FINDING ELITE TALENT LATE IN THE DRAFT
The later round picks (round three on) in the NHL draft have provided very few true NHLers.
a success rate of roughly 13%.
extremely low probability (1.6%) of finding great talent later in the NHL draft.
In total 31% of the elite late surprises were small, 40% were overagers and 46% were European.
· Extreme low scorer vs. smaller player with first round or second round worthy numbers… take the small player.
· Extreme low scorer vs. 19-year-old CHL overager or early 20’s European that put up numbers comparable to the forwards picked in the top 10… pick the overager.
· Extreme low scorer vs. 18-year-old Russian already playing in the KHL and scoring at a modest rate… pick the Russian!
FINDING STRONG LINKS
(May 2018)
First is signing them in free agency. Only seven percent of strong link seasons have been acquired this way.
About 19% of strong link seasons have been obtained in a trade
The reality is that NHL teams should plan to acquire their strong links through the draft. It’s where about 75% of them come from.
In contrast, the strong link chart holds the top three picks to a much higher standard. Each lottery pick provides significantly more value than the next, and from pick four on wards every pick is easily replaceable.
The 4th overall pick has very little value relative to the lottery picks, and is very similar to the picks below it.
NORDIC DRAFTING
· Build up your scouting department in Sweden and Finland, with more emphasis on the SuperElit and Jr. A SM-liiga. With less than five percent of eligible players being drafted, there may be dozens of gems out there that are currently being missed. Additionally, start looking for other leagues that are producing larger numbers of draft-eligible players. Switzerland and Germany stand out to me as the next two potential gold mines.
· We seem to be pretty good at scouting North America, in terms of identifying which players make it to the NHL and which ones don’t. If you have a couple of late round picks, it may be worth spending that pick on a player from Sweden or Finland versus a player from North America.
· All things being equal, a prospect drafted from Sweden or Finland has a more flexible development timeline given that they don’t have to comply with the rules of the NHL-CHL agreement. If you’re a contender on a tight window, consider drafting a player from Sweden or Finland who may be ready to come over and help earlier.
OVERAGERS
Overagers make the NHL faster than normal prospects
AGE BIAS AT NHL DRAFT
The argument here is essentially that scoring rate increases with player age, and for the most part, this probably isn’t an unreasonable generalization to make. 20 year olds score more than 19 year olds, who score more than 18 year olds, and so on and so forth.
Pts/GP = (0.1672*Age) – 2.3714
Age Adjusted Pts/GP = (1 – ([Age as of September of draft year – 17] * 0.1672)) * Pts/GP
OVERAGE PROSPECTS
(April 2016)
NHL teams routinely undervalue players that were passed over in their first year of eligibility.
If you view the NHL as a marketplace, the most undervalued commodity is legitimate NHL prospects who were passed over in their first year of draft eligibility, otherwise known as overage players. Thus, the natural way to game the NHL draft is to exploit the aforementioned inefficiency.
AGE BIAS AT THE NHL DRAFT
(May 23, 2020)
Drafted players with later birthdates have outperformed picks with relatively early birthdays
The relationship between birthdate and output is not equal among all positional groups either
There is an upward trend where player output increases with birthdate among forwards, but not defencemen.
forwards with relatively late birthdays have been undervalued.
No matter what metric is used, per minute output, per game output, or cumulative output in the players 7 seasons following their draft, forwards born later in the year have been better than those born earlier in the year, and defenders have not
This relationship tells us teams have been systematically undervaluing the effect of forwards birthdates at the NHL draft. They have been too harsh on younger forwards and too high on older forwards.
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