When things go wrong you often have to assess the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of the problems. Why they happened and how the occurred. This is the basic reality that Jets fans exist in right now, trying to sort out what can be done to improve a club. It’s this position that might be the biggest disconnect between a hungry fan base and a GM who is adapting to the harsh reality with the difficulty of finding value in the trade market and free agent market.
This quote from an articleby Mark Spector of Sportsnet caught my eye, “Well, go and do something.’ But the chairs we sit in every day … you call your counterpart and they just don’t easily say ‘Ya, I’m willing to do that.…
Is this a statement about the current market conditions or an indirect sales job of the ‘draft and develop’ model that has been the mantra from TNSE since day one. If the Jets can stay the course and move select drafted and developed pieces into their system over time they can build a cohesive, balanced roster that competes with the best teams. That’s if you believe a team does not need a shot at elite, generational talent as outlined by guys at Arctic Ice Hockey HERE.
If you go back 3 years and look at the 2011 draft only 3 players from the second round, Saad, Jenner and Nieto look to be NHL regulars now and only 2 players after that in Shaw and Palat. In 2010 after the first round it looks like this from round 2: Faulk Smith-Pelley Toffoli
After that round only Dalton Prout and Brendan Gallagher appear to have stuck as legitimate NHL players.
Since the 2009 draft year in the second round, having 376 NHL games playable, there are only O’Reilly, Clifford, Silfverberg, Orlov and Tatar who have player 100 or more NHL games. After the second round there are only 10 players taken who have hit a minimum 100 career NHL games played from the 2009 draft class.
From the 2008 draft year there 18 players who have hit the 100 game mark but if you scale for possible games played and raise that threshold to 150 games only 11 players make the cut. This is of course a highly subjective process but it does prove one point- a team has more picks in the range of 3rd round to 7th than they do in the first round and across the league the conversion rate is pretty low.
In 2008 those 11 players are of 150 taken after round 2 and thus represent only 7.3% of the players chosen. If a team has 4 picks every year after round 2 and only 7.3% of all players chosen make a measurable impact in terms of games played there’s a whole lot of risk in this process.
No one needs reminding of Atlanta’s deplorable draft record to see how missing out on players that are already hard to identify can affect a franchise. The challenge is how do the Chevy and Jets do it better than the previous regime?
There’s no easy answer here and certainly no guranteed process of identification and development- if so every NHL team would be using it, or one. The best clubs find ways to fill holes, see opportunity and realize benefits of certain players. If the rotating cast of characters that have come through the Jets bottom six forwards and bottom pairing plus defense are any indication this is not a strong suit for the Jets.
The problem is at some point the holes become too obvious, the weaknesses to glaring and the deficiencies unforgiving and draft and develop cannot cover everything to improve a team. It’s not that the Jets will be stuck in the ‘loser-zone’ as some would suggest, it’s that the GM has yet to figure out complimentary methods to draft and develop. The question that should be at the top of every fan’s mind is this: can Chevy add to his stable before he has to sell some of the horses in the barn?
The team can’t have it both ways. They can’t say they want to draft and develop and that competing for the playoffs is the goal every year. For a team still acquiring depth and then signing long term deals to core pieces the two processes are not congruent. When you can’t change your fortunes after 3 seasons, and longer if you include Atlanta’s history, being patient does not guarantee success. A GM’s job and skill set has to be more dynamic than one tactic to fill a roster. Thus far Jets fans have seen the drafting, they’ve seen deals to core players and they’ve seen waiver wire fodder picked up but the results are still the same. The only thing that hasn’t changed is the GM’s approach to building his team. Oh, there’s one other thing that hasn’t changed, asking fans for a bit more patience either directly or indirectly.