Recrutes: Hockey scouting from a professional perspective from Grant McCagg and Habs coverage from a 33 year veteran covering the NHL from Brian Wilde.
October 6, 2017
By Brian Wilde
Brian Wilde takes us on a walk and serves up some facts about the success of draft picks – sometimes you get lucky, but the math doesn’t lie.
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Nice Brian, you did this in the suburbs of Washington?
Good walk Brian
You are right on this one. You could also take into account the picks which are from the GM or at least his preferences (defencemen, forwards). But it is really hard to know exactly what is going on at the draft table or before the draft.
My opinion is that Timmins is one of the best recruters in the NHL. And sometime you will miss as your percentages are telling us. Nobody is perfect on predictions.
Thanks Brian
I think the reason I did it and the real proof that came out of it is how hard it is for everyone. The perception is that all first round draft choices should make the NHL and they don’t. Late in the first round, it’s worse than half. I don’t think many actually know that.
Thanks for spelling out the math! 🙂 I’ve been looking at the draft picks over the years myself and I have always felt that Habs draft better than they’re given credit for. The funny thing about statistics is people tend to compare apples to oranges to prove their point. It’s takes a ton of time and energy to properly weigh the numbers. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, that’s why I follow! 👍
Agree with the spirit of the piece, and the conclusion Timmins has done a good job, but not that math will always win. Here I’m referring to analytics and advanced stats from the Jerkshires of the world, those stats are severely flawed, and lead to the most ridiculous conclusions (ex: Weber isn’t very good, etc.).
Love the Wilde walks.. keep them coming!
That said, you might regret launching that concept come winter time 😉
Ha. I am going to have to look for indoors locations.
Good work Brian! How can anyone argue with that. Great research!
Subban which turned into Shea was another one not mentioned
I’ve been one of a small number of faithful Timmins defenders because I appreciate how difficult it is to pick the ‘right’ guy. Timmins main problem has been that he hasn’t had much ammunition in several past drafts because the second round picks were traded away. So, I totally agree that Trevor Timmins is good at his job.
I do have a couple of minor detail issues with your WOTWS. Firstly, it’s not 10 years from 2004 to 2014, it’s 11 years. [Here I have to restrain myself from making a comment about the math 🙂 ] And secondly, it may not be fair to use Sergachev as an example because he was drafted in 2016, outside your window of analysis. I think that was a very good pick as you state, but then you’d have to include other teams’ 2016 picks and so on.
You also may not have wanted to go on too long, but other very good late round picks were Sergei Kostitsyn, Ryan White, Subban in the 2nd round, Hudon, Andrighetto, and Martin Reway (not proven yet, but could be a real sleeper pick). Anyway, thanks for bringing some balance to the Habs scouting debate.
All excellent points. I did do 10 years. Not sure which draft I didn’t include. I did it months ago and kept the results, and again, there are a lot of them. It was a total adlib and it’s impossible to remember all of them. Cheers.
Great analysis on this Walk.
I wouldn’t have guessed that Ottawa was one of the best drafting team. I always felt that Montreal did relatively well – better than I guessed!
Hey Brian, was just reading your comments on twitter about people not signing and paying. Then your real followers can pay more. One year for 30$ is way too cheap for all the content you provide!
That is extremely kind, but that is not a path we would ever be comfortable with. Again, though, extremely kind. We will get there. We aren’t looking to be even remotely rich, simply to survive and have fun doing what we love. We are here with you and we won’t let you down. We will work hard AF.
Love these walk on the wilde side videos.
Great points made
Great as always, and I agree with Kilian’s comment on the bottom. The amount of content you and Grant offer is incredible. There is so much on this site I find myself falling behind. I think there are many of us who think the site is way too cheap. Everyone get a friend to subscribe!
About 100 picks will play a game in the NHL from each draft. Half of them we will be minor leaguers getting a few games. Out of the 50 who are Nhl ers about 30 are drafted within the first 50 picks. Franchise players are picked in the top 5, most elite players in the top 50.
All lot of so called serious journalist have criticized Timmins for poor draft results since 2008. But the truth and the math is:
From 2003-07 habs had 12 picks in first 2 round, 11 in top 50. 2008-11 habs had 4 picks in first 2 rounds, 3 in top 50.
2003-2007
Franchise: Price
Elite: Pacioretty,, Mcdonaugh, Subban,
Nhl player: Kostytsyn, Latendresse, Chipchura
Flops: Urquhart, Maxlwell, Fisher.
Add the fact that first rounder are usually made by the GM (I doubt Kostytsyn and Fisher were Timmins first choice) and we can see how effective habs draft were when high picks were not squandered.
The only way to really know the quality of a scouting staff is to review and compare teams draft lists.
Awesome!!! Timmins has been great. You don’t win them all, but we’ve done ok.
Couldn’t agree with you more Brian, well said. Great work by the way I’ve been really busy as of late haven’t posted any comments but reading all of your articles and really like this site.
Thanks
Hi Brian, I enjoyed your math review. Very interesting stuff. Focusing on the successes rather than failures. Changed my mind on what I thought was a pretty lousy job the Habs have done with young talent in the past. As there have been quite a bit of failures. So this puts into perspective why. Still….after 24yrs without a cup and the winds closing quickly on another one…I fear people will look at a different math. Which is bottom line wins vs. losses for the top 3 richest teams in the league.
*window. (Darn spell check)
Like the guy or not but PK being drafted 43rd overall, winning a Norris and bringing back Weber is a huge win
Great as usual. Drafting 18-year olds is not easy work.
One verbal slip calling Drouin instead of Hudon as fifth rounder but hey that’s live TV for you.
There’s this weird expectation that Timmons and company are supposed to have a crystal ball. Sure you can say “should have taken Giroux over Leblanc” in hindsight. Hard to forecast a ruptured Achilles, y’know?
Giroux over Lablanc..don’t you mean Giroux over Fischer? One literary slip..now you are even. 🙂 Brian knows all about the verbal slip….I was kind enough to point it out to him within an hour of it being produced.:) Six-minute unscripted videos..I’d have verbal slips out the yin yang.
Agreed on it being a crapshoot…and lots of them are just 17 when they are drafted lest we forget.,.which makes it even more unscientific. Always a good idea to have a look back at players drafted 20-30…people criticize the McCarron and Scherbak picks…well..look at guys picked in the 20-30 range in those drafts and they are still two of the more desired prospects. You don’t think Toronto doesn’t wish they had picked McCarron instead of Gauthier?
Good catch Grant! Haha
Looking at 2013 and Habs at 25, 34, and 36…there’s not really anyone in that pack who is really advanced beyond where our guys are at in development except for Shea Theodore. Great pick for the Ducks there. But de la Rose has made great strides and is now on the NHL roster while Fucale continues to develop. There’s still hope for McCarron–once he learns to use his frame accordingly he can still make the jump.
It’s true. One has to look at all of the teams in a draft. Like Fischer for example. Look at the D in that draft. What an absolute shit show. Maybe the worst draft in history for defenceman. Gainey wanted a D. Gainey got a D as in no DAMN good…. any from that year.
Good points. Theodore looks like a star in warmup with his skating but as soon as he gets pressured his lack of sense is an issue…turnovers galore. He has been a healthy scratch to start the season on an expansion team..which is telling. He has the talent though..and like DLR and McCarron he’s still young. May figure it out.
I like this, but it’s hard to do a complete report without notes and while walking. You skipped some rounds, for example, and then you pegged the success rate for round 5 at 15% (if I followed correctly and maybe I didn’t) but then said that the success ratio was 19/300 which is 6%, so it gets s bit confusing. I’m sure you have all of the math written somewhere and could perhaps could do a more comprehensive write it up at some point.
I am actually thinking of it. Let me check my notes for you on the fifth round please…..
From 2004 to 2014 in the fifth round of the draft…. so that’s 30 picks per year in the fifth round for 10 years…. 19 picks out of 300…. got a season of NHL hockey under them as regulars. So that is 6 percent as you said. That’s the math in front of me…. those ad libs are hard!!!! ha.
But there it is for you. 6 percent. That also means that in that 10 year period that there were at least 11 teams that didn’t even land a single player in the NHL from that round. Imagine that. And Timmins lands these late picks regularly. Thanks John for taking the time to do it right with me. If you have any questions about it, I do have all the math in front of me and we don’t have to rely on a 54 year old memory of a guy trying not to run into a garbage can… lol
Let me tell you the other rounds from 2004 to 14 while I am at it okay.
round 2 67 out of 300 picks landed
round 3 36 out of 300 picks landed
round 4 29 out of 300 picks landed
round 5 19 out of 300 picks landed
round 6 15 out of 300 picks landed
I hope you find this interesting. The reason I did it is because I thought fans and media always overplayed the draft pick… that a veteran NHLer already proven he can play is worth more than a third round draft pick or even a second that lands so seldom. For example, look at the second rounder… that’s a one in five proposition basically.
Thanks for the additional info.
Do you have the number for round 1, 11-20?
You have us 1-5 (96%), 6-10 (84%) and 21-30 (<50%, can you be more specific?)
I can. I did it in increments of 5 all the way to round 6.
1 through 5 is 98 percent hit
6 through 10 is 84 percent
11 through 15 is 60 percent
16 through 20 is 64 percent (yeah, i know. 10 year sample. I am sure that would flatten out after more years)
21 through 25 is 46 percent
26 through 30 is 42 percent
31 through 35 is 30 percent
and so on…..
Thanks.
What neighborhood is this Brian?