Very risky business
Any NHL team will tell you prospects mined from the draft are never sure things
There is an unavoidable element of postulating that goes into every NHL draft. After all, teams are trying to project how an 18-year-old will eventually develop, which, as history shows, is not an exact science.
Since the 2000 draft through the 2010 edition, the Edmonton Oilers selected a total of 100 players. Fortythree of those players played at least one game in the NHL, some with Edmonton, some elsewhere, prior to the start of the 2013-14 season.
Contrast that with the rest of the league. Of the Los Angeles Kings’ 103 draft picks, 41 have played a game. The Montreal Canadiens chose 85 players, 38 of whom played at least one game. The New Jersey Devils? Thirty-seven of their 91 picks made it to the big leagues.
In total, the other 29 NHL teams selected a total of 2,640 players between 2000 and 2010, and 1,060 played at least one NHL game prior to the start of the past season.
There’s also some disparity here given that some teams — like the Oilers — had the advantage of selecting in the earlier rounds, including, of course, their three consecutive first overall selections.
Then again, holding an early pick and making the right selections aren’t necessarily synonymous.
Jesse Niinimaki was one of the Oilers’ first-round flops. His time in North America was limited to 24 games with the American Hockey League’s Edmonton Road Runners in 2004-05. He scored once.
The next season, he was back in Finland, where he has managed to carve out a career. In 50 games with the Pelicans last season, he registered nine goals and 29 points. He has since signed with Amur Khabarovsk in the Kontinental Hockey League.
Niinimaki, who was ranked 50th on the list of European skaters prior to the draft, was selected 15th in 2002.
In 2003, Marc Pouliot turned out to be another first-round misstep.
The Oilers had the 17th pick, but elected to trade it to the Devils for the 22nd and 68th selections. In short, instead of grabbing Zach Parise (the Devils took him with the 17th pick) or Ryan Getzlaf, who went to the Anaheim Ducks with the 19th selection, the Oilers took the Rimouski Oceanic centre, with whom they cut ties in 2010. He scored 53 points in 176 games.
Edmonton hasn’t been alone in its screw-ups.
The Tampa Bay Lightning secured Steven Stamkos with the first overall pick in 2008, but two years earlier used the 15th selection to take goaltender Riku Helenius, who played all of seven minutes in one NHL game.
The Atlanta Thrashers selected defenceman Boris Valabik 10th overall in 2004. He went on to play just 80 NHL games, none since 2009-10.
In 2007, immediately after Patrick Kane, James Van Riemsdyk and Kyle Turris were selected, the Kings chose defenceman Thomas Hickey ahead of Karl Alzner, Sam Gagner and Jakub Vorachek. He played 121 NHL games, all with the New York Islanders.
The Columbus Blue Jackets passed on the likes of Mikkel Boedker and Colin Wilson to pick Nikita Filatov with the sixth overall selection in 2008. He played just 53 NHL games, scoring 14 points, before he returned to Russia.
It should also be noted that until the Oilers secured their own American Hockey League franchise, there hadn’t been a firm focus on development, which can impact the end result of the drafting process.
In 2006-07, the Oilers had agreements with five AHL teams and still had to farm prospects with the Stockton Thunder in the ECHL.
The development of goaltender Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, a 2002 draft pick, was certainly hampered when he was vying for playing time with the Pittsburgh Penguins’ affiliate at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pa. The year before that, DrouinDeslauriers played just 13 games while parked in Hamilton watching Montreal Canadiens prospect Yann Danis start the bulk of the games.
Devan Dubnyk spent the 2006 season in the ECHL when the Oilers could not find an AHL home for their 2004 draft pick.
By 2007-08, the Oilers had a three-year agreement with the Springfield Falcons (former affiliate of the Tampa Bay Lightning). In 2010, they revived their dormant Road Runners franchise and relocated it to Oklahoma City, where they now control the hockey operations.
At that point, the focus also shifted to developing the prospects in the Oilers’ farm system.
The club has since added another extension, having purchased the ECHL’s Bakersfield Condors.
Defenceman Martin Marincin (46th in 2010) benefited from his time with the Barons, as did Oscar Klefbom, who wasn’t ready for the NHL when he made his way from Sweden to Edmonton last September.
Both finished the 2013-14 season with the Oilers.
Of the Oilers’ 22 draft picks who played in an NHL game last season, only 10 are still with the organization, including Marincin and Klefbom.
That the Oilers finished 28th overall in 2013-14 is the real bottom line.
The Chicago Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Kings — the Western Conference finalists — lined up with several players they drafted and developed. Of the 22 players on the Blackhawks’ playoff roster, 11 were draft picks.
Eleven of the 21 Kings playing in the post-season were Los Angeles draft picks.