Today Aaron Portzline reported the New York Islanders offered their entire draft for the number 2 selection. Twitter went crazy at how terrible Columbus GM Scott Howson is for turning down that offer. I’ve recently done a lot of research regarding the draft and the value of draft picks. Per that research, here are the corresponding draft pick values for that trade: Pick #2 is equal to 185 points of value; pick #4=140, pick #34=25, pick #65=14, pick #103=8, pick #125=7, pick #155=6, and pick #185=5. That is a total of 207 points of expected value. However, those later picks don’t actually hold value, they only hold value if an NHL player is found, which is about 10% of the time for rounds 3-7. The 34th pick gets you an NHL player around a quarter of the time. So essentially, this trade would be a move down for a worse player with a lower chance of being a major contributor, for a couple of low chances at an NHL player. But don’t take my word for it, below I went through every draft from 2000-2009 and looked at the players selected with the picks in the rumored Isles deal. Read through these picks and try to tell me Scott Howson made the wrong decision.

Continue reading Why Scott Howson Made the Right Decision

Before the draft I posted a piece detailing research I had done into the expected value of draft picks. One of the conclusions I came to was “it would be smart for a team to draft forwards in rounds one and two, then take defensemen in the middle rounds, then pick up a goaltender or two in the later rounds every year.” With this thought in mind, I went back through the Blue Jackets draft picks from 2000-2009 to see how they would have fared had they followed that advice. This was a simple exercise. I changed the Blue Jackets draft picks in rounds 1-3 into forwards, rounds 4-6 into defensemen, and round(s) 7 (and 8-9 pre-2005) into goaltenders. If the Blue Jackets selected the proper position, that picked stayed. If they didn’t, then the next player picked at the proper position was subbed in. Most of this research was done Friday night and Saturday morning. In other words, as the draft was occurring. By picking Ryan Murray (D), Oscar Dansk (G) and Joonas Korpisalo (G) in rounds 1-3, Josh Anderson (F) and Daniel Zaar (F) in rounds 4-6, and Gianluca Curcuruto in round 7, they did not even come close to following my recommendation. So let’s take a look back on how the Jackets would have fared, as well as try to figure out why forwards are better early and defensemen/goalies are better late.

Continue reading Draft Expectations Part Two: Theory into Practice

Heading into tomorrow’s NHL Entry Draft, the Columbus Blue Jackets have the opportunity to do something they have only done once before: draft a player with a top two pick. The first time they got long-time franchise player Rick Nash. With Nash on his way out, who Columbus should take has been debated ad nauseum. There are many schools of thought when it comes to the draft, with the consensus being to take the best player available. If there is n0 clear favorite, then draft for need. Unfortunately, the Blue Jackets biggest need is a goaltender. With no clear pick for the Blue Jackets (unless Nail Yakupov falls to them), I thought I would head to the history books to try and analyze what players should be picked where. I went back through the Entry Draft’s from 2000-2009, applied a formula to every player’s statistics to assign a value to every player, then analyzed the resulting data. What I found is very interesting. It suggests the Blue Jackets should NOT draft Ryan Murray with the number two pick, nor should they consider drafting Malcom Subban or Andrei Vasilevski with a first round pick. Check out the rest for more analysis and further information on the methodology.

Continue reading Draft Position Expectations