The Window of Opportunity Closes Some

Today word leaked out the official salary cap is going up over $50 million for the coming season. What this means is that we are going to see some teams like the Thrashers not be able to spend the maximum cap amount and thus the team will be at a competitive disadvantage in terms of constructing a roster.

The first two years after the lockout dramatically leveled the playing field and greatly reduced the advantage once held by high revenue clubs like Detroit, Toronto and NY Rangers. Theat once level playing field is about to become less so in future seasons.

Looking back Thrasher fans will see that a great opportunity was missed during the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. During those teams ATL spent just as much on their payroll as did Detroit, Toronto and the Rangers. The team spent right up to the cap each year but at the end of the day all they have show for it is missing the playoffs one year and being swept out of the first round in the other year. Not much of a return sad to say.

Now this doesn't mean that the Thrashers will never win a Stanley Cup it just means that it will be more difficult going forward. The team will have to beat out other clubs that can afford to spend more money on their roster. It certainly can be done as the Tampa Lightning recently demonstrated with their Cup win.

Playing GM for a Day

With free agency just six days away it is time to take a look at what is likely (or unlikely) to happen to the team roster in the coming weeks. The Thrashers have 13 players signed at the moment for $31.2 million (expressed in cap cost terms--the average salary per year). The team also retain the rights to Exelby, Slater, Thorburn. The Thrashers also have a few days left in which they can resign their own potential free agents before they hit the market on Sunday.

Filling out the roster. First let's start with the Thrashers RFA guys. I assume that Thorburn will make close to the league minimum as he did last year (as do most 4th line checkers) and that Exelby will see a significant raise to around $1.4 per year. (Keep in mind that Sutton received $1.9 the last two years of his RFA deal.) Slater is a tough one because he made $.9 million last year and was clearly overpaid. He made more money than Dupuis and Dupuis is a better NHL player right now than Slater. The Thrashers will have to offer Slater a qualifying offer of close to $1 million to retain his rights and if I were him I'd be tempted to just sign it. If they negotiate a multi year deal he should take a pay cut like McCarthy just did and Stefan did on his last two-year deal. I see him signing a two year extension for $1.5 total.

Now if we add in the value of those three estimates for the RFAs our total payroll comes out to $34 million for 16 roster spots. Now the really big question is what sort budget is DW working with? Last year he ended up spending around $44-45 million. This year the cap is expected to rise up around $50 million. But I don't anticipate that the Thrashers will spend anywhere close to that amount. The team lost significant money the last two seasons will spending right up to the cap. Every additional dollar is basically another dollar lost.

I'm going to use the working assumption that the team budget is something around $45 for the entire season. It could be higher or lower of course, but ownership demonstrated a willingness to spend that amount last year. DW's recent comments about Rucchin's situation suggests that the team salary number will far enough below the NHL salary cap so that the Long Term Injury exemption is a dead issue.

injuries struck there was no room to make adjustments. If going to bet that If the Thrashers are budgeting $45 I highly doubt they will commit all of those dollars up front. The team landed inself in budget hell in the first year after the lockout. If DW only signs contracts worth $43-44 million that leaves him with $1-2 million cushion to work with during the year and at the trading deadline.

If I am correct in my assumptions then that means DW has nearly $34 million spent on 16 roster spots which leaves roughly $9-10 million for 7 roster slots. Now we are ready to play the GM for a day game. First I'm going to assume that one of those bench slots and one of the 4th line checkers spots each make the league minimum (about .5 million) so that now leaves $8 million for 5 slots. I'm not going to spectulate on the names of the individuals who will fill those slots because there are so many potential candidates.

Here is what is left to fill by my count: 1st line center, 2nd line center, 1st line wing, 3rd line winger and one defenseman. I'll start by filling in the defense slot. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Hnidy return $.8-$1.0 million next year. There was little drop off when he filled in for Sutton on the top pairing and he seems to have found a regular shift after sitting out much of the 1st month.

Now that we have finished up with the defense, we have about $7 million for 4 forward positions. Another potenial returning player would be Dupuis. He is a fine 3rd line player and I can see him returning for around $1 million a season. However, if the team wanted to spend more money on scoring forwards I could see them trying to fill this spot with a guy who makes near the league minimum.

That leaves about $6 million for 3 offensive forward positions. In my opinion the top priority for the team is to find a decent center who play on one of the top lines and help run the power play. I expect that for $2.5 million the team might sign Comrie, Lang or Yashin depending upon how the market shakes out.

Now that leaves one center spot and one wing slot and just $3.5 million. Unfortunately that is the amount of money I expect that S. Kozlov will expect to see on the free agent market. If the team wants to say under $43 million for payroll the only way they can afford him is if they go cheap at one one center position and the 3rd line winger spot. If the Thrashers pay him that much they have to go very cheap at the scoring center position yet another Metropolit type of experiment? I think Little is not be ready to handle the job yet. If they wanted to reunited the Kozlov-Belanger-Hossa line it would probably cost them $3.5 for Slava and $1.6-$2.0 for Belanger. If they spend that much it puts the team total right at $44 million for the year with little leeway for injuries adjustments or trades later in the year. If the ownership was willing to spend closer to the $46-47 million level then I could see Kozlov fitting into this roster much more easily.

Roster Slot	2006-07	Salary	2007-08	Salary
1st F	Kozlov	2.337	Kozlov	3.500
1st F	Belanger	1.600	Belanger	1.500
1st F	Hossa	6.000	Hossa	6.000
2nd F	Kovalchuk	6.389	Kovalchuk	6.389
2nd F	Rucchin	2.125	Comrie	2.500
2nd F	Mellanby	1.000	Sterling	0.585
3rd F	Dupuis	0.798	Dupuis	.900
3rd F	Holik	4.250	Holik	4.250
3rd F	Larsen	0.485	Larsen	0.503
4th F	Slater	0.900	Slater	0.750
4th F	Metropolit	0.500	Thorburn	0.475
4th F	Sim	0.610	???	0.500
1st D	Zhitnik	3.504	Zhitnik	3.504
1st D	Havelid	2.700	Havelid	2.700
2nd D	Exelby	0.684	Exelby	1.400
2nd D	Sutton	1.900	Enstrom	0.500
3rd D	de Vries	2.166	Hnidy	0.800
3rd D	McCarthy	0.775	McCarthy	0.750
Goalie	Lehtonen	2.125	Lehtonen	2.125
Goalie	Hedberg	1.152	Hedberg	1.150
Bench	MacKenzie	0.475	Rucchin	2.125
Bench	Hnidy	0.600	Popovic	0.540
Bench	Vigier	0.515	???	0.475
Total		43.36		44.24

Bold players are on the team roster.

Thrasher Draft Picks

First let me begin by offering this disclaimer: I have never watched any of these players skate and thus my comments are preliminary until we get a chance to see them at Prospect Camp or NHL camp later this year. (Hockeysfuture will post a more extensive review with quotes from team officials in the near future.) But for the moment here are the four Thrasher selections.

#67 Spencer Machacek Wing
Just looking at his stats I have a couple of observations. Spencer has played on one of the top teams in the WHL the last two years. His club finished in the top five each year. He has scored 45 points in each season--which is not exactly a terrific number. He ranked 6th and 7th in scoring on his WHL team the last two years. On the plus side he just turned in a great playoff run scoring 20 points in 22 playoff games.

Most players see a jump in between their 1st and 2nd season in juniors, Spencer scored the same number of points both season but he also played 7 fewer games so his scoring rate did increase slightly. But the low scoring rate in his age 17 season suggests he doesn't have much of offensive upside in the NHL. On the other hand it seems pretty clear that his future is that of checker. It is also possible that his point totals are lower because he was on a very good team and I'm guessing he rarely received power play ice time.

Here are some other things to read from McKeens, NHL Draftbuzz and Hockeysfuture.

#115 Niklas Lucenius Center
Hockeysfuture.com had Lucenius ranked as the top Finnish player in this year's draft so that is a plus. On the other it is a down year for Europeans generally. His profile indicates that he plays hard and hits but lacks the vision to be a scorer in the NHL. Looks like another potential checker. Central Scouting had him as the 13th best European Skater on their final rankings.

#175 John Albert Center
I think this is the first ever Thrashers pick from the US National Developmental Team. He will play for Ohio State next season. He is little 5'9" with some scoring touch. Perhaps the team is hoping to find another Brett Sterling type success story?

#205 Paul Postma Defenseman
He has a superstition of taping his sticks between periods. Awesome--he sounds NHL ready to me! Anyone take this late in the draft is a huge longshot to even play a single NHL game. Only time will tell.

Thrashers Make Some Modest Moves

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have a big work deadline and I've been a bit sick lately. I'll get back on a roll Monday or Tuesday.

The AJC reports that McCarthy was resigned for one year at $725,000 and Brad Larsen agreed to a two year contract for $500,000 per year. Personally I've always like Larsen's work ethic and physical presence and I'm glad to have him back. McCarthy is fine as a 3rd pairing depth defensemen. The price seems a bit high to me considering that he couldn't crack the lineup late in the year.

The Thrashers trade a 3rd rounder #78 overall for checker Chris Thorburn. I know some folks will probably pan this trade but to be perfectly honest the odds are very long that the 78th pick overall would contribute anything to the Thrashers NHL roster. Trading a pick for a guy who can provide a physical presence could end up being a solid plus for the franchise.

Just for fun lets take a look at who was picked with the 78th pick overall the last few years and see what other teams landed with that pick:
1981 Peter Madach 0 NHL games played
1982 Chris Jensen 74 NHL games played
1983 John Kordic 244 NHL games played
1984 Terry Perkins 0 NHL games played
1985 David Espe 0 NHL games played
1986 Brent Bobyck 0 NHL games played
1987 Tyler Larter 1 NHL games played
1988 Rob Krauss 0 NHL games played
1989 Josef Beranek 531 NHL games played
1990 Chris Bight 0 NHL games played
1991 Mario Nobili 0 NHL games played
1992 Robert Svehla 655 NHL games played
1993 Steve Washburn 93 NHL games played
1994 Adam Smith 0 NHL games played
1995 David Gosselin 13 NHL games played
1996 Shawn McNeil 0 NHL games played
1997 Ville Nieminen 385 NHL games played
1998 Peter Nordstrom 2 NHL games played
1999 Matthias Weinhandl 182 NHL games played
2000 Jozef Balej 13 NHL games played

By my count there 3 players who become NHL regulars for 5 years or more (Beranek, Svehla, Nieminen). There are 4 players who had brief careers (Kordic and Weinhandl, Washburn, Jesnsen). There are 13 players who had cups of coffee or less at the NHL level.

Based on our sample size of 20, that means if the Thrashers had kept their pick they had a 65% of drafting a total bust, a 20% chance of drafting a marginal player and a 15% chance of drafting an impact player.

In acquiring Thornburn the Thrashers went from a 65% of getting nothing to a 100% of getting at least a marginal player. They gave up on the small percentage chance (15%) of getting an impact player in exchange for making sure they got someone who could make their NHL roster. This is why I see the trade in a generally positive light. The draft is such a lottery at that point and they choose to trade their lottery ticket for a known quantity.

Posting Pause

I'm still alive and kicking after Bonnaroo, but I'm busy with work at the moment.
I'll resume the series on the NHL Draft on Friday and have some stuff about free agency soon.

I went to a Concert and a bunch of Canadians Broke Out

I'm up in Tennessee for Bonnaroo this weekend. Tonight we saw The Little Ones who were a pleasant surprise (to me at least) and Sam Roberts Band and The National who were amazing, stupendous, terrific, etc.

Six weeks ago I watched The National open for Arcade Fire at the Atlanta Civic Center. They seemed much better last night. Perhaps it was the smaller venue or perhaps it was the fact that I was second row. But their dynamic control was much sharper and energy much more manifest. The one thing I will say is that their lead singer has one of the worst cases of stage fright I've ever seen. He spent half the show with his back turned to the audience. He looked genuinely frightened at times and slipped off to the side of the stage or back to the drum kit whenever he wasn't required to sing.

Before The National was the Sam Roberts band which as it so happens is from Canada. We started chatting with people around us and virtually everyone was from Canada and had turned out to support this act from their home country. I saw two Canadian flags being waved and I felt for a moment like when the Leafs or Habs had come to visit the Thrashers. A few minutes into the set a gigantic red and white beach ball emblazoned with "CANADA" in large leaders appeared and was bounced around throughout the show. Our friends from the north were very vocal in their support. Unfortunately, I think their devotion might be a bit misplaced as I was not at all impressed by the Sam Roberts Band. Their drummer in particular was so boring that they could have replaced him with a metronome and it probably would not have hurt the sound very much.

Tomorrow Cold War Kids are on tap as Tool. I've raved about Cold War Kids before and I'm really looking forward to seeing them again. This will be my first Tool show and I've heard their stage show is quite a production.

1983 Draft Evaluation

The 1983 draft was loaded with talent. One team that completely missed out was the St. Louis Blues who did not participate in this draft. Apparently there was a lot of instability with the franchise including some talk that the team would be moved to Saskatoon, SS. I'm still not sure exactly why they didn't draft unless the league thought they were going to cease to exist like the Cleveland Barons.

The big winners on draft day were the Red Wings, Sabres, Blackhawks, Flyers and Devils. The North Stars and Whalers missed out on the true stars of the first round allowing Steve Yzerman to fall to Detroit and Pat LaFontaine to go to the Islanders and Barraso to the Sabres.

After drafting the face of the franchise for the next two decades the Wings went on to add Petr Klima (who would win a Cup with the last Oilers championship) along with feared tough guys Bob Probert and Joe Kocur. The Wings also drafted Stu Grimson but didn't sign him and he went back into the draft 2 years later. Yzerman would win three cups and finish near the top of the NHL record books. Probert was a feared player until drinking and drugs made him a shadow of himself. Kocur would win Cups with both Detroit and the Rangers.

The Sabres landed Barasso who would beat out Yzerman for rookie of the year. Barasso would win the Cup with the Penguins and be remembered for being both great in the net and being a jerk everywhere else. Buffalo GM Scotty Bowman drafted a huge German Uwe Krupp who later won a Cup with the Avalanche. In addition they found three role players (Adam Creighton, John Tucker and Christian Ruuttu) who each would go to have 600+ game careers. Darren Puppa would later help the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning reach the playoffs for the first time with some stellar play. The Sabres really had some great drafts in the early 1980s and in retrospect it seems surprising that it didn't translate into more on-ice success.

The teams that participated in the 1980 NHL Draft are ranked from top to bottom based upon the total career NHL value those drafted players amassed up through today or the end of their career. The "value" column displays the total adjusted GVT value of all players drafted by that team in that draft. Draftees who went on to play 400 or more games (fewer for goalies) are listed to the right so you can see for yourself the successes of each team. The division of those players into "impact" and "role" players is determined by looking at their value to games played ratio. Rather than just using my own opinion I decided to divide the adjusted GVT by game played and use that as a guideline.

Team	Total Value	Impact Player	Role Player
DET	1907	S.Yzerman P.Klima	B.Probert J.Kocur S.Grimson
BUF	1780	T.Barrasso U.Krupp C.Ruuttu J.Tucker D.Puppa	A.Creighton
CHI	1525	D.Hasek	M.Bergevin W.Presley B.Noonan
PHI	1244	R.Tocchet P.Zezel P.Eklund	D.Smith
NJD	1097	J.MacLean V.Fetisov A.Kasatonov C.Terreri
NYI	954	P.LaFontaine	G.Diduck M.Makela
LAK	918	G.Galley K.Stevens
WIN	876	B.Essensa	B.Dollas A.McBain P.Taglianetti
CGY	854	B.Bradley S.Makarov	D.Quinn P.Berezan
MON	803	C.Lemieux	S.Momesso
VAN	793	C.Neely	D.Lowry
HAR	716	S.Turgeon J.Reekie
TOR	677	R.Courtnall	A.Bester
EDM	657	E.Tikkanen	J.Beukeboom
QUE	518		T.Albelin
MIN	449		F.Musil B.Lawton
NYR	436	D.Gagner
PIT	348		B.Errey
BOS	274		A.Pederson
WAS	53
STL	N.A	N.A.	N.A.

Of course, not every team has the same opportunities in a given draft year because of where they pick in the draft order. In order to take this into account I have calculated a draft opportunity cost average. Think of it as something like a batting average. If you took the best available player at your spot in the draft order your team receives a perfect score of 1.000 for that pick. If you drafted a total bust a score of zero. If you landed a NHL player but not the best available player your team score is determined by how close you were to the most valuable player left on the draft board (for more on this read this post).

Both the Bowman led Sabres and the Devellano led Wings had great drafts but the Sabres edge out Detroit because of the amazing depth of their selections. Most draft picks fail to play a single game but 11 of the 15 Sabres picks in 1983 NHL Draft went on to see some action in the league. In addition to the five players I discussed earlier, the Sabres also picked up Normand Lacombe and tough defensemen Mark Ferner in that one draft. The Wings found Yzerman, Klima, Probert, Kocur, Grimson and Lane Lambert who played nearly 300 NHL games.

In third place we find the Devils who took two solid North Americas in John MacLean and goaltender Chris Terreri. Those two players alone made it a decent draft but what puts the Devils near the top of the draft efficiency ranking are two gambles they took on two Soviet players Fetisov and Kasatonov. Fetisov was a true superstar level player, but both players struggled a bit as they were not always accepted by their teammates. Fetisov would win two Cups with Detroit in 1997 and 1998. He also returned to the ice after the terrible limo crash that ended Vladimir Konstantinov's career.

The Blackhawks are credited with having a good draft but their score is high because they got a perfect score for taking Hasek with the 199th pick and a bunch of role players (Presley, Noonan, Bergevin). The Blackhawks never did realize what they had in Hasek and traded him away to Buffalo where he played and dominated the league with his unpredictable style.

The Flyers had 10 picks in this draft but none in the 1st round. Still they managed to turn those picks into a decent scoring center (Peter Zezel) a tough two way star forward (Rick Tocchet) and Pelle Eklund. That is a nice draft day haul considering that their highest pick was at #41 in the draft order.

Team	Pick Average	Rank	GM
BUF	.211	1	Bowman
DET	.199	2	Devellano
NJD	.194	3	McNab
CHI	.186	4	Pulford
PHI	.165	5	B.McCammon
CGY	.116	6	Fletcher
LAK	.112	7	G.Maguire
WAS	.100	8	Poile
VAN	.099	9	H.Neale
TOR	.098	10	McNamara
WIN	.098	11	Ferguson
NYI	.092	12	Torrey
EDM	.088	13	Sather
MON	.084	14	S.Savard
QUE	.077	15	Fillion
HAR	.070	16	E.Francis
NYR	.053	17	C.Patrick
PIT	.051	18	R.Caron
MIN	.047	19	Nanne
BOS	.034	20	Sinden
STL	N.A	NA.	N.A.

Summary
This was a pretty solid draft year but the first round still had almost 1/3 busts busts by my count (6 out of 20). The North Stars had the 1st overall pick and ended up with very little to show for it--which continues their trend of poor drafting during this time period. One notable trend in this draft is that several teams (New Jersey and Chicago) took chances on Eastern European players in communist bloc countries who were not free to come to the NHL at the time they were drafted. As we move forward into the late 1980s we will see these sort of gambles pay off richly for a number of teams who reap the benefit of the fall of communism.

1982 NHL Draft Evaluation

The 1982 Draft occupies the middle ground of early 1980s drafts. Not as loaded with talent as the 1980 or 1984 but not as weak as 1981 or 1985. This draft features a number of very talented players who had great careers but never won a Stanley Cup championship. Because the Oilers won 5 Cups in a short span of time that reduces the odds for non-Oiler players to get their name on the big silver trophy. It is an unfortunate byproduct of any dynasty era and it is one reason why I don't necessarily hold it against a guy who never won the Cup.

The top teams in terms of drafting players who went on to have valuable NHL careers were the Sabres, Whalers, Rangers, Capitals and Devils. Buffalo finishes at the top because they had two high picks and they made great selections with both landing Phil Housely (#6 overall) and Dave Andreychuk (#16 overall). Throw in journeyman Paul Cyr and it is quite a haul. The Whalers rank second for their selections of Ray Ferraro, Ulf Samuelsson and Kevin Dineen. Samulesson would get a Championship with the Penguins and Ferraro would have a very late career year with the Thrashers during their terrible early years (I still have my Ferraro autographed picture--thanks Ray!)

The teams that participated in the 1982 NHL Draft are ranked in the table below based upon the total career NHL value those draft picks amassed up through the end of the 2006-07 regular season (or the end of their career). The "value" column displays the total adjusted GVT regular season value of all players drafted by that team in that draft. Draftees who went on to play 400 or more games (fewer for goalies) are listed to the right so you can see for yourself the notable picks for each team. The division of those players into "impact" and "role" players is determined by looking at their value to games played ratio. Rather than just using my own opinion I decided to divide the adjusted GVT by game played and use that as a guideline.

Team	Value	Impact Player	Role Players
BUF	1717	P.Housley D.Andreychuk	P.Cyr
HAR	1611	R.Ferraro K.Dineen U.Samuelsson	R.Gilhen
NYR	1368	T.Sandstrom T.Granato K.Miller
WAS	1157	S.Stevens	D.Evason
NJD	1025	P.Verbeek	K.Daneyko
PHI	975	RonSutter R.Hextall	D.Brown
BOS	889		D.Reid B.Sweeney
MIN	848	B.Bellows	B.Rouse
TOR	843	G.Leeman	G.Nylund K.Wregget P.Ihnacak
QUE	726		D.Shaw M.Hough P.Gillis
STL	704	D.Gilmour
DET	679	M.Craven
WIN	663	D.Ellett	J.Kyte
NYI	555	P.Flatley
PIT	477		Rich Sutter T.Loney
VAN	302		M.Petit
MON	218		D.Maley
EDM	131
CHI	122
CGY	115		M.Lamb
LAK	23

Of course, not every team has the same opportunities in a given draft year because of where they pick in the draft order. In order to take this into account I have calculated a draft opportunity cost average. Think of it as something like a batting average. If you took the best available player at your spot in the draft order your team receives a perfect score of 1.000 for that pick. If you drafted a total bust a score of zero. If you landed a NHL player--but not the best available player--your team score is determined by how close in value your guy was to the most valuable player left on the draft board (for more on this read this post).

Hartford finishes on top of the draft efficiency ranking because they found solid contributors in multiple rounds. In addition so Ferraro, Dineen and Samuelsson they picked up Randy Gilhen and Paul Lawless (awesome hockey name BTW, if only he and Paul Laus had played on the same team!). Likewise the Rangers score well as they scooped up a collection of contributors in Kelly Miller, Tony Granato, Tomas Sandstrom, Corey Millen and Chris Kontos.

The Capitals finish high due to a perfect score for taking Scott Stevens and adding in Dean Evason, but mostly because of Stevens--too bad they lost this franchise building block. Can you imagine how much differently the Capitals might have fared playing against the Penguins if they had kept Stevens on their blueline? The Sabres made two perfect selections early and found Paul Cyr but they had a total of 14 picks in this draft year and they getting almost nothing out of those other 11 picks which lowers their opportunity cost average. Finally we have the Flyers with a decent draft in which they took Ron Hextall, Ron Suter and Dave Brown.

Team	Value	Impact Player	Role Player
HAR	.212	1	Pleau
NYR	.160	2	C.Patrick
WAS	.154	3	Poile
BUF	.153	4	Bowman
PHI	.131	5	K.Allen
NJD	.124	6	MacMillian
QUE	.117	7	Fillion
STL	.113	8	E.Francis
BOS	.106	9	Sinden
MIN	.104	10	Nanne
WIN	.095	11	Ferguson
DET	.082	12	Devellano
TOR	.081	13	McNamara
PIT	.067	14	Bastien
NYI	.062	15	Torrey
VAN	.041	16	H.Neale
MON	.021	17	Grundman
EDM	.016	18	Sather
CHI	.014	19	Pulford
CGY	.013	20	Fletcher
LAK	.003	21	G.Maguire

Summary
This was a tough draft for certain GMs and scouts. There was some decent talent there in hindsight but on draft day there many big mistakes. Just take a look at the first round and count the number of misses. By the way in case you missed it the North Stars GM Lou Nanne was not exactly stellar on draft day. I'm not finished with all of his drafts yet, but so far he has yet to even finish in the top half of the league in a single year. Eventually I'll post something about each GM's individual success rate, it should be interesting since some of these guys are still around today.

1981 Draft Evaluation

Of the first six drafts of the early 1980s, the 1981 NHL Draft was the 2nd weakest in terms of the overall value it produced for teams. Still the draft had some Hall of Fame level talent in a pair of defensemen named Al MacInnis and Chris Chelios and the always classy Ron Francis. The Canadians, Flames and Whalers finished in the top four of in total NHL value because they selected those three stars. All three of these franchise quality players would go to win the Stanley Cup but Ron Francis would do so as a Penguin and not as a Whaler/Hurricane player.

The Canadiens had the biggest haul on draft day as they picked three useful NHLers in Tom Kurvers, Gilbert Delorme and Mark Hunter in addition to Chelios. The Rangers muscled their way into the top by finding three quality players among whom John Vanbiesbrouck had the biggest impact. Early on Vanbiesbrouck had to compete against Bob Froese and a young Mike Richter but he ended up having a long NHL career. The Flames acquired the Mike Vernon as well as MacInnis both of whom were crucial players in the Flames Cup team. Vernon would later win the Playoff MVP with Detroit in 1997.

The teams that participated in the 1981 NHL Draft are ranked in the table below based upon the total career NHL value those drafted players amassed up through the end of the 2006-07 regular season (or the end of their career). The "value" column displays the total adjusted GVT regular season value of all players drafted by that team in that draft. Draftees who went on to play 400 or more games (fewer for goalies) are listed to the right so you can see for yourself the successes of each team. The division of those players into "impact" and "role" players is determined by looking at their value to games played ratio. Rather than just using my own opinion I decided to divide the adjusted GVT by game played and use that as a guideline.

Team	Value	Impact Player	Role Player
MON	1565	C.Chelios T.Kurvers M.Hunter	G.Delorme
NYR	1348	J.Vanbiesbrouck J.Patrick	J.Erixon
CGY	1208	A.MacInnis M.Vernon
HAR	1098	R.Francis	P.MacDermid
WAS	877	B.Carpenter G.Duchesne
DET	832	G.Gallant	R.Zombo C.Loiselle
WIN	831	D.Hawerchuk	S.Arniel
EDM	824	S.Smith G.Fuhr
COL	775	B.Driver	Cirella
QUE	729	C.Malarchuk	M.Eagles R.Moller
VAN	690	P.Skriko	G.Butcher
PIT	525		D.Hannan R.Buskas
LAK	406		D.Kennedy D.Smith
CHI	295		T.Tanti
NYI	258		G.Dineen
TOR	235		J.Benning
STL	209		G.Donnelly
MIN	197
BUF	134
BOS	131
PHI	49

Of course, not every team has the same opportunities in a given draft year because of where they pick in the draft order. In order to take this into account I have calculated a draft opportunity cost average. Think of it as something like a batting average. If you took the best available player at your spot in the draft order your team receives a perfect score of 1.000 for that pick. If you drafted a total bust a score of zero. If you landed a NHL player--but not the best available player--your team score is determined by how close in value your guy was to the most valuable player left on the draft board (for more on this read this post).

The most efficient teams on draft day were the Wings, Rangers, Oilers, Flames, Canadians and Nordiques. The Wings finish on top largely because seven of their eight picks went on to play in the NHL which is a rather astonishing achievement. The failure rate of NHL draft picks is very high, for a team to receive at least a little bit of value from nearly every pick in a draft year is quite an achievement. None of Detroit picks were home runs but Gerard Gallant, Rick Zombo and Greg Stefan played key roles as the Wings rose from the "Dead Wings" era back to respectability in the late 1980s.

The Rangers finish in 2nd place for much the same reason as the Wings. While they didn't find a bunch of superstar players (although Vanbiesbrouck was very good) they did manage to find value up and down the draft in a weak year. The Oilers high ranking is the result of finding Grant Fuhr and Steve Smith who would become important parts of the Stanley Cup dynasty years, plus Marc Habsheid. The Nordiques make the top of the list for taking defensemen Randy Moller early and finding Malarchuk and Mike Eagles late.

Team	Pick Average	Average Rank
DET	.258	1	Skinner
NYR	.210	2	C.Patrick
CGY	.201	3	Fletcher
EDM	.200	4	Sather
MON	.197	5	Grundman
QUE	.195	6	Fillion
PIT	.184	7	Bastien
VAN	.180	8	Milford
WAS	.178	9	McNab
HAR	.170	10	Pleau
COL	.160	11	MacMillian
WIN	.091	12	Ferguson
LAK	.061	13	G.Maguire
STL	.055	14	E.Francis
NYI	.041	15	Torrey
MIN	.039	16	Nanne
CHI	.035	17	Pulford
TOR	.031	18	Imlach
BOS	.027	19	Sinden
BUF	.021	20	Bowman
PHI	.013	21	K.Allen

Summary
Montreal and Detroit two of the top drafting teams of the 1980s perform well in this draft year. The Oilers take some of the final pieces of their championship caliber teams. The Scotty Bowman led Sabres have their worst year in what is otherwise a solid decade for them. While a bit of a weak draft year it featured several outstanding goalie in Grant Fuhr, Mike Vernon, John Vanbiesbrouck--all of whom would go on to win many big games in the next two decades. Overall it was a top heavy draft and if your team didn't land on the stars they probably came away with very little.

1980 NHL Draft Evaluation

The 1980 NHL Draft was one of the deeper talent pools of that decade. There were several Hall of Fame level players as well as an abundance of role players who would fill out NHL rosters for the coming years. The depth of this draft is demonstrated by the fact that even the very worst performing teams still found some role players who contributed over the years. In weaker draft years it is not uncommon to see the bottom teams come away with no significant players. (For more on the methods used to create this draft series read this post.)

Three teams sit atop this draft. The Kings found two stars in Larry Murphy and Bernie Nichollscomplementary guys. Unfortunately for the Kings their two players would accumulate much of their NHL value playing for other franchises.

The Oilers also found three star players in Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri and Andy Moog as well as Walt Poddubny who put up some good numbers in his career. The Oilers draft would add crucial pieces to the 1980s dynasty team that won multiple Stanley Cups. If you are a NHL GM or Director of Scouting your dream is to replicate the Oilers draft day and subsequent playoff success.

The third team with an outstanding day was the Blackhawks who landed two stars (Savard and Larmer) who would serve as the foundation of the team's offense for years to come.

Sometimes teams find a key star player and not much else in a draft or they find a lot of depth but lack star power. Quebec and Montreal in particular were able to locate players who would prove useful in filling our their rosters. One team that probably should rank higher is Calgary. Hakan Loob chose to return to playing in Europe and if he had stayed he would have accumulated more NHL value for the Flames.

The teams that participated in the 1980 NHL Draft are ranked from top to bottom based upon the total career NHL value those drafted players amassed up through today or the end of their career. The "value" column displays the total adjusted GVT value of all players drafted by that team in that draft. Draftees who went on to play 400 or more games (fewer for goalies) are listed to the right so you can see for yourself the successes of each team. The division of those players into "impact" and "role" players is determined by looking at their value to games played ratio. Rather than just using my own opinion I decided to divide the adjusted GVT by game played and use that as a guideline.

Team	GVT Value	Impact Player	Role Players
LAK	2097	L.Murphy B.Nicholls	J.Fox S.Bozek G.Terrion
EDM	2023	P.Coffey J.Kurri A.Moog	W.Poddubny
CHI	1952	D. Savard S.Larmer	T. Murray C.Wilson S.Ludzik
MON	1275	C. Ludwig	M.McPhee D.Wickenheiser J. Chabot
NYI	1225	Brent Sutter K.Hrudey G.Gilbert
BOS	1141	B.Pederson	T.Fergus S.Kasper R.Hillier
WIN	1030	D.Babych Br.Mullen M.Mantha
VAN	928	D.Lidster P.Sundstrom	R.Lanz
TOR	746		C.Muni S.Gavin B.McGill
CAL	697	H.Loob	S.Konroyd
BUF	648		R.Cunneyworth S.McKenna
PIT	591	M.Bullard	D.Shedden
QUE	580		N.Rochefort B.McRae J.Miller
MIN	580	D.Beapre	R.Velischek
NYR	495	R.Ruotsalainen	M.Allison
WAS	487		D.Veitch T.Robertson
STL	465		B.Brooke P.Anderson
COL	423		A.Broten P.Gagne
DET	418		M.Osborne
HAR	260		K.McClelland
PHI	163		A.Brickley

Of course, not every team has the same opportunities in a given draft year because of where they pick in the draft order. In order to take this into account I have calculated a draft opportunity cost average. Think of it as something like a batting average. If you took the best available player at your spot in the draft order your team receives a perfect score of 1.000 for that pick. If you drafted a total bust a score of zero. If you landed a NHL player but not the best available player your team score is determined by how close you were to the most valuable player left on the draft board (for more on this read this post).

In the 1980 NHL Draft the Oilers simply dominated in terms of making the best of their opportunities. A score of .430 is simply amazing. It may end up being the single best team score of any team draft all time when I am finished. So far I have yet to find a team that can beat it.

Anything over .200 is a very good score and we see that the Canuks, Kings, Bruins, Blackhawks and Islanders (if we round up) all join the Oilers in reaching the excellent level. Because this was a deep draft with numbers high value players available, six teams were able to find high value hockey players with their picks that day.

At the top of the draft both the Kings and Oilers scored home runs with their 1st round selections (L. Murphy, P. Coffey) and both teams found star players in the 4th round (B. Nicholls, J. Kurri) put the Oiler pick of Moog at #132 overall puts them ahead of everyone. The Oilers had three perfect score picks in one draft which may be unmatched in NHL history.

Team	Pick Average	Average Rank	Draft GM
EDM	.430	1	Sather
VAN	.282	2	Milford
LAK	.270	3	G.Maguire
BOS	.254	4	Sinden
CHI	.223	5	Pulford
NYI	.197	6	Torrey
MON	.191	7	Grundman
CGY	.162	8	Fletcher
WIN	.160	9	Ferguson
BUF	.148	10	Bowman
TOR	.133	11	Imlach
QUE	.131	12	Fillion
PIT	.129	13	Bastien
WAS	.129	14	McNab
MIN	.126	15	Nanne
NYR	.104	16	F.Shero
STL	.097	17	E.Francis
COL	.089	18	Miron
DET	.084	19	Skinner
PHI	.065	20	K.Allen
HAR	.046	21	Kelley

Summary
A couple of noteworthy things about this draft. We see that Montreal scored well which will be a continuing theme as we go through the 1980s. On the other hand the Oilers mega draft of 1980 marks the beginning of a steep decline in their draft day fortunes. The Oilers will go on to experience great success on the ice but the pipeline of young star talent will cease to be restocked on a regular basis.

NHL Drafts: A Quantiative and Historical Comparison

At the trade deadline this spring I did a short series of posts where I went back and looked at how the Atlanta Thrashers did compared to all the other NHL teams in the 1999-2002 Entry Drafts. I wanted to do a more extensive analysis later in the year. Now that the off-season has arrived and the 2007 Draft is less than two weeks away I will return to this topic.

With this series I want to answer several questions for each draft between 1980-2004.

• Which teams did the best at finding valuable NHL players?
  
• Which teams did the best they could given where they picked in the draft?

How Much is That Player Worth?
In the review of each NHL draft, first I will rank each team in terms of the total NHL value of the players they selected.

What is the best way to estimate a player's value? My first thought was to use NHL games played. Games played is a handy measuring stick of value. A player is in the line-up because the GM or Coach thinks he brings more to the table than other players available within the organization. Using games played also gives credit to defensive defensemen who may be undervalued (someone like a Ken Daneyko) if you simply look at points.

As much as I like games played, it simply doesn't work well enough. For example, there are third/fourth line guys (like Rob Ray for example) who dress for many NHL games but rarely see the ice or rarely impact the outcome of the game. Therefore, I have decided to go with Tom Awad's Goals Versus Threshold (GVT) player valuation system because I think it is a significant improvement over using games played. The GVT system divides credit for goals scored and goals prevented among the players on a roster for all NHL seasons after 1950.

No player valuation system is perfect, but I think that this about as good as you can do with the data available at to researchers . The GVT system also very useful because Tom has produced values for all NHL players since 1950 which is necessary for a project like this one that seeks to
compare NHL drafts over time.

(Note: Because the valuation system does produce negative values for players below replacement level I have made a small upward adjustment on values in ensure that all skaters end up with positive values. Why? Because even a bad 4th line player who dresses for 10 games is still better than a draft pick who never even plays a single NHL game. Therefore draft picks who get a cup of coffee at the NHL level need to be valued higher than busts who never dress for a single game.)

Did the Team Pick the Best Available Player?
One of the really difficult problems in comparing one NHL team to another is that every team picks at a different point in the NHL draft order. The teams that pick first obviously have better options available to them than the the teams that pick later in the order. How do you control for that?

What I have done here is create an opportunity cost batting average for each team. The basic idea is simple enough. Did a team pick the best player available to them when it was their turn to pick? If the answer is yes, they batted 1.000 if the answer is "no" then they missed out on receiving the maximum value available to them at that point in the draft and therefore they should a score of less than 1.000 (The difference between 1.000 and something lower is the opportunity cost of passing on a the best available player).

Now if a team passes on a great player and instead drafts a complete bust they receive a score of zero. On the other hand, if a team passes on the "best" players available but still drafts a guy who makes the NHL, then we have to give them some credit for picking a NHLer. The amount of credit they receive depends on how difference in the value between the guy they took and the guy they passed up.

For example, let's take a look at the first four picks of the 1983 NHL Draft. All four picks at the top of the draft became NHL players but there is a huge difference in terms of the value of their respective NHL careers. The best player available was Steve Yerman who was taken 4th overall. Thus the Red Wings would receive credit for a perfect selection (1.00). The scores for the teams that passed on Yzerman depend upon the value of the player they took instead of Yzerman. The NY Islanders took Pat LaFontaine who had a great career cut short by injury. His career value (446) was worth roughly half the value of Yzerman's (823) and thus the Islanders received a score of .54 since that is the LaFontains's value (446) divided by Yzerman's career value (823). In selecting LaFontaine over Yzerman the Islanders obtained a very good NHL player but they missed out on maximizing their potential return on their draft pick and thus do not receive a perfect score.

1983 NHL Draft First Four Picks

Pick	Player	NHL Value	Opportunity Cost Value
1	Lawton	165	0.20
2	S. Turgeon	265	0.32
3	LaFontaine	446	0.54
4	Yzerman	823	1.00

Each team receives an opportunity cost "batting average" for each draft. If a team took the most valuable player left in the draft every time they picked, that team would have an average of 1.000 which is the theoretical maximum. In reality the NHL Draft is very difficult. In baseball a .300 batting average is thought of as a very good number for a hitter. In the NHL Draft the average NHL teams only scores about .100 in a typical draft. A "good" draft batting average is .150 and anything over .200 is a "great" average. Success in the NHL draft is terribly difficult to achieve. The failure rate of NHL picks is absolutely staggering when you look at it.

Summary
So the following series will provide two different takes on recent NHL Draft history. First it will allow us to judge which teams got the most total value out of their picks. Second it will allow us to see which teams most consistently get the maximum amount of value out of the draft regardless of where they are in the draft order.

Ducks Win Cup

The NHL Season concluded last night with the Anaheim Ducks finishing on top. My congratulations to former Thrashers Joe DiPenta, Chris Kunitz and Mark Hartigan. I always liked DiPenta and was happy to see him hoist the Cup aloft.

The off season begins now and I'll be posting some on the NHL draft and free agency period and prospect camp as each comes along this summer.

Lehtonen's Next Contract

Today marked the very first steps toward assembling the 2007-08 Thrasher squad as the team announced the signing of several recent draft picks. But for a moment I'd like to look ahead to next summer. The summer of 2008 will be a key moment in franchise history as the contracts of Bobby Holik, Marian Hossa and Kari Lehtonen are all set to expire. The team could change substantially depending upon what happens then.

Two of those three players will be unrestricted free agents, but Lehtonen will be a restricted "free agent" which means that he really isn't free at all. Why am I talking about Lehtonen in June of 2007? Well the Carolina Hurricanes just announced they resigned their starting goaltender and Playoff MVP Cam Ward to a three year deal that pays him $2, $2.5, $3.5 (an average of $2.66 per year). Personally, I think Ward is a decent comparable to Lehtonen other than that playoff MVP thing of course. They are both roughly the same age and have the same role on their respective teams. Assuming Lehtonen continues to show improvement I would think his agent would seek a contract something like the one Cam Ward just inked.