Toronto Maple Leaf Scouting - Good or Bad? Toronto vs. Chicago

After the previous article in this series (Toronto Maple Leaf Scouting – Good or Bad? Toronto vs. Detroit), hopefully there has been a change in the perceived notation in Leafs Nation that the drafting of their beloved Leafs has been abysmal over the past decade or so. It should be noted that this period of time roughly corresponds to when Dave Morrison was Director of Amateur Scouting for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The new management group of the Toronto Maple Leafs has stated that their goal is to rebuild into a perennial Stanley Cup contending team. To do that, in today’s NHL, the two main areas that must be improved upon are drafting and development.

As drafting was the first item of business that came up after the end of the last season (2014/15), it should be interesting to compare the draft history of the Maple Leafs to some of the other NHL teams who are perceived to have had strong drafting records. To keep the scope of this comparison focused, we will concentrate on the drafts from the years starting in 2006 – the year Dave Morrison was appointed Director of Amateur Scouting for the Maple Leafs.

Looking around the NHL, the one team who has had recent success in the ultimate goal of actually winning Stanley Cups is the Chicago Blackhawks. After each season (2010, 2013, and 2015) when they have won the Stanley Cup the Blackhawks have had to dismantle a good chunk of their team to be able to remain compliant under the salary cap. Each time they have had to do this, they have been able to reach down into their farm system and pluck a player or two who has played a significant role in a future Cup win. The sheer fact that the Blackhawks have been able to do this must speak volumes about the quality of their drafting. This being the case, let’s compare the Blackhawk’s drafting record to the drafting record of the Leafs during the years from 2006 to 2011.

There is one major caveat that has to be acknowledged before we go any further with this analysis – we do not know, and probably never will know, who had the final say in choosing the Leaf's draft picks since 2006 – was it strictly the call of Dave Morrison or were any of his recommendations overridden by others in the ranks of Leafs management?

To start, let’s look at a chart showing all the players drafted by the Leafs since 2006. But first, an explanation of what each of the columns means:

1. Current Team – NHL team owning that player’s rights. If blank, player is still with the Leafs.
2. Draft Yr / Round – NHL Entry Draft Year and Round number.
3. Overall Pick – Within each Round, Leafs’ draft position. If red, Leafs didn’t have pick. If yellow, Leafs had extra pick.
4. Player – Name of player Leafs picked.
5. P o s – Position drafted player plays. 
6. Total NHL Games Played – Total number of NHL games player has played by end of 2014/15 season.
7. NHL Games for TML – Total number of NHL games player has played for Leafs by end of 2014/15 season.
8. Difference – Difference between 6 and 7.
9. NHL Games Post Draft – Total number of NHL games after NHL Entry Draft year.
10. Super Aggressive NHL Games – Total number of games a player should have played if they were on a super aggressive path to the NHL. i.e. Played in NHL next year after being drafted. An ‘x’ in this column indicates that the player followed this path to the NHL.
11. Aggressive NHL Games – Total number of NHL games a player should have played if they were on an aggressive path to the NHL. i.e. Played in NHL 2nd year after being drafted. (Draft + 1). An ‘x’ in this column indicates that the player followed this path to the NHL.
12. Conservative NHL Games - Total number of NHL games a player should have played if they were on a conservative path to the NHL. i.e. Played in NHL 3rd year after being drafted. (Draft + 2). An ‘x’ in this column indicates that the player followed this path to the NHL.
13. Ultra Conservative NHL Games - Total number of NHL games a player should have played if they were on an ultra conservative path to the NHL. i.e. Played in NHL 4th year after being drafted. (Draft + 3). An ‘x’ in this column indicates that the player followed this path to the NHL.

There’s a few interesting points which jump out immediately from the above chart:

1. This chart covers a total of 9 years and in those 9 years (each with 7 rounds), there was a total of 63 draft picks that each NHL team would have been given.
2. The Leafs actually made 61 picks out of the total of 63 picks available to them.
3. By the end of the 2014/15 season, of the 61 picks the Leafs made, 23 have gone on to play in the NHL.
4. Of those 23 that have played NHL games, 20 of them have played for the Leafs.
5. The Super Aggressive path has been followed with only one player – Luke Schenn.
6. The Aggressive path has been followed with three players, Jiri Tlusty, Nazem Kadri, and Morgan Rielly.
7. The Conservative path has been followed with two players – Nikolay Kulemin and Carl Gunnarsson.
8. The Ultra Conservative path has been followed with the vast majority of players – fourteen.
9. There are a lot of Red boxes (15) in the Overall Pick column. This indicates where the Leafs did NOT have a pick in a particular round.
10. There are a lot of Yellow boxes (13) in the Overall Pick column. This indicates where the Leafs had an EXTRA pick in a particular round.

The perception of the Leafs’ draft record, to a casual fan, for the past 9 years certainly would have included the idea that the Leafs were hobbled in their drafting by the notion that they had traded away a lot of their picks. But as shown, the Leafs still made 61 picks out of a possible total of 63. The Leafs did trade away a lot of picks (15), but they also acquired a lot of picks (13) in trades with other teams. Of course, a lot of pressure was placed on the scouting staff when 1st and 2nd round picks were traded away and replaced, for the most part, with picks in the 5th, 6th, or 7th rounds.

As the Leafs have followed the Ultra Conservative approach with the vast majority of their players, any attempt to quantify the quality of the Leafs draft picks should only include players drafted from the years 2006 to 2011. Looking at those years, the Leafs drafted a total of 44 players, 22 of which went on to play games in the NHL –a 50% success rate. Eliminating anyone who did not play an NHL game for the Leafs leaves 19 players – approximately a 43% success rate. Would these rates be considered bad or good? Only comparisons to the records of other teams will shed any light on that question.

In that vein, let’s compare the Leafs’ record versus the record for the Chicago Blackhawks. Here’s the Blackhawk’s chart covering the same years as the Leafs’ chart above:

There’s a few interesting points which jump out immediately from Chicago’s chart above:

1. This chart covers a total of 9 years and in those 9 years (each with 7 rounds), there was a total of 63 draft picks that each NHL team would have been given.
2. The Blackhawks actually made 77 picks out of the total of 63 picks available to them.
3. By the end of the 2014/15 season, of the 77 picks the Blackhawks made, 21 have gone on to play in the NHL.
4. Of those 21 that have played NHL games, 17 of them have played for the Blackhawks.
5. The Super Aggressive path has been followed with two players – Patrick Kane & Andrew Shaw.
6. The Aggressive path has been followed with three players – Jonathan Toews & Brandon Saad.
7. The Conservative path has been followed with four players.
8. The Ultra Conservative path has been followed with eight players.
9. There are a few Red boxes (8) in the Overall Pick column. This indicates where the Blackhawks did NOT have a pick in a particular round.
10. But there are A LOT of Yellow boxes (22) in the Overall Pick column. This indicates where the Blackhawks had an EXTRA pick in a particular round.

To a casual fan, the perception of the Blackhawks draft record for the past 9 years would have included the notion that the Blackhawks had drafted OK but had been lucky enough to secure a top 3 pick and follow that up the next year (2007) with a win of the Draft Lottery and the 1st overall pick. With two rather healthy doses of luck, the Blackhawks were able to secure Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane respectively. Putting aside this lucky aspect for a moment, the Blackhawks made 77 picks out of a possible total of 63 – quite a few (16) more than the Leafs. The Blackhawks did trade away a few picks (8) but more than made up for those by acquiring a lot of picks (22) in trades with other teams. Unlike the Leafs, the Blackhawks did NOT place a lot of pressure on their scouting staff by trading away higher round (1st, 2nd, and 3rd)  picks and replacing them with lower round (5th, 6th, and 7th) picks.

In looking at the Blackhawks' “model”, it is apparent they allowed their draft picks to play at the NHL level when they were ready – no extra years of “baking” them in junior or in the AHL as per the Detroit “model”. This makes quantifying the quality of the Blackhawks draft picks a little more difficult but to make the comparison with the Leafs a little simpler, only the players drafted from the years 2006 to 2011 will be included. Looking at those years, the Blackhawks drafted a total of 52 players, 21 of which went on to play games in the NHL –approximately a 40% success rate. Eliminating anyone who did not play an NHL game for the Blackhawks leaves 17 players – approximately a 33% success rate.

OK, now that there are some basic numbers to compare, let’s see how the Leafs’ drafting has stood up against the defending Stanley Cups champion Chicago Blackhawks. Here’s a chart showing a simple breakdown of the numbers:

As both teams mostly follow the Ultra Conservative path for their players, the chart above does a comparison of the drafting record for each team from the year 2006 up to and including the year 2011 – if they are following an Ultra Conservative path, any players drafted in 2012, 2013, or 2014 should not be playing in the NHL. In the case of the Leafs, we have removed Morgan Rielly from the numbers above as he was drafted in 2012.

Once again, the chart above blows away quite a few of the misconceptions concerning the drafting record of the Leafs.

1. For the time period in question, the Leafs had fewer draft picks than the Blackhawks – 44 vs. 52.
2. Of each team’s respective picks, a substantially higher percentage of the Leafs picks have gone on to play in the NHL – 50% vs. 40%.
3. Of each team’s respective picks, a substantially higher percentage of the Leafs picks have gone on to play in the NHL for the Leafs – 43% vs. 33%.

Supporters of the Blackhawk’s draft record would attempt to counter the chart above by saying that the quality of the Blackhawk’s draft picks far surpassed the Leafs’ draft picks. Of course, this is true. It would be hard to argue that over the 2006 to 2011 time period the Leafs have drafted any players who would stack up favourably to a Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane. Supporters of the Leafs would counter by pointing out that the Leafs did NOT have the benefit of having the 1st and 3rd overall draft picks. The highest the Leafs drafted in the 2006 to 2011 time frame would be 5th and 7th overall. As everyone knows, the quality of each draft varies widely after the first 2 to 4 picks.

Perhaps the Hawks drafting superiority can be found in the total number of NHL games their drafted players have played?

How about the total number of NHL games each team’s drafted players have played for them?

How about the total number of NHL games each team’s drafted players have played for other teams?

OK, now we’ve found something.

But the chart above does NOT speak to the drafting record of the Leafs. Instead, it says volumes about the development record of the Leafs. A topic that’ll be looked at in detail in subsequent articles.

One final way to compare the drafting record of the Blackhawks and the Leafs would be to look at the top-5 players each team has drafted. Here’s the Blackhawk’s list ranked by Total NHL Games Played.

That’s a pretty solid list, led by the 1st and 3rd overall picks of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. This group has a combined total of 1880 NHL games played.

A couple of interesting points jump out from that list. First, all these players have played all their games for the Blackhawks – this will change this upcoming season as the Blackhawks dealt Brandon Saad to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Second, there are a couple of later round (5th) gems in that bunch – Marcus Kruger and Andrew Shaw.

Here’s the Leafs’ list ranked by Total NHL Games Played. Since he is a goalie, James Reimer has been thrown in as an extra bonus for the Leafs.

What a difference. This group has a combined total of 1716 NHL games played (excluding James Reimer).

Leafs supporters will attempt to explain away the underwhelming list above by saying that the Leafs did not have the benefit of a 1st and 3rd overall draft pick. True enough, but that argument is somewhat undermined by the fact that the Leafs did have a 5th and 7th overall draft pick. As well, the latest draft year from which the Leafs players were taken was 2009, in contrast to the Blackhawks who took two of their listed players in the 2011 draft.

Interesting points from the Leafs list? On the bright side, like the Blackhawks the Leafs were also able to reach into the later rounds to pluck out a couple of decent players – Carl Gunnarson and Leo Komarov. But this is overshadowed by the fact that Carl Gunnarson and their other “top-2” players all play for different teams now!

On the surface, it seems that the Leafs’ drafting record stacks up very favourably versus the Blackhawk's drafting record. Scratching that surface though reveals that the quality of the players drafted by the Leafs does not stack up favourably against the Blackhawks. Some of this can be explained away by the Leafs not having a 1st and 3rd overall pick. Some of it can be explained away by the Leafs not having a pick in a deep 2010 draft until the 2nd round or a pick in the equally deep 2007 draft until the 3rd round! But none of those explanations can explain away all the discrepancies. In this case, it seems that the Leafs’ amateur scouting department and its former head, Dave Morrison, was out-drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks.






All numbers courtesy www.hockeydb.com

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Steven Stamkos

As each day passes without Steven Stamkos signing an extension with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the speculation in Leafs Nation grows that perhaps he might actually become a free agent and suit up for the Toronto Maple Leaf to start the 2016/2017 season.

Whether Steven Stamkos will become a free agent or even whether he wants to become a Toronto Maple Leaf is irrelevant to this article. The relevant point is whether the Toronto Maple Leafs should even pursue Steven Stamkos if he becomes a free agent after the 2015/2016 season.

To make that decision, it might help to do a simple chart of the pros and cons.

It has to be assumed that Stamkos and his team are looking for a “max” contract (8 years) with at least comparable dollars ($10.5 million) to the Toews and Kane extensions. That equates out to $84 million over eight years. 

Looking at the last con point from a Lightning perspective, they already have $48.535 million committed to 14 players for the 2016/2017 season. After adding in a Stamkos contract at the bargain-basement rate of $10.5 million/season, the salary cap number becomes $59.035 million for 15 players. Assuming the salary cap rises to approximately $74 million by the start of the 2016/2017 season – that would give Tampa approximately $15 million to add 8 more players to their roster – a difficult but not impossible proposition.

Complicating the difficult (but not impossible!) situation above is the fact that at the end of this coming season (2015/2016) the Lightning will have 5 players who will be Restricted Free Agents (RFAs) – Alex Killorn, J.T. Brown, Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov, and Cedric Paquette. All 5 of those names played in last season’s playoffs – 4 of them playing most, if not all, of the games. At the end of the 2015/2016 season, in addition to Stamkos, there will be 1 other Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA) who also played all of Tampa’s playoff games last season – Braydon Coburn. As 5 of these 6 players were relied upon to make contributions during Tampa’s long playoff run to the Stanley Cup finals last season, presumably retaining their services would be a desirable outcome for Tampa. In that scenario, assuming all 5 players would be looking for healthy raises, Tampa could find themselves very close to the salary cap with another 3 players still needed to fill out their roster. The difficulty rating has just risen a notch or two.

Looking ahead to the end of the 2016/2017 season, 5 of Tampa’s key players for the future – Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Andrej Sustr, Andrej Vasilevsky, and Victor Hedman are scheduled to become RFAs or UFAs. The difficult situation from the end of the 2015/2016 season has likely become an almost impossible proposition.

Being the astute G.M. that he has proven himself to be, no doubt Steve Yzerman and his crack team have been running through these scenarios (and more!) since the end of Tampa’s season. The two difficult scenarios they likely keep finding themselves in are the scenarios where they keep Steven Stamkos and risk losing some of their younger core players, or they lose Steven Stamkos in the hopes of being able to keep their younger core players.

As the second scenario has the most interest for Maple Leaf fans, let’s take a closer look at that one.

Up front, let’s dismiss the notion that Steve Yzerman is going to be able to trade Steven Stamkos and get back anything of value. After all, which G.M. is going to offer more than a bag-o-pucks in a trade for Stamkos when he knows full well that if Stamkos hasn’t signed a contract extension up to the point when he’s traded, Stamkos is going home to Toronto. In this scenario, in a strange way, it almost makes sense for Yzerman to keep Stamkos and hope that with him the Lightning can win the Stanley Cup they came oh-so-close to winning last season. Not sure how well the ownership group in Tampa would react to losing Stamkos for nothing, but everyone getting their picture taken around the Cup might help alleviate the sting a bit!

With the above situation front-of-mind, you can believe that Brendan Shanahan and his crack team have also been running through scenarios to see if it would make sense to pursue Steven Stamkos if he was to become a free agent at the end of the 2015/2016 season.

No matter the different scenarios that are run or the ways it is approached, the main sticking point for the Leafs should be the last con point – he’ll be expensive. If Stamkos was to become a free agent and look to join the Leafs, the longest term contract the Leafs could offer him would be 7 years. Taking the conservative estimate above of $10.5 million/year over 8 years (or $84 million), the Leafs would have to give Stamkos $12 million/year over 7 years just to MATCH that offer!

Don’t get me wrong. Stamkos is a great player and would certainly go a long way towards getting the Leafs’ rebuild on the rails and heading down the tracks in the right direction – but is he really worth $12 million/year? Or more accurately, can the Leafs afford to tie up that much money in 1 player for 7 years? Wouldn’t the Leafs find themselves in the same conundrum that the Tampa Bay Lightning find themselves in now?

Of course, until such time as the G.T.A. born Stamkos signs a contract extension with Tampa, the speculation in Leafs Nation will run rampant, but for the Toronto Maple Leafs, it should definitely be a buyer-beware situation.