On this topic of whether or not Jarmo is the draft wizard he claims to be, I did some research. For purposes of this research, I’m defining NHL players to be either players slated to play a full season for a team this year, or have 100+ GP in the NHL since they were drafted. I’m also only going to count draft years 2013-2017, because that’s really what would create an accurate sample size as it’s too soon to judge either 2018 or 2019.
In the period of 2013-2017:
Jarmo has drafted the following players with 100+ GP in the NHL:
- Wennberg
- Dano
- Bjorkstrand
- Milano
- Werenski
- Nutivaara
- PLD
In addition, he has drafted the following players slated to play a full season with the team this year:
- Gavrikov
- Texier
- Bemstrom
- Elvis
There is also these guys playing NHL games for other teams this year, but for the purpose of this analysis I won’t count them because it’s still somewhat presumptuous that they will be NHL players:
Players who still look to have NHL potential drafted in this timeframe:
- Peeke
- Tarasov
- Stenlud (maybe)
- Carlsson (maybe)
In a 5 year span, Jarmo has found players already in the NHL on 11/36 picks, and debatable NHL players on 6/36 picks. I’m willing to only count the 11 current NHL players for this, but that’s anywhere from 11-17 NHL players out of 36 draft picks.
How many other GM’s have a 31%-47% success rate in finding NHL players in that timeframe?
ANH: 10/28
ARI: 9/38
BOS: 8/33
BUF: 9/42
CAL: 7/33
CAR: 9/37
CHI: 7/42
COL: 5/35
DAL: 8/36
DET: 9/39
EDM: 8/38
FLA: 9/34
LAK: 8/34
MIN: 5/32
MTL: 9/32
NSH: 6/38
NJD: 9/37
NYI: 7/32
NYR: 5/32
OTT: 7/29
PHI: 8/40
PIT: 5/27
SJS: 6/35
STL: 7/34
TBL: 8/39
TOR: 9/38
VAN: 9/35
WSH: 6/27
WPG: 9/39
Based on the criteria I set up, only Anaheim has a better track record of finding NHL players through the draft in that time period than Jarmo does, in terms of % hit. The only caveat there is 2/10 of those Ducks players were taken beyond the first two rounds of the draft, whereas 4/11 of CBJ guys were taken 3rd round or later. That track record should speak for itself. I'd also be happy to go through and see how many NHL players each team has drafted from 3rd round and beyond in that timeframe. That's not even counting Vehvilainen and TFW from 2018 either. So yeah, I'm not super convinced that Jarmo isn't at the
very least an extremely above average GM when it comes to drafting.