Wednesday 18 June 2008

NHL Entry Draft (2008)


For archive purposes I am compiling my NHL Entry Draft (2008) stuff here. As with last year's NHL Entry Draft (2007) archive, this first post acts as a primer that contains the set-up info of interest going into the draft.

Links to the other two articles in this series:

NHL Entry Draft 2008 - First Round Review

NHL Entry Draft 2008 - Oiler Picks

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Personal Thoughts

-- Stamkos - good player who won't live up to his draft pick
-- Filatov - spoiler pick for best career
-- Schenn - best 'safe' bet in the draft imo and a favorite of mine
-- Boedker - another personal favorite
-- Colborne - tied with Beach & Petrov for riskiest picks of the round
-- Petrov - only notable for how late he will be picked

I believe that this is the kind of draft where trading into the top-14 will net best value on the dollar. The sweet spot being in the 9-12 range. I do not expect Schenn or Boedker to make it that far but all it takes is a couple of off-the-board picks (Hickey) and suddenly a jump is possible.

Trading up to get a guy like Stamkos just isn't worth it but Lowe does have the assets to make a trade and get into the sweet spot area I mentioned.

i.e. a roster player and the 22nd should be enough to jump some 8 to 12 spots

What do I expect? I expect we shall see Lowe stand pat or trade a guy like Torres or Stoll for a couple of 2nd round picks.

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Without further ado...


Oiler Draft Picks (for use or trade)

01 -- ___ ... RFA Compensation to Anaheim
01 -- _22 ... Trade with Anaheim (Pronger)
02 -- ___ ... RFA Compensation to Anaheim
03 -- ___ ... RFA Compensation to Anaheim
04 -- 103
05 -- 133
06 -- 163
07 -- 193

Remember to adjust for compensation picks.

Team Order - 1st Round

01.. Tampa Bay
02.. Los Angeles
03.. Atlanta
04.. St. Louis
05.. NY Islanders
06.. Columbus
07.. Toronto
08.. Phoenix
09.. Nashville ...... via ... Florida
10.. Vancouver
11.. Chicago
12.. Anaheim ........ via ... Edmonton
13.. Buffalo
14.. Carolina
15.. Nashville
16.. Boston
17.. Calgary
18.. Ottawa
19.. Columbus ....... via ... Colorado
20.. NY Rangers
21.. New Jersey
22.. Edmonton ....... via ... Anaheim
23.. Washington
24.. Minnesota
25.. Montreal
26.. Buffalo ........ via ... San Jose
27.. Philadelphia
28.. Los Angeles .... via ... Dallas
29.. Atlanta ........ via ... Pittsburgh
30.. Detroit



Top-15 Player Rankings (aggregated)

Below are the listings of the top-15 picks of each of the different, and independent, scouting bureau's. They are: McKeen's, ISS (International Scouting Service), Redline (Woodlief), The Hockey News and the CSB (Central Scouting Bureau).

Below that is an aggregated listing of those datasets after they have been fed through a scoring system. The scoring system simply reverses the order on the list (i.e. a player ranked #1 on the list scores 15 points while a player ranked #15 scores 1 point) and then adds ALL the points that player generates from the different lists.

Note that I counted the number of times a draftee made the top-10 of a list. This is to help add perspective. Prospect 'A' may have fewer points than prospect 'B' but if prospect 'A' shows up top-10 on all 5 lists then prospect 'A' may be seen as a safer pick to make.

The Scouts Recommend (Final Lists)

... McKeens ..... ISS ......... Redline ..... Hockey News . CSB**

1.. Stamkos ..... Stamkos ..... Stamkos ..... Stamkos ..... Stamkos
2.. Bogosian .... Bogosian .... Filatov ..... Doughty ..... Bogosian
3.. Pietrange. .. Filatov ..... Doughty ..... Bogosian ... *Filatov
4.. Doughty ..... Doughty ..... Bogosian .... Filatov ..... Doughty
5.. Schenn ...... Pietrange. .. Boedker ..... Pietrange. .. Myers
6.. Boedker ..... Schenn ...... Schenn ...... Schenn ..... *Petrov
7.. Filatov ..... Boedker ..... Pietrange. .. Wilson ...... Schenn
8.. Picard ...... Wilson ...... Petrov ...... Hodgson ..... Pietrange.
9.. Hodgson ..... Hodgson ..... Hodgson ..... Boedker .... *Tedenby
10. Karlsson .... Bailey ...... Myers ....... Beach ....... Beach
11. Bailey ...... Sbisa ....... Wilson ...... Myers ....... Boychuk
12. Wilson ...... Boychuk ..... Tedenby ..... Boychuk .... *Karlsson
13. Markstrom ... Beach ....... Boychuk ..... Teubert ..... Hodgson
14. Teubert ..... Tedenby ..... Beach ....... Bailey ...... Wilson
15. Sbisa ....... Myers ....... Bailey ...... Del Zotto ... Boedker



Graded Rankings

.......... Top-10 . Scoring

Stamkos ..... 5 ___ 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 75
Bogosian .... 5 ___ 14 + 14 + 12 + 13 + 14 = 67
Doughty ..... 5 ___ 12 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 12 = 63
Filatov ..... 5 ___ 09 + 13 + 14 + 12 + 13 = 61
Pietrangelo . 5 ___ 13 + 11 + 09 + 11 + 08 = 52
Schenn ...... 5 ___ 11 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 09 = 50
Boedker ..... 4 ___ 10 + 09 + 11 + 07 + 01 = 38
Hodgson ..... 4 ___ 07 + 07 + 07 + 08 + 03 = 32
Wilson ...... 2 ___ 04 + 08 + 05 + 09 + 02 = 28
Myers ....... 2 ___ 00 + 01 + 06 + 05 + 11 = 23
Petrov ...... 2 ___ 00 + 00 + 08 + 00 + 10 = 18
Beach ....... 1 ___ 00 + 03 + 02 + 06 + 06 = 17
Boychuk ..... 0 ___ 00 + 04 + 03 + 04 + 05 = 17
Bailey ...... 1 ___ 05 + 06 + 01 + 02 + 00 = 14
Tedenby ..... 1 ___ 00 + 02 + 04 + 00 + 07 = 13
Karlsson .... 1 ___ 06 + 00 + 00 + 00 + 04 = 10
Picard ...... 1 ___ 08 + 00 + 00 + 00 + 00 = 08
Sbisa ....... 0 ___ 01 + 05 + 00 + 00 + 00 = 06
Teubert ..... 0 ___ 02 + 00 + 00 + 03 + 00 = 05
Markstrom ... 0 ___ 03 + 00 + 00 + 00 + 00 = 03
Del Zotto


The big 4: Stamkos, Bogosian, Doughty & Filatov
Next best thing: Pietrangelo, Schenn
Could be Good: Boedker, Hodgson & Wilson
Afterthoughts: Myers, Petrov, Beach, Boychuk & everyone else

A Rule Of Thumb

When looking at the list I tend to apply an arbitrary rule of thumb: any draftee within 10 points of another draftee is at threat to be picked ahead or behind that draftee. This is to recognize, in part, the modestly random (to me) aspect of what teams prefer in their players. It is also a measure of reasonableness.

Bailey has 14 pts - it would not be a big surprise to see him preferred over Myers by any number of teams. It would also, however, be a surprise to see him picked ahead of Wilson or Boedker.

Using that rule of thumb I can expect that:

-- Excepting that Tampa has signalled Stamkos, Bogosian could go #1
-- Filatov could overtake Bogosian and Doughty but Pietrangelo could not
-- If anyone ranked below Wilson is chosen in the top-7 it SHOULD be a major surprise
-- If anyone ranked below Bailey is taken in the top-9, the team making that call probably just made a big mistake

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** CSS does not aggregate their European and North American lists. So I did it. Given the weakness of the Old World's offerings this year I started the highest CSS ranked Euro two spots behind and followed on from there.

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Have a great evening everyone, and enjoy the draft.

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