The Value of a Draft Pick from TSN

As part of the build up to the trade deadline, TSN's Scott Cullen has done some research in an effort to determine just what the value of a draft pick is in the NHL. His methodology was as follows:

What is a draft pick worth, anyway?

To get a general idea, I decided to go through ten drafts, from 1995 through 2004 (leaving time for the 2004 picks to establish their NHL career) and assigned a numerical value to each of the players selected, using the following guidelines, with some examples:

10 - Generational (Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin )
9 - Elite Player (Ilya Kovalchuk, Dany Heatley )
8 - First Line, Top Pair D (Thomas Vanek, Dion Phaneuf )
7 - Top Six Forward, Top Four D (Daymond Langkow, Chris Phillips )
6 - Top Nine Forward, Top Six D (Daniel Cleary, David Legwand )
5 - NHL Regular (Michael Rupp, Boyd Devereaux )
4 - Fringe NHLer (Kris Beech, Krystofer Kolanos )
3 - Very Good Minor Leaguer (Pavel Brendl, Jeff Heerema )
2 - Minor Leaguer, maybe gets a shot in NHL (Chris Hajt, Daniel Tkaczuk )
1 - No NHL games (Matt Zultek, Luca Cereda )

(As an aside, note Sidney Crosby's absence. Probably because he hasn't justified his 'Generational' tag but putting him any lower would result in rioting on the streets of several major Canadian cities, not to mention Pittsburgh.  As a second aside, does it seem odd to anyone else that the two examples of "generational" players are guys who were picked in the same draft?)

Of course, the methodology isn't perfect. The fact that numbers are used as classification system rather than a continuous measure of value can be a little misleading. For example, Dan Cleary is more than twice as valuable as Pavel Brendl, and Alexander Ovechkin is more than twice as valuable as Dan Cleary. But that doesn’t mean some general conclusions can’t be pulled from this data set. Cullen himself notes the following:

- There is little difference in the expected return on picks from about the middle of the fourth-round through to the end of the draft.

- First-round picks may be the only ones to be considered likely to reach the NHL.  Surely these players get better opportunities with the team that drafts them, but there is also something to be said for how difficult it is to project elite talent at 18 years of age. 

- The best overall returns from draft picks came from 1995 (Bryan Berard, Wade Redden and Aki Berg were the top three choices, though Shane Doan, Jarome Iginla and Jean-Sebastien Giguere were all first-rounders) and 1998 (Vincent Lecavalier, David Legwand and Brad Stuart were the first three, with Alex Tanguay, Robyn Regehr, Simon Gagne and Scott Gomez all going in Round One). 

- The 2004 draft hasn't yet materialized into very good production, despite having Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin at the top.  Admittedly, some of the players taken in the 2004 draft are still in the early stages of their pro careers, so they will have an opportunity to achieve a higher ranking as time goes on.

What lept out at me was how steep a decline there was towards the end of the first round. 72% percent of players picked between 21st and 25th overall play more than 100 NHL as games, as opposed to much lower rates for those picked in the 26-30 range (44%) and the 31-35 range (26%).

If that trend holds true in coming years (which, of course, there's no garuntee it will), there's a pretty good chance that the Capitals' first 2009 and 2010 first round picks would be worth much more in the trade market than on draft day.

Ed. note be sure to check out SBN Nation's Trade Deadline Hub by clicking below: