May 20, 2009
NHL Entry Draft
Predicting Success Based On Draft Slot For Goaltenders

by Richard Pollock

Last week, I focused my attention on the ratio of starting NHL netminders that were selected early in the NHL Entry Draft, late in the draft or were not drafted at all. While the findings were a bit surprising, being that half the NHL’s starting netminders from this past season were drafted in the fourth round or below, I wanted to take the study one step further and evaluate whether drafting a goalie in the higher rounds was a better predictor of the netminder’s chance of making the NHL.

For this study, let’s use the years 1991 through 2001 as our sample time frame. In the past few studies, I have used the years 1994 through 2004, however, in this instance I will use 1991 through 2001 because goalies generally take longer to develop than forwards or defensemen. Now, let’s count the number of netminders drafted in each draft round, as well as the number of netminders who have played at least 100 games in the NHL.

	  1991  1992 1993 1994 1995  1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
1st round  0/0	 0/0  1/1  4/2	4/4  1/0  3/1  2/0  3/0	 2/1  4/1
2nd round  1/0	 2/1  3/1  1/1	2/0  3/1  3/0  2/0  3/1	 3/1  2/1
3rd round  3/2	 2/1  1/0  0/0	2/1  2/0  1/0  4/1  7/1	 3/1  3/1
4th round  2/1	 1/0  3/0  1/0	3/1  2/0  1/0  4/0  2/0	 4/0  5/1
5th round  7/1	 4/0  6/2  3/1	5/3  2/0  3/0  2/1  4/1	 4/0  6/1
6th round  0/0	 0/0  2/1  3/0	3/0  7/1  2/1  2/1  4/0	 4/1  4/1
7th round  1/0	 3/0  2/0  2/0	1/0  2/0  1/0  3/0  5/0	 4/1  5/1

 
	   1991	 1992  1993  1994  1995	 1996  1997  1998  1999	 2000  2001
All rounds 14/4	 12/2  18/5  14/4  20/9	 19/2  14/2  19/3  28/3	 24/5  29/7
Percentage 28%	 16%   27%   28%   45%	 10%   14%   15%   10%	 20%   24%

                        Total Goalies drafted in 
                        first seven rounds who have                
Total Goalies Drafted   played at least 100 NHL games	Total Percentage
         211	                    46	                       21%

Almost everyone knows that the draft is somewhat of a crapshoot. For all the work teams and scouts put into projecting the future production of teenagers, there is an element of luck involved as well. This element of luck may be even more apparent when it comes to goaltenders. As the above statistics indicate, only 20% of goaltenders drafted (in the first seven rounds) over the eleven draft years of 1991-2001 have played 100+ games in the NHL. While these are the overall numbers, is there greater likelihood of success for drafting goaltenders later in the draft as opposed to earlier?

Let’s examine the first three rounds versus the fourth through seventh rounds.

	               Rounds 1-3*               Rounds 4-7* 
Percentage of
netminders that
have played at
least 100 NHL games    (76/25)= 32%	         (135/21)=15%

*Drafted/Played 100 Games

Not surprisingly, drafting a goaltender higher in the draft makes it more likely that the player will play at least 100 games in the NHL. That said, the percentage of netminders (15%) who have become at least serviceable NHL netminders after the third round is not insignificant. On top of that, nine more netminders selected in rounds after the seventh (which do not exist anymore) have played in over 100 NHL games. So if you take into account the fact that it cost nothing, except for money, to sign an undrafted netminder, then over the course of the eleven years between 1991 through 2001, 22% (135/30) goalies drafted after the third round have played in at least 100 NHL games.

Maybe the important point we have to be aware of is the fact that there are only 60 goaltenders (30 starters and 30 backups) in the NHL on a regular basis. So, one has to wonder whether teams should be taking a chance on a goaltender so early when there are twelve active forward spots to fill and six defense spots.

Consider the top 30 NHL scorers this season:

	1st Round   2nd Round   3rd Round   4th Round   6th Round   Undrafted
Top 30 
Scorers	   21	        4	    1      	1	    2	        1

Of course, it first must be stated that there is more to the game than just producing points. Having said that, the name of the game is scoring goals. After examining these numbers, it clearly helps to draft forwards high up in the draft; as only four of the top 30 NHL point producers this season were drafted after the third round.

To compare, let’s look at the top 30 goalie save percentages this season:

	1st Round   2nd Round   3rd Round   5th Round   6th Round	
Top 30
Save
Percentage  6	       2	    4	        3	     1

        7th Round   8th Round   9th Round   Undrafted
Top 30
Save
Percentage  2          2            5           5

So, as top heavy as the top 30 NHL point producers were in terms of high draft selections, the goaltending numbers were far from the same. Looking more closely, twelve of the netminders with save percentages in the top 30 this season were drafted in the first three rounds. However, there were also twelve netminders who were drafted in the eighth round, ninth round or were not drafted at all that finished in the top 30 in goalie save percentage.

Overall, the numbers appear to affirm the idea that drafting a netminder high in the draft may not be worth a team’s while, especially when better forward options are available. With the way goalies tend to develop at different rates and the difficultly with projecting which ones will succeed and which ones will have more trouble, NHL teams are probably better off drafting forwards/defensemen early in the draft.