Prospect Info: The 2024-2025 Prospects Thread

[MS]

It might make more sense that instead of being literally lost, he was just never at the top of anybody's list. He might have been second or third whenever people compared him to another prospect, and nobody felt strongly enough to push for him.

That's totally believable that he was continually near the top of teams' draft lists but not eye-catching enough that any scout pushed hard enough for him.

The notion that 'teams thought he was already drafted so they didn't take him' makes zero sense to me. These teams have computerized lists in front of everyone at the draft table which would be removing guys when they were taken and I don't see how, if you rated him anywhere reasonably highly on your list, you wouldn't be seeing him there when you were coming up to draft in rounds 5-6-7.

 

[Tables of Stats]

That's totally believable that he was continually near the top of teams' draft lists but not eye-catching enough that any scout pushed hard enough for him.

The notion that 'teams thought he was already drafted so they didn't take him' makes zero sense to me. These teams have computerized lists in front of everyone at the draft table which would be removing guys when they were taken and I don't see how, if you rated him anywhere reasonably highly on your list, you wouldn't be seeing him there when you were coming up to draft in rounds 5-6-7.

It could be a case that he lost so many close coinflips in a row that teams started glossing over him, even though he was still there.

 

[RobsonStreet]

I liked this, but I should say that this post is why I added the 300, 400, and 500 game buckets to my recent draft analysis project. Watching as the numbers go from ~55 players at 200 games to ~30 players at 500 games helps show what makes a start versus what makes a middle to bottom-6 filler type.

That’s cool, excited to see how it goes.

With the disclaimer that I am not a programmer, make no claim to expertise and have nothing to sell, I went on my own journey because people have such trouble agreeing on what “good drafting” looks like. My response what’s “fine, choose whatever basic criteria you like and then see for yourself”: https://sean-butler.shinyapps.io/Draft_Analysis/

 

[Vector]

I remember that quote and it was a weird one to me because if he was a guy teams liked he would have been on their draft list and unless you crossed him off by accident he wouldn't have disappeared ... and if he wasn't on your draft list than you were never going to take him anyway.

It could be a case that he lost so many close coinflips in a row that teams started glossing over him, even though he was still there.

I think part of it is is that when you get later in the draft the overall list isn't all that important compared to going with who the scouts are pushing for. If he wasn't anyone's guy I can see him getting passed over.

 

[Vector]

I'm still trying to figure out trends etc. in terms of the drafting/scouting for the new regime and honestly their picks are all over the place. They've definitely gone for size a fair bit in the later rounds, which is in line with the general NHL trend.

The one trend that I've identified, and it's extremely hard to quantify, is they really like intelligent players. Sasson, Willander, and Raty all stand out as incredibly smart in their interviews, as examples.

 

[MS]

I think part of it is is that when you get later in the draft the overall list isn't all that important compared to going with who the scouts are pushing for. If he wasn't anyone's guy I can see him getting passed over.

Like I said in my next post - yeah, this would totally make sense.

I just can't believe the notion that 'oh, we would have drafted him but we thought someone else had drafted him already!'

 

[RobsonStreet]

I think part of it is is that when you get later in the draft the overall list isn't all that important compared to going with who the scouts are pushing for. If he wasn't anyone's guy I can see him getting passed over.

I think anyone who has done a fantasy sports draft has probably had that experience of looking at who is available in the late rounds and thinking “I don’t like this guy, but conventional wisdom says somebody should have drafted him by now”. I assume amateur scouts experience this as well.

 

[Dana Murzyn]

That’s cool, excited to see how it goes.

With the disclaimer that I am not a programmer, make no claim to expertise and have nothing to sell, I went on my own journey because people have such trouble agreeing on what “good drafting” looks like. My response what’s “fine, choose whatever basic criteria you like and then see for yourself”: Custom Draft Projection

Something's off. No matter where I put the sliders, I can't make the Canucks' failures go away.

 

[credulous]

But the thing is that very few of these guys end up being worth a shot (especially as scouting improves) and that teams end up getting Stockholm Syndrome with mediocre prospects and giving them contracts anyway.

You're drafting essentially the 'worst' 18-19 year old players with those late round picks and hoping to get lucky with a breakout whereas when you're signing 21-22 year old guys out of the CHL/Europe/NCAA you're actually signing the guys who *have* had a breakout and are the best unattached guys of their age. And this is why the hit rates are better on FA signings than on late picks.

If you traded every single 5th-7th round pick every year you'd be losing essentially nothing because you can just replace whatever assets you lose with at-least-equal prospects a couple years later when you would have been signing them, by signing UFA players instead.

i'm not arguing 5th-7th round picks are worth a lot but they're worth something. getting an option on an 18 year old for a few years is basically like a free contract slot

the other issue is that signing ufas on elcs isn't a fair market. you're capped in what you can offer contractually so teams have locale based advantages that you can't really correct for. if you're vegas or minnesota or boston maybe you can forgo late round picks and just backfill with college and euro fas but if you're ottawa or winnipeg or pittsburgh? probably not

 

[MS]

i'm not arguing 5th-7th round picks are worth a lot but they're worth something. getting an option on an 18 year old for a few years is basically like a free contract slot

Again, the numbers seem to show that there is no advantage to retaining those picks and signing the best ones vs. trading them and signing UFA players instead. And that's even before considering that you presumably are getting some sort of asset or consideration back for trading the pick, as well.

the other issue is that signing ufas on elcs isn't a fair market. you're capped in what you can offer contractually so teams have locale based advantages that you can't really correct for. if you're vegas or minnesota or boston maybe you can forgo late round picks and just backfill with college and euro fas but if you're ottawa or winnipeg or pittsburgh? probably not

We're a mid-level market and our UFA signings have absolutely destroyed our draft picks, with the same scouts doing the work.

There's a competitive market for the top 3 or 4 NCAA UFAs (ie. Collin Graf last year) but when it comes to CHL/Euro/most NCAA guys they're going to a team that offers them an opportunity and I don't think there's much geographical advantage.

 

[ManVanFan]

i'm not arguing 5th-7th round picks are worth a lot but they're worth something. getting an option on an 18 year old for a few years is basically like a free contract slot

the other issue is that signing ufas on elcs isn't a fair market. you're capped in what you can offer contractually so teams have locale based advantages that you can't really correct for. if you're vegas or minnesota or boston maybe you can forgo late round picks and just backfill with college and euro fas but if you're ottawa or winnipeg or pittsburgh? probably not

It shouldn't be doing one or the other, it should be how to do both and do them well. Draft in the late rounds and find undrafted free agents.

 

[ManVanFan]

Again, the numbers seem to show that there is no advantage to retaining those picks and signing the best ones vs. trading them and signing UFA players instead. And that's even before considering that you presumably are getting some sort of asset or consideration back for trading the pick, as well.



We're a mid-level market and our UFA signings have absolutely destroyed our draft picks, with the same scouts doing the work.

There's a competitive market for the top 3 or 4 NCAA UFAs (ie. Collin Graf last year) but when it comes to CHL/Euro/most NCAA guys they're going to a team that offers them an opportunity and I don't think there's much geographical advantage.

Well it seems that the teams that are drafting the best have a strong analytics team assisting the scouts.

 

[Tables of Stats]

It shouldn't be doing one or the other, it should be how to do both and do them well. Draft in the late rounds and find undrafted free agents.

If you identify that you can get excess value by trading 5th round and later picks for other resources and know that you're able to make use of the UDFA market to grab similar, if not more valuable players, you should focus on trading those picks and scouting UFAs. Why not both doesn't apply where there's an opportunity cost.

 

[MS]

Well it seems that the teams that are drafting the best have a strong analytics team assisting the scouts.

All teams use analytics in their drafting and it's impossible to know which teams are using it well or not and what impact it's having.

In terms of rounds 5-7 :

a) nobody is really having success in finding players in the last decade or so.

b) in the last several years, most of the successes in late rounds have been the *opposite* of analytically-friendly finds. It's mostly big, underproducing project players who would not be analytically friendly but are drafted on the basis of traditional scouting and 'projection'.

 

[ManVanFan]

If you identify that you can get excess value by trading 5th round and later picks for other resources and know that you're able to make use of the UDFA market to grab similar, if not more valuable players, you should focus on trading those picks and scouting UFAs. Why not both doesn't apply where there's an opportunity cost.

So you're saying that teams should trade away all 5-7th round picks every year because of opportunity cost?

 

[Tables of Stats]

So you're saying that teams should trade away all 5-7th round picks every year because of opportunity cost?

If they can find a taker for them, yes. It's like trading down in the NFL, the only reason not to do it is if you see a gem that you have to take or if you need to make a splash to avoid being fired.

The flipside is if everybody starts trying to move their picks nobody will be buying and if they do it will be at a rate that leaves you in the red. It's only correct to trade them now because of where the market is at.

 

[ManVanFan]

If they can find a taker for them, yes. It's like trading down in the NFL, the only reason not to do it is if you see a gem that you have to take or if you need to make a splash to avoid being fired.

The flipside is if everybody starts trying to move their picks nobody will be buying and if they do it will be at a rate that leaves you in the red. It's only correct to trade them now because of where the market is at.

The market is at development is what JR said. The drafting playing field is evening out over the past decade.

The bold, that's how the Canucks have operated for decades. They are in the red because of it.

 

[MS]

The market is at development is what JR said. The drafting playing field is evening out over the past decade.

This I agree with. It's very difficult to see any meaningful delineation in the last decade between 'good drafting teams' and 'bad drafting teams' in the way that teams like NJ and Detroit stood out in the 1990s.

You look at a team like TB and they consistently have 'terrible prospect pools' but out-perform those rankings with solid 'out-of-nowhere' rookies on their team every year because their player development is off-the-charts good.

It's small sample sizes yet and we haven't seen players fully stick in the NHL but it looks like what we're doing over the last 2-3 years with Abbotsford and the Sedins is very positive and you had a lot of guys this year out-performing expectations with the AHL team who look close to being NHL contributors despite not having a lot of 'pedigree'.

The bold, that's how the Canucks have operated for decades. They are in the red because of it.

Trading draft picks (Neely and OEL trades excepted) is the least of the reasons for this team's struggles over the years.

 

[Tables of Stats]

The MLB, while having a lot more time to work with players, seems to have it right in that the best teams are the ones that invest in the best practice facilities and support staff. Mike Gillis was well ahead of his time and I'm shocked that all of his micro optimizations aren't NHL standards by now. Even if he's blacklisted as a GM he should 100% get paid well to be a player wellness advisor somewhere.

As for trading picks, especially late round picks, that's not the issue. You could trade every pick and have great success using them to acquire the right players, get rid of the wrong players, and using your free cap on bang for their buck UFAs. Vegas is an example of doing this effectively. The issue comes when you aim for the wrong targets or get suckered into paying a premium on a player who's a good target at the wrong price.

 

[krutovsdonut]

i'd like to see the draft staggered. if, for example 18 year olds could only be drafted in the first three rounds and 19 year olds only in the first 5 rounds, i think you'd see an overall stronger talent pool eventually entering the league. kids would still be focussed and playing to be drafted out until they were 20.

 

[Tables of Stats]

i'd like to see the draft staggered. if, for example 18 year olds could only be drafted in the first three rounds and 19 year olds only in the first 5 rounds, i think you'd see an overall stronger talent pool eventually entering the league. kids would still be focussed and playing to be drafted out until they were 20.

I like the opposite. Get kids drafted at 14 or 15 with strict rules about how much time they can spend on hockey until their 18. This allows teams much more time with young players, gets the players better coaching, nutritionists, etc. I Think we see more talent wasted now that we would with team control at a younger age.

I would also have two different buckets for contracts with players under 18 and inelligable for NHL play and 18+ where a regular ELC kicks in. Team team has an option to cancel the contract with 3 months until the players 18th birthday while the player can opt out on the 6th month windows before that. Junior ELCs, for lack of a better term, would be 1/5th of a normal ELC and have no impact on a teams salary cap.

 

[wetcoast]

So what's the big change in scouting that drafting has improved?

I think the biggest thing that has improved is that leagues that develop players that the NHL draft from have improved their quality of player development and we are seeing a more polished prospect in most cases than in the past.

 

[wetcoast]

Size is really hard to find in today's game and yeah - I think the hope now in the late rounds is that you take a guy with size and a bit of either skating or skill or grit and you can mold him into something.

Outside of goalies, you have Kastelic/Soderblom/Edstrom/Lee/Parssinen as most of the best guys from 2019 and Rempe/Crevier from 2020 and they're all huge project players. Victor Mancini is probably the best 5th-7th rounder from 21 or 22 and he's, again, a big project guy.

I'm not a huge Mancini fan but I think that Alex Bump will be better player and I like Kudryavtsev more but he doesn't have the isze.

Mancini just doesn't have the hockey IQ for me.

Also those are the covid development years which probably hurt lower profile guys more long term but no one really knows.

KK kind of bucks the trend a bit but I suspect his falling to the 7th round was largely due to uncertainty around Russians post-2022 Ukraine invasion (KK was drafted 4 months later) and that he would have gone much higher 2021 and earlier.

 

[LemonSauceD]

I like the opposite. Get kids drafted at 14 or 15 with strict rules about how much time they can spend on hockey until their 18. This allows teams much more time with young players, gets the players better coaching, nutritionists, etc. I Think we see more talent wasted now that we would with team control at a younger age.

I would also have two different buckets for contracts with players under 18 and inelligable for NHL play and 18+ where a regular ELC kicks in. Team team has an option to cancel the contract with 3 months until the players 18th birthday while the player can opt out on the 6th month windows before that. Junior ELCs, for lack of a better term, would be 1/5th of a normal ELC and have no impact on a teams salary cap.

The risk with this is that you draft a kid like Virtanen 1st OA because he put up 70 goals and 150 points in Bantam and can hit and skate like the wind looking like Lindros but then someone like Draisaitl who is some random midget level hockey player playing in Europe gets taken like in the 6th round and by the time their 18 you’re like WTF.

 

[Tables of Stats]

The risk with this is that you draft a kid like Virtanen 1st OA because he put up 70 goals and 150 points in Bantam and can hit and skate like the wind looking like Lindros but then someone like Draisaitl who is some random midget level hockey player playing in Europe gets taken like in the 6th round and by the time their 18 you’re like WTF.

That's the risk whenever you let teams start picking players that young. It's also why MLB drafts are like 400 rounds long which would need to be the case here to.