Protected Draft Territory - Summary for the Years 2000 to 2014 – Part2

With the completion of the fifteenth and last article (Protected Draft Territory – Alternate Draft History for the Year 2014) in the series describing the results of implementing a Protected Draft Territory (P.D.T.) for each NHL team and the alternate history for the NHL Entry Drafts that would have resulted, it is now possible to summarize the results and look at whether my suggested solution to rectify the problems with the NHL Entry Draft is a viable one.

In Part 1 of this article, we saw how the first 10 teams fared under the P.D.T. Some teams would have done very well (Toronto), some teams would have done OK, and some teams would not have done so well. In this article, we’ll turn our attention to the middle 10 teams (starting with the NY Islanders) and their results. Looking at Table 1 below things look grim.

Table 1.

Picking up with the eleventh team in the above table, the NY Islanders would have been able to designate a player under their P.D.T. for six of the fifteen years. Here is that list of players:

Table 2.

A closer look at the above table shows that of the four players who have played NHL games, all four had or are having very solid NHL careers. So although the Islanders wouldn’t have had a large quantity of players designated under their P.D.T., their results would have been fairly good. In fact, their results might end up being even better as the jury is still out on what kind of NHL careers the other two players listed for the years 2013 and 2014 might have.

Looking at the results for the 12^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that the NY Rangers would have fared extremely poorly under the P.D.T.:

Table 3.

Even though it can be said that the jury is still out for Steven Santini in the 2013 spot and perhaps might still be out for Tim Erixon from 2009,  there is only one other player who is having a good if not sold NHL career – Zach Bogosian.

Looking at the results for the 13^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that even though Chicago would have had almost as many players designated under their P.D.T. as the NY Islanders, their results would have been somewhat worse:

Table 4.

As the jury could still be considered to be out for the two players from the years 2012 and 2013, that leaves three other players. Of those three, two are still active in the NHL. Again, even though their quantity might be lower than other teams, Chicago’s quality is very respectable.

Looking at the results for the 14^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that the jury would still be out on Anaheim’s P.D.T. picks:

Table 5.

Of the four players above, two saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Emerson Etem and Jonathon Blum. The other two players would still be considered works-in-progress.

Looking at the results for the 15th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Dallas had much fewer designations under their P.D.T. but would have fared very well in the quality department:

Table 6.

Of the four players, two have turned into good NHL players – Seth Jones and Tyler Myers but the other two players still might develop into solid if not good NHL players.

Looking at the results for the 16^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that New Jersey would have not fared very well with quantity but would have made up for it with quality under their P.D.T:

Table 7.

Two players – James Van Riemsdyk and Bobby Ryan who are solid NHL players. As well one player taken in 2014 who could still turn into something of significance.

Looking at the results for the 17^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Colorado would not have fared very well under the P.D.T.:

Table 8.

Of the three players above, one had a decent if not spectacular NHL career, one was a bust, and the jury is still out on another. Not the kind of results to be expected from a team located in an area that most would consider “friendly” to hockey.

Looking at the results for the 18^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that even though Winnipeg would not have had the benefit of making designations under the P.D.T. until 2012 (since they only rejoined the league in 2011), they are more than making up for it now:

Table 9.

Even though there are three players listed above, one is turning out to be a solid NHL player while the jury would still definitely be out on the remaining two.

Looking at the results for the 19^th team from Table 1. above, it seems that Arizona (Phoenix) has fared very badly under the P.D.T.:

Table 10.

But while the number of players they would have been able to designate under their P.D.T. would have been small, it seems grass-roots hockey is taking hold in the desert and one quality player, with perhaps another on the way,  in the past four years is not a bad return. Of course, we can peak ahead and see that Arizona would absolutely be salivating at the player they would be able to designate under their P.D.T. in 2016 – Auston Matthews – the current consensus 1^st overall pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.

Looking at the results for the 20^th team from Table 1. above, similar to  Arizona, it seems that Columbus’ results are abysmal. But like Arizona. It seems that Columbus’ trend is heading in the right direction with two players being eligible for designation under their P.D.T. in the past four years:

Table 11.

Of the two players above, one is a solid NHL player while the other is still too early in his development path to know what his NHL career might be.

Looking at the results presented in this article from the middle 10 NHL teams, it is not surprising to see the quantity of players that would have been designated under the P.D.T. declining. But as noted for a few of the teams, what they were lacking in quantity was more than made up for in quality. And most encouraging, the results for a few of the teams is trending in the right direction – up.

In the third and last article in this series, we’ll look at what results the bottom 10 teams would have been able to secure under the P.D.T. and come up with some suggestions on how those results could be improved.

Protected Draft Territory - Summary for the Years 2000 to 2014 - Part 1

With the completion of the fifteenth and last article (Protected Draft Territory – Alternate Draft History for the Year 2014) in the series describing the results of implementing a Protected Draft Territory (P.D.T.) for each NHL team and the alternate history for the NHL Entry Drafts that would have resulted, it is now possible to summarize the results and look at whether my suggested solution to rectify the problems with the NHL Entry Draft is a viable one.

If a poll had been taken, right after publication of the original article (How to Rectify the NHL Draft Lottery) which launched this series, on which of the NHL teams would have benefited the most from the implementation of a P.D.T. rule, the overwhelming majority of respondents would have said ALL the NHL’s Canadian teams - probably in this order. Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Edmonton,  Calgary, and Winnipeg.

As it turned out, those respondents would have been mostly correct, except there are some interesting results from a few of the NHL’s U.S. teams. Of the data collected over the fifteen years from 2000 to 2014, here are how many players, from the 1^st and early 2^nd rounds of the original entry drafts, each of the NHL’s teams would have been able to designate under their P.D.T.:

Table 1.

There are some interesting results in Table 1 above but we’ll start out by looking at the most predictable of results.

We can see from the above table that Toronto would have been able to designate a player under their P.D.T. for each of the fifteen years. Here is that list of players:

Table 2.

A closer look at the above table shows that twelve of the fifteen players are currently playing in the NHL. Of those twelve players, eight are centres. Toronto would have had such a plethora of centres that they likely would have run into the same cap problems other teams (Chicago, Boston, etc.) have and been forced to shed many of these quality centres to other teams for prospects and/or picks.

Looking at the results for the 2^nd team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Minnesota would have fared almost as well as Toronto under the P.D.T.:

Table 3.

A closer look at Minnesota’s results shows the majority of players they likely would have designated under their P.D.T. would have been defensemen – six of the thirteen. Minnesota would have been able to build from defense out. Their current defense core, assuming they didn’t run into cap problems, would be comprised of Ryan Suter, Ryan McDonagh, Nick Leddy, Jake Gardiner, Erik Johnson, and Keith Ballard – a very solid six.

Looking at the results for the 3^rd team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that even though Edmonton would have had as many players designated under their P.D.T. as Minnesota, their results would have been somewhat worse:

Table 4.

Of the thirteen players above, only five are currently active in the NHL – Jay Bouwmeester, Dion Phaneuf, Kyle Chipchura, Bryan Little, and Tyler Ennis. Perhaps Edmonton would have fared better in the revised Entry Drafts?

Looking at the results for the 4^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that even though Calgary would have had almost as many players designated under their P.D.T. as Minnesota, their results would not have been as good:

Table 5.

Of the twelve players above, six saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Ty Rattie, Taylor Hall, Zach Boychuk, Thomas Hickey, Devin Setoguchi, and Jeff Schultz. For three of the players, William Nylander, Josh Morrissey, and Mitch Moroz it is still too early to tell what the duration of their NHL careers will be.

Looking at the results for the 5th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that even though Montreal would have had as many players designated under their P.D.T. as Calgary (12), their results would have been somewhat worse:

Table 6.

Of the twelve players above, only four saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Jonathan Drouin, Jonathan Huberdeau, Derick Brassard, and Marc Andre Fleury. For one other player – Michael Matheson – it is still probably too early to tell what the duration of his NHL careers might be.

Looking at the results for the 6^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Vancouver, with the same number of players designated under their P.D.T., would have fared substantially better than Montreal.

Table 7.

Of the twelve players above, only one did not see action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Kyle Beach! That is a pretty remarkable stat.

Looking at the results for the 7^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Detroit, with almost the same number of players designated under their P.D.T. as Vancouver, would not have fared quite as well.

 Table 8.

Of the eleven players above,eight saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Aaron Ekblad, Jacob Trouba, Rocco Grimaldi, Ian Cole, Chris Summers, Ryan Kesler, Jim Slater, Tim Gleason, and Andy Hibert. For one other player – Michael McCarron – the jury is still out on how long his NHL career might be.

Looking at the results for the 8^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Ottawa, with the same number of players designated under their P.D.T. as Detroit, would have fared almost as well.

Table 9.

Of the eleven players above,seven saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Slater KoekKoek, Erik Gudbranson, Matt Duchene, Eric O’Dell, Benoit Pouliot, Derek Roy, and Justin Williams. For two of the other players – Eric Cornel and Remi Elie –it is still to early to tell how long their NHL careers might be.

Looking at the results for the 9^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Boston, with a fewer number of players designated under their P.D.T. than Ottawa, would have fared almost as well.

Table 10.

Of the eight players above,seven saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Connor Murphy, Kevin Hayes, Chris Kreider, John Carlson, Cory Schneider, Brian Boyle, and Ron Hainsey. A pretty remarkable stat!

Looking at the results for the 10^th team from Table 1. above, it is apparent that Buffalo, with the same number of players designated under their P.D.T. as Boston, have fared slightly worse.

Table 11.

Of the eight players above, five saw action in the NHL during the 2014/2015 season – Adam Clendening, Tom McCollum, Patrick Kane, Nick Foligno, and Dustin Brown. A further two players – Alex Tuch and Dylan Blujus – are still too early into their respective careers to know how long their NHL careers might be.

Looking at the results from the top 10 teams under the P.D.T. presented in this article, it is not surprising to see six of the current seven Canadian teams represented. Perhaps it is no surprise to see two or three of what would be considered solid U.S. hockey markets represented in the top 10 – Minnesota, Boston, and maybe Detroit.  The real surprise, and a beacon for better results for the remaining twenty teams, is Buffalo.

In the second article in this series, we’ll look at what results those remaining twenty teams would have been able to secure under the P.D.T.