2nd round picks- the 10’s to now
By now the NHL Entry Draft was a full on event, if it wasn’t before the 2010 draft. However the interest and and hype with it was no at the peak every year regardless of the supposed top pick. The idea of tanking was now, with the help of social media, hashtag or phrase away from being mainstream and the 2010 draft was no exception with “Fall for Hall’.
2010
The argument this year though was ‘Taylor or Tyler’ as the draft neared with the Oilers having the first overall pick, something they were quite adept at securing as it turned out. The Oilers took Taylor Hall first and thanks to the Leafs the Bruins took Tyler Seguin second. While both players have been great additions some questions linger from this draft. What if the players had been switched? How would that have affected the trajectory of each team?
Hall is a .86 pts/game player while Seguin is a .83 player but plays centre. Had the picks been changed would the Oilers fate have been different if the addition of Seguin and what about the Bruins? Would they have kept Hall instead of deciding to move Seguin?
The other interesting picks that round were the recently traded Gudbranson at three, Johansen at 4, Niederreiter at 5, Connolly at 6 and Skinner at 7th. The Thrashers in their last draft took Alex Burmistrov missing out on Granlund who went next, Jaden Shwartz, Tarasenko, Kuzentsov, Bjugstad, Coyle and and Nelson. In hindsight 2010 may turn out to be a deeper draft than given credit for.
2011
This draft was held in the fine city of St. Paul MN and while the hype for ‘Not tryin’ for Ryan’ was alive and well it was overshadowed by the return of the Winnipeg Jets and that they team name would be announced at the draft. Large contingents of Jets fans went to St. Paul to watch the draft and there was a huge party in Winnipeg as well. The Oilers with the first pick to slight and youthful looking Ryan Nugent-Hopkins first and the Avalanche with the second overall pick took Gabrile Landeskog, their future captain. It’s hard to argue either team made the wrong pick but in the case of the Oilers and what we know about Landeskog now, would there be trade rumours dogging him if he were an Oiler?
This again was a deep top 10 draft with Huberdeau at 3rd, Larson at 4th, Strome at 5th Zibanejad at 6th and then came the Jets looking certain to take the falling Sean Couturier 7th. They went off the board and took Mark Scheifele instead with the Flyers landing Couturier at 8th. Future Flames defence man Dougie Hamilton was taken at 9th by the Bruins and Brodin at 10th for the hometown Wild.
While we still look at this draft for some development too even though it’s now 5 years gone by there are some other notables later on. Future Jet Joel Armia was taken 16th, Beaulieu right after and Rakell at 30th. Sven Bartschi and J.T. Miller both went that round too as did one, if not the lone bright spot on the Oilers blue line Oscar Klefbom.
2012
Had the phrase ‘fail for Nail’ as it’s moniker and again the Oilers stepped up and failed the most to land the first over all pick…again. However this pick may be one of the few in the late modern era of the game to be a mistake not only for what the organization needed but mis-judging the player. While Yakupov was seen as the overwhelming first pick it did not mean he was on the same level as past first overall picks, just probably best of his class. Did the Oilers make a mistake in not trading down? I would say yes because in his tenure with the Oilers Yakupov has yet to deliver with consistency what a first overall pick should. That may not be entirely his fault and that is more reason to look back and consider that the Oilers could have traded that pick and both team and player would have been better for it.
The second pick went to Columbus and they took Ryan Murray who as a defence man on a less than grand team 49 points in 160 games. Not bad and probably a draft for organizational need more than the Best Player Available strategy. The Candiens had the third pick and took Galchenyuk, who has been a stud for the Habs. Griffin Reinhart went 4th, Morgan Rielly went 4th. This was the defence draft as of the 10 first picks only two were not defence men. After Rielly went Lindholm, then Dumba, then Pouliot, and then the Jets stepped up. The fans were expecting a forward again, probably one named Filip Forsberg who had perhaps slipped down a few spots. Instead they took Jacob Trouba. While not a bad pick as compares reasonably well with higher picks like Rielly and Lindholm what could have been had Forsberg been taken?
This draft still shapes up well when considering who went later when looking back four years. Grigorenko at 12, Girgensons at 14, Ceci at 15, Hertl at 17, Teravainen at 18, Vasilevskiy at 19, Maata at 22 and Pearson at 30.
2013
The draft after the second lockout in 10 years was all about ‘not winnin’ for MacKinnon’ and in this case the Avs succeeded best with the first pick overall. MacKinnon was the consensus number one pick but the Panthers with number two managed to get a fine player in Aleksander Barkov but consider the third pick the Lightning took, Jonathan Drouin. Will he turn out to be better than Barkov? That may be the case but certainly the Panthers were in a win-win situation regardless unless they went off the board. The funny thing about this draft is that Seth Jones was ranked higher and fell into David Poile’s lap at number 4 a year after losing Ryan Suter to free agency. Perhaps the biggest winner in this draft came to the Flames who were bucking the trend of bad first round picks and tool Sean Monahan at 7th. The Oilers took Nurse at 7th and while not a bad pick the player has take a bit longer to develop than most thought but that’s until you get to the Jets at 13th who went off the board again for the arguably the third time in 3 years with Josh Morrissey. Still waiting.
If you look after Morrissey who was projected in the low 20s the Jets passed on Wennberg, Zadorov, Lazar, Burakovsky, Dano (who they eventually acquired) and Shinkaruk. The jury is still out on Morrissey but if some progress is not seen this year whether in the AHL or the NHL this could be Chevy’s first swing and a miss at the draft.
2014
Coming into the 2014 entry draft the worst teams were all about ‘being bad for Ekblad’ and there was no reason to not be, the kid was and will be a stud for years to come. However, how many recall who had the second pick? That was the Sabres and they chose Sam Reinhart. Hmmmmm. It’s only two years out and Reinhart was not a bad choice but was he the right choice when looking back. The Oilers who had the third pick took Leon Draisaitl who has been nothing but excellent and the Flames with the fourth pick snagged Sam Bennett. Now after that it gets a bit hard to determine good from bad but one interesting debate that has emerged was Vancouver taking Virtanen at 6th as opposed to Fleury, Nylander or Ehlers. Again it’s too early to tell but based on NHL games the Jets who took Ehlers seem to be the big winner but, Nylander and Virtanen certainly could surpass the feisty Dane and that will be something to watch in the coming years.
The big winners in this draft were the Red Wings who snagged Dylan Larkin at 15th, the Blues who chose Fabbri at 21st and the Bruins who took Pastrnak at 25th. Sorry Vancouver you could be on the list with McCann but he’s gone now.
2015
“Dishonour for Connor… is what this draft was about while the consolation prize was none to shabby and a consensus first overall pick in almost any other draft with Jack Eichel who the Sabres took. As before we are far too close to the draft to make any definitive statements about other picks, the Oiler and the Sabres did the right thing with their picks but what about after?
Would the Coyotes like to take Marner instead of Strome? Certainly Carolina is happy with Hanifin but after that there nothing to measure is there? For the Jets it was further down the order than ever before with 17th overall pick. Boston had the previous three with the Islanders at 16. Somehow, and no one still knows this but Kyle Connor fell into Winnipeg’s lap. Whether Boston did the right thing with those picks is another story but it certainly benefitted the Jets.
By now as the second decade of the new millennium established we can see the quality of players at the top end was maybe better than previous decades. In the one case of the top two picks being questionable, that being the 2012 entry draft, did hype overtake pragmatic analysis? Look at the team and management who made the picks as well. What does come out is that most teams by now saw how important the entry draft was in a cap world, not just about adding talent but adding the right talent and putting the right resources into the draft.
As analytics seep down into the junior ranks and we have hires to team that specialize in that area it will be interesting to see how the draft changes in the second half of this decade. Will there be different picks, will teams opt to trade more picks if certain players are available or unavailable? What will 2016 hold as the order after Mathews and even with him is challenged by draft specialists? For the Jets the fun really begins now and it will be fascinating to watch given their two first round picks and amount of cap space plus the prospects they have.
Only 3 weeks away!