Protected Draft Territory - Alternate Draft History for the Year 2001

In an attempt to rectify what I see as the issues with the current NHL Draft Lottery, I came up with a proposal for each NHL team to be given what I call a Protected Draft Territory or P.D.T. For a better understanding of my proposal, see my previous article (How to Rectify the NHL Draft Lottery).

As I mentioned in my previous article (Protected Draft Territory – Alternate Draft History for the Year 2000) initially I had some misgivings that the application of the P.D.T. to the NHL Entry Draft would result in some level of unfairness for the U.S. based NHL teams. But as you will see below, the application of the P.D.T. to the year 2001 did not result in any discernible level of unfairness.

At this point I should rehash the P.D.T. rules that I applied to each NHL Entry Draft:

1. A player’s birth place, not his last amateur hockey team before becoming eligible for the NHL Entry Draft, determined which P.D.T., if any, the player would be eligible for.
2. Where more than one NHL team shares a natural territory (such as a province or a state), how close a player’s birth place is to an NHL team determined which P.D.T. the player would be eligible for.

In an attempt to keep the revised NHL Entry Drafts for each year as simple as possible, a third rule was also applied:

3. As each player was removed from the original entry draft because of designation under the P.D.T., the players below the removed player were moved up in the draft order. This seems rather arbitrary. But without any knowledge of what each team would have drafted had the player they originally drafted not been available, it seems like a fair compromise. So, for example, if the first player chosen in the original entry draft had been designated under the P.D.T., the second player chosen in the original entry draft was moved up to the first player chosen in the revised entry draft.

Once again, amazing how the application of these three simple rules to the NHL Entry Draft for the year 2001 could have dramatically altered the history of the NHL as we know it. Some key players on Cup winning teams simply might not have been there to help those teams secure their Cups or perhaps might have helped their new teams secure a Cup instead.

Table 1 below is actually two tables in one. The first six columns represent how the original NHL Entry Draft transpired. The second six columns represent how a revised NHL Entry Draft might have transpired after the application of the P.D.T. rules.

 Table 1.

For a casual fan, there are more than a few recognizable names from the original 2001 Entry Draft. For example, Ilya Kovalchuk, Jason Spezza, Stephen Weiss, Millo Koivu, Mike Komisarek, Ales Hemsky, etc.

As there was a player, Jason Spezza, who was taken 2^nd overall in the original draft, the application of the P.D.T. rule to the 2001 Entry Draft might have caused many other recognizable names to be drafted by different teams. For example, Stephen Weiss, Mikko Koivu, Tuomo Ruulu, Ales Hemsky, and Carlo Colaiacovo among others.

By looking closely at Table 1 above, we can see the players in Table 2 below are the players from the first round of the draft who would have been eligible for designation under the P.D.T.:

 

Table 2.

To the same casual fans, the most recognizable names from Table 2 above are Jason Spezza, Mike Komisarek, Dan Hamhuis, R.J. Umberger, and Derek Roy.

From the list of names above, the name having the most interest to Leafs fans would, of course, be Jason Spezza. The most obvious question – how much of an impact would Jason Spezza have made as a number 2 centre behind Mats Sundin? We’ll never know.

But, there are many more questions for endless speculation, discussion, and debate that the revised Entry Draft for 2001 could generate. Enjoy.