value on stockpiling these sort of draft picks. They don't do anything. They're easily replaced. If we're down a pick or two, it just doesn't matter. You'll have an extra contract slot to sign a Bains or an Aman.

And I know the response will be 'other teams have different results'. And yeah, for other teams it might not be this extreme. But the general idea holds. You aren't gaining some big competitive advantage by having a whole bunch of extra draft picks, unless these are really high draft picks. For the record, in the 15 years I cited, Calgary had 3 impact players rounds 4-7, Winnipeg had 2, and Edmonton had 0.

 

[timw33]

The biggest issue I have with the models right now is they aren't taking into acount that the number of powerplay positions available for defenseman have effectively been cut in half over the last decade, and that point scoring for dmen has been consolidated to the number 1 pp guy. When you model out future NHL careers using point totals with how the game has changed, it's going to be a suspect proposition.

If you aren't top 30 in the league offensively, you aren't getting a PP1 slot, so you have to be a good two way guy who can PK to see any minutes. Since Alvin & Rutherford took over, the Canucks have been very astute in noticing this, and have taken guys who profile as good two way players both early and later in the draft.

They aren't drafting towering pylons who can't move the puck - they're very specifically going for the guys for the 0.5ppg dmen who only see PP time late in their junior careers (good for developing puck skills), and are mobile defenders. This ensures whoever progresses to the next level doesn't get held back by their puck moving (Logan Stanley's of the world), and that they can focus on building up their defensive game at each level.

It's why I was completely fine with them moving Hunter Brzustewicz, as his NHL projection is a lot murkier than guys like Willander, EP2, Mynio, and KK. All that to say I'm really happy with the way the team has drafted and filled out it's defensive ranks with limited draft capital. It's been generally hit after hit (based on current progress), and it bodes well for the future of the blueline.

These models can be useful for fantasy hockey purposes, where all that matters ultimately is production metrics, but for modelling what an actually useful and valuable NHL player it is absolute crap. These models aren't high on the Tanev's and Slavin's of the world, yet these kind of guys are some of the most valuable in the league.

Like you say, they also create huge discrepancies as a result of PP time distribution, and are not good at identifying prospects and players who are 5 on 5 kings but just don't get the PP time you need to put up gaudy production numbers.

It's funny as I follow the league for longer and am now part of a very in-depth categories dynasty league I have to differentiate between what is a good Fantasy Player (high event, always doing lots of stuff even if it isn't very efficient, lots of special teams time) and what is a good NHL player (often quieter low-activity (i.e not gaudy hit/shot/block totals) guys who effeciently chew up their minutes and put up good ES production) that I would want on the Canucks.

 

[iRageWin]

I was also curious about late round pick value vs undrafted FAs. It's difficult to track all undrafted FA signings over the years, so I just quickly looked up the number of UDFAs signed to NHL contracts this past season and how many played >41 games as a rough benchmark for being an NHL regular. Obviously there's a lot of error in the results from prospects signed and developing elsewhere, injuries, players with inflated GP on tanking teams, etc. But just to satisfy my curiosity:
Undrafted: 67/221 (30.3%)
Round 1: 270/405 (66.7%)
Round 2: 98/233 (42.1%)
Round 3: 51/161 (31.7%)
Round 4: 46/117 (39.3%)
Round 5: 24/91 (26.4%)
Round 6: 20/76 (26.3%)
Round 7: 13/49 (26.5%)

It seems like rounds 5+ have little to no advantage over undrafted FAs that play well enough to earn an NHL contract. Obviously, there are also decreasing odds of players earning contracts in the later rounds.

 

[iceburg]

There's a difference between 'playing games' and 'having actual value'. In an average 2nd or 3rd round, maybe 4-6 players out of 32 ever actually carry substantial value. If you trade 5 or 6 2nds, you really only need to get one good asset back in all those trades to offset the future pick value that has been lost.

Fair enough. Which is why I used the 300+ games played as a measure of success. It's not a perfect number but it's better than the 100 games played that is often used. Your range of 4-6 out of 32 is basically the same as the 17% of 3rd round picks that play more than 300 games.

I'm going to go back to 2005 and the start of the cap era and current ELCs etc. and go through every pick in round 4-7 since that time through 2022 vs. every free agent signing we've given a first NHL contract to. Guys who played a few NHL games are yellow, guys who became NHL regulars are green, guys who became impact players are green and bolded. I might have missed a guy or two who were undrafted FA signings, but I think I'm pretty close.

Helpful analysis. Thanks for sharing again. I certainly take your point that acquiring players in free agency is a good alternative to drafting. It's not surprising that the success is higher because teams are typically signing these players with at least a year or two of extra development. Similar to the NFL drafting players at the age of 21/22 vs the NHL at 18. Projecting a player's floor and ceiling at 18 years old is a pretty difficult task. That said, my gut tells me that hitting the homeruns in free agency is harder to do. An interesting analysis would be how many free agents played more than 1000 games vs those in rounds 4-7.

Anyway, as you said, it's worth having a mix of pipelines. More is better IMO. What the team does with those prospects once they're in the organization likely has more impact on success.