June 17, 2009
NHL Entry Draft
High Risk/High Reward

by Richard Pollock

For the past few weeks, we have been examining the value of draft picks in the Entry Draft. Most recently, we focused on the value of drafting forwards and, once again, realized the limited difference in the value between fifth round picks, sixth round picks, seventh round picks and undrafted free agents.

After reading last week’s draft column, my colleague Timo Seppa asked me whether the reason for the lack of disparity between later round draft picks was due to the fact that teams are aware of the minimal value difference between a fifth round pick and an undrafted free agent and consequently take a flier on a high risk/high reward player? Admittedly, this question piqued my interest. The concept certainly seems feasible, but is it true?

Well, what better way to analyze than to look at the numbers? For this analysis, we will once again use the years 1994-2004 to gather our statistics. Assuming the risk/reward theory, the top producers in each later draft round would probably be quite high; that is because a team, under this theory, would be more willing to take a risk on a player for a high return knowing that they can probably find a similar player in free agency after the Entry Draft.

Here are the numbers from the top ten percent of fifth round producers (in terms of points) over that eleven year span (excluding goaltenders):

Round 5
Top 10% Top Producer	         Second Leading Producer Third Leading Producer
1994	Nils Ekman 264/151	 Pavel Trnka 411/77	 Brian Swanson 70/17
1995	Jan Hrdina 513/297	 Vladimir Orzagh 289/119 Dale Purinton 181/20
1996	Richard Lintner  112/20	 Jesse Boulerice 172/10	 Bubba Berenzweig 37/10
1997	Kyle Calder 576/292	 Magnus Arvedson 434/225 Jason Chimera 422/155
1998	Jaroslav Spacek 701/303	 Rob Scuderi 300/39	 Tomas Kloucek 141/10
1999	Niko Dimitrakos 158/62	 Justin Mapletoft 38/9	 Derek MacKenzie 46/4
2000	J-M Liles 388/198	 Travis Moen 362/56	 Petteri Nummelin 139/45
2001	Kyle Wellwood 263/135	 Kevin Bieksa 226/103	 Cody McCormick 190/30
2002	James Wisniewksi 185/67	 Lasse Pirjeta 146/50	 Kris Newbury 44/6
2003	Lee Stempniak 294/161	 Nigel Dawes 133/51	 Brad Richardson 167/45
2004	Mikhail Grabovski 105/57 Kris Versteeg 91/57	 Mike Brown 67/5

From the numbers above, there really does not appear to be a signal that teams are taking high risk/reward players with the idea that there is a minimal difference in value. Rather, it simply appears that selecting players so late in the Entry Draft is as much a lottery as many would have you believe.

Take a look at the third leading producer column on the far right side. Is there anybody on this list with an abundance of offensive skill? These players are almost all checkers/enforcers—with the most offensive player being Jason Chimera. What this tells me is that teams are looking for any type of productive players they can at this point in the draft.

If the risk/reward theory were to be tested and true, then some of these players in the top ten percent would be generating some great offensive upside. Sure, the likes of Jaroslav Spacek, Kevin Bieksa and Lee Stempniak are solid offensive producers, but there is no real sign that these are high risk players. Obviously, teams are going to hit on a few later round draft picks, but considering the second column has an average of 72 career points, that is not exactly much reward.

So, is this the same for rounds six and seven? Let’s take a look.

Round 6
Top 10% Top Producer	        Second Leading Producer	 Third Leading Producer
1994	Dan Alfredsson 932/921  Alex Selivanov 459/235   Bates Battaglia 580/198
1995	Brent Sopel 515/203     Yannick Tremblay 390/125 Clarke Wilm 455/97
1996	Andreas Dackell 613/250	Brett Clark 453/119	 Brian Willsie 376/108
1997	Mike York 579/322	Brian Campbell 493/247	 Matt Cooke 659/241
1998	Pavel Datsyuk 526/522	Andrei Markov 571/329	 Ales Kotalik 445/251
1999	Riku Hahl 92/13	        Kent McDonell 32/3	 Fedor Fedorov 18/2
2000	Darcy Hordichuk 375/31	Jarno Kultanen 102/13	 Jukka Hentunen 38/9
2001	Marek Zidlicky 383/217	Jussi Jokinen 306/172	 Brooks Laich 315/130
2002	Paul Ranger 262/90	Ian White 240/79	 Jaroslav Balastik 74/24
2003	Bruno Gervais 207/45	Marc Methot 95/21	 Drew Miller 53/15
2004	Patrick Kaleta 98/16	Roman Polak 94/16	 Adam Pardy 60/10

Round 7
Top 10% Top Producer	         Second Leading Producer  Third Leading Producer
1994	Serge Aubin 374/108	 Colin Forbes 311/61	  Shane Hnidy 477/57
1995	P.J. Axelsson 797/287	 Stephane Robidas 561/135 Byron Ritchie 324/58
1996	Pavel Kubina 746/310	 Trevor Letowski 616/201  Sam Pahlsson 557/146
1997	Ladislav Nagy 435/311	 Todd Fedoruk 495/91	  Ben Guite 169/45
1998	Tyler Arnason 487/245	 Evgeny Korolev 42/5	  Erik Westrum 27/3
1999	H. Zetterberg 432/405    Martin Erat 478/303	  Radim Vrbata 440/232
2000	Matthew Lombardi 366/183 Antti Miettinen 320/135  Paul Gaustad 277/111
2001	Marek Svatos 262/153	 David Moss 163/68	  Johnny Oduya 233/66
2002	Nathan Oystrick 53/12	 Derek Meech 77/10	  Joey Crabb 29/9
2003	Joe Pavelski 208/127	 Kyle Brodziak 175/59	  Nathan Paetsch 146/40
2004	Chris Campoli 253/96	 Matt Hunwick 66/28	  Troy Brouwer 81/27

Now, here are the point averages for the top three producers in each of the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds:

Career Averages	Top Producer	Second Leading Producer	 Third Leading Producer
Fifth Round	158 points	72 points	         31 points
Sixth Round	239 points	123 points	         98 points
Seventh Round	203 points	99 points	         72 points

Once again, we see that sixth and seventh round draft picks generate a very similar, and in this case a better, return on investment. So, if teams consider fifth round picks to be of almost similar value to the sixth and seventh rounds (and undrafted free agents), they certainly do not demonstrate this belief with their draft picks.

There are two theories that could be applied here. First, that NHL teams believe sixth and seventh round picks, but not fifth round picks, are essentially the same as undrafted free agents and will use the risk/reward thought process to make their selections. Secondly, that NHL teams are merely always drafting the best player available and that the draft is such a crapshoot, especially with so many team ranking sheets being completely different after the first 30-45 picks, that the results of which players succeed and do not succeed is a mere coincidence.

Personally, I feel like this is probably a bit of column A and a bit of column B. NHL teams may, in fact, believe theory A—however, if they do, they should probably factor in the success, or lack thereof, of fifth round picks into that process (and start their risk/reward picks a round earlier). At the same time, NHL scouts are generally asked to select the best player available, so maybe the successful later round selections is just a matter of sheer luck?

Either way, it certainly makes you think a little bit more about your favorite team’s late round selections and the future development of the prospects selected on Entry Draft weekend.

Richard Pollock is an author of Puck Prospectus. You can contact Richard by clicking here or click here to see Richard's other articles. Richard is also Editor for the hockey website Illegal Curve.