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.