Recovering players who will not have much impact on the team in the 16th and 17th row is almost the norm.
The Canadian is happy to have two first round choices for the next auction. And not so distant choices with the 16th and 17th.
There is something to rejoice when we remember who was drafted for these ranks: Markus Naslund, Andrew Cassels, Kyle Connor, Tom Fitzgerald, Thomas Hertl, Travis Sanheim, Tom Wilson or even Kaiden Guhle, more recently.
Photo AFP
But it is rather rare that it turns like that. If we continue the list, we find other good players like Jason Allison or Bryan Marchment. Except it stops quickly.
A lot of failures
Of the 42 players drafted in these ranks between 1985 in 2005, the career of 21 of them made a potato. That is to say, they played less than 200 career games. It’s 200 games more than me, I grant you.
By removing the guards and players who did not play a match in the NHL, I calculated that, what, in terms of career, a 16th or a 17th choice, by relying on the skaters drafted in 1985 and 2005.
Obviously, very good players and less good vary the average. But it gives more realistic forecasts on the expectations that we should have concerning this row of draft.
For an attacker, it gives a career of 525 games and 269 points.
To illustrate it, it gives the career of Doug Wickenheiser (which had been first in total) or Sergei Berezin (choice of 10th round), whose passage to Montreal was limited to scoring the 10,000th goal of the organization.
JMTL
For a defender, it is much more interesting. It gives 112 points in 466 games. It’s David Tanabe’s career or Thomas Hickey, for example.
Moreover, it is rather marked and impressive the difference between the quality of the defenders who were drafted in the 16th in 17th row, compared to the attackers.
In other words, clubs have planted much more often with attackers than with defenders.
In fact, 74 % of defenders drafted in the 16th or 17th rank have had an interesting career. Among the attackers, it is 58 % of the 48 drafted skaters.
Do we exchange them or not?
The question that the Canadian’s management must be asking is: should we compare these two choices to advance to the draft. Against the sixth choice for example, if Canadian spies learn that Caleb Desnoyers can be available.
There, we are in another world for the chances of hitting a circuit. Since 1970, all the sixth choices have played in the NHL. We are talking, on average, of a career of 629 games and 391 points.
This is Maxim’s career for RJ Umberger or Valeri Bure. It may not seem so exciting as a comparison, but we understand that we approach much more than one player with the impact than Sergei Berezin.
In short, if teams are ready to dance with CH and want to have two darts to launch further rather than launch one at the end of the top 10, I vote for!
