rakish

Last call on the rakish 2015 draft competition. Today I will go over rules, start to put together a sample team for you, then look at last years competition and announce a winner. The rules are simple. Put together a draft board that the Sabres pick from. I find that you need about 50-100 picks, more or less depending if your picks are mainstream. As an example, the Hockey News' 82nd ranked player got chosen after 181, so they needed 82 to fill all the Sabres' picks. I needed roughly 30 last year. Remember, you are not guaranteed 2,21,31,51, etc. Murray could trade, say, 21 and 31, for 12, and the judges don't want to hear that Barzel would have been on your board had you known you would be picking at 12. Goalies are a good pick, I don't take them. The judges will eliminate you from the competition if you flagrantly try to game the World Juniors leg of the competition. Last year, due to his choosing a Czech in the second round, the judges were considering penalizing Tim Murray, but as it turned out, injury kept Karabacek out of the World Juniors, so the governing body decided the issue was moot, thus the case dismissed. How to put together a team, it's easy. Start with who you want the Sabres to pick second. McDavid Eichel Then add who you want if they trade up to 3. Hanifan Marner Strome Provarov Connor Then if you want a Russian theme: Guryanov Svechnikov At this point, if the Sabres pick at 21, I expect one of these guys to be available. So if Connor is available, your team might be Eichel, Connor, etc... Remember to list some overagers, the NHL vastly underrates them, and they have a good shot of playing the World Juniors. Last years competition had few entries. For instance McKenzie removes his old rankings from the internet. This year I saved his ranking, but last year I don't have. Pronman sits behind a paywall, and I don't care that much. I did find his 2015 ranking on facebook, so both McKenzie and Pronman will be in this year's competition. Last year's four competitors and their WJC point totals. Tim Murray: #2 Sam Reinhart (USA) 7 5 6 #31 Brendan Lemieux #44 Eric Cornel #49 Vaclav Karabacek #61 Jonas Johansson #74 Brycen Martin #121 Maxwell Willman #151 Chris Brown #181 Victor Olofsson (SWE) 7 0 1 Button: #2 Sam Reinhart (USA) 7 5 6 #31 Vlad Kamenev (Russia) 7 1 3 #44 Braydon Point (Canada) 7 2 2 #49 Anton Karlsson (Swe) 7 0 2 #61 Ondrej Kase (Czech) 5 1 1 #74 Brycen Martin #121 Spencer Watson #151 Vladislav Gavrikov (Russia) 7 0 0 #181 Emil Johansson The Hockey News: #2 Bennett (injured for WJC) #31 Barbashev (Russia) 7 3 3 #44 McKeown #49 Dougherty #61 Brycen Martin #74 Dyson Mayo #121 Adam Ollas Mattsson #151 Axel Holmstrom (SWE) 7 1 6 #181 Jacob Middleton rakish: #2 Reinhart(USA) 7 5 6 #31 Barbashev(Russia) 7 3 3 #44 Holmstrom (SWE) 7 1 6 #49 Glover #61 Engvall #74 Point (Canada) 7 2 2 #121 Mayo #151 Bristedt (SWE) 7 0 0 #181 Kontos For the WJC leg of this competition, Button finished with 9 goals and 14 assists in 40 games played. rakish finished with 11 goals and 17 assists in 35 games played. In the one-year-later 50 best draft picks leg of the competition. The Hockey News had Bennett(4), Holmstrom(22), Martin(32), Barbashev(42), Dougherty(45). rakish, who made the one-year-later 50 best draft picks list (so here you should roll your eyes), had Holmstrom(22), Point(35), Engvall(41), Barbashev(42), Reinhart(48). The winner? It's close, we'll go with The Hockey News.

Would love to see your list of 14. I've been trying to coerce people around here to put up a ranking so we can compare how they did vs. Murray in a few years. From looking at old rankings, it takes about 50 or so to cover the 7 rounds. Maybe 20 for me. As I've said, I think the dropoff happens after 9. I think Murray goes goaltender at 21, but for me, all goaltender stats are useless, which leaves my faux-Sabres likely drafting D at 21.

Oliver

I have 3 lists for you. It'll take some interaction from you to get to my argument together. The first list is overage players drafted 2007-2012 or so. It includes a couple undrafted players. Essentially it's players that were not drafted at age 17. I was going for a sabrespace team list, but I couldn't ignore the 'Smith' line, so there are a few too many players. I'm certain there is a mistake or two of players being drafted at 17, then redrafted at say 19, so any error detection would be helpful. My first question, if you care to play, is why none of these guys were drafted at age 17? Gustav Nyquist - Tyler Johnson - Ondrej Palat Mike Hoffman - Jori Lehtera - Carl Hagelin Wayne Simmonds - Tanner Pearson - Anders Lee Andrew Shaw - Marcus Kruger - Nick Bonino Craig Smith - Zack Smith - Ben Smith Tommy Wingels - TJ Galiardi - Jordon Nolan Torey Krug - Jason Demers Matt Martin - Carl Gunnersson Radko Gudas - Justin Braun Dalton Prout - Matt Bartkowski Frederik Andersen Darcy Kuemper

regarding 15000. I think it's good, there's stuff I could argue. The Sharks, I believe, know what they are doing, and thus wouldn't let Werenski go by, but Barzal wouldn't be crazy. Predicting what the New Jersey Devils or Philadelphia Flyers will do? That's above my skill level. I look forward to pick 19, see where you go with it. I've been thinking about it some.

As far as Mantha's linemates, I went through a few handful of box scores, it seemed that Athanasiou shared many of his plus/minus, but the wide variation between Mantha's and Athanasiou's seasonal +- tells you they didn't play together consistently. There were points shared with most of the other forwards. I saw one power play point, but for the number of box scores I looked at, wasn't a lot, which indicates to me he wasn't getting a lot of power play time.

I found a nice write up on a defensemen I am touting for the 3rd round ish. 2015 draft's biggest statistical sleeper

One small subtraction from my draft board, Hicketts, undrafted in 2014, was signed by Detroit after the draft. I hadn't realized teams could do this, since the NHL didn't let Edmonton sign Vladimir Tkachyov. I think the distinction lies in a rather torchered reading of the CBA, 8.9ii had played hockey in North America the prior season means the entire season. Tkachyov spent half the year in Europe, actually Asia I think, and half in Moncton, if I remember right.

========== Regarding ranking/draft board, the issue for me is time. Liger said a couple weeks ago 'How exactly are you comparing forwards to defensemen when you are drafting best available player?' It would take me days of asking myself 'Do I rank Crouse above Zboril. or below? How about Harkins and Pilon?' It's bad enough I got to decide upon Hanifan or Marner, but a full ranking would take me days. Since I know Crouse and Zacha will be taken before Andersson and Ahl, I don't need to make that distinction.

A draft board differs from rankings because the draft board takes into account who might be there. For example, Lawson Crouse would be on a ranking, but not on my draft board. I have a couple players on my draft board that I like more than Crouse, but Crouse will be taken before they are taken, so there is really no need to add Crouse to a draft board, same goes for Zacha. And yes, you could argue that there is zero chance I get Zboril or Kylington from my draft board for the same reason (They will be drafted well before a number of players on my board above him). You would be right.

Part 4 Let's finish this up. The Sabres are expected to pick 92,122,152,182. When you get to this part of the draft, there are two types of picks that seem to work, overagers and smalls. It probably works doubly if you take overagers that are small. Why? Well, the smalls are obvious, everyone undervalues them. The overagers I'm not quite sure. My current theory is that you are looking for momentum (Which I recognize is the opposite of the theory that I put out in Part 1 of this series regarding Andersson). Take Conor Garland. His numbers at age 17 weren't good enough to be drafted, yet his numbers at 18 are favorably comparable to other 18 year old prospects who were drafted the year before. I think Garland's good year creates a momentum going forward, at least that's all I got. There are other examples like Yegor Korshkov, who should have been drafted last year, should get drafted this year, certainly may get passed over again. We'll put four overagers on the board, and trim off a few defensemen above, so our list remains manageable. While I'm certain these 28 will get us through the entire draft, I'll add on ten smalls just to make sure. Update I had some time to add a new metric plus I looked at a few more overagers, thus I need to update the board. The major change will be at 31, as Ahl likely will be on the board later in the draft, and I found two candidates that I like, Beauvillier and Harkins. I decided to move Harkins into the 21 spot, since Andersson and Beauviller are more likely to be there at 31. So my draft board: Eichel McDavid Marner Hanifan Provorov Werenski Strome Harkins Andersson Beauvillier Barzal DeBrusk Merkley Yevgeni Svechnikov Veeti Vainio Filip Ahl Thomas Schemitsch Kyle Capobianco Ryan Pilon Nicolas Meloche Loik L�veill� Brendan Guhle Noah Juulsen Conor Garland Andrew Mangiapane Rodrigo Abols Yegor Korshkov Tim McGauley Trevor Cox Anthony Richard David Kase Christopher Mastomäki Dante Salituro Kay Schweri Dmytro Timashov Cooper Marody

Part 3 If I'm reading wikipedia right, the Sabres next pick is 51. After Ahl, for forwards, my charts have a whole flock of smalls. I might take a goaltender at 51 (I don't study goaltenders), but I think 51 might be a good spot to roll the dice, if Vainio isn't there at 51, I'll take another defensemen. If those are all gone, I'll take a small. My fifth highest ranked defenseman is Veeti Vainio. Like Ahl, Vainio is rather young (June born) and has two full years in his elite league. The Blues, his FIN-20 team, are good. He's the big scorer from defense. While not heavy, he's tall enough. So in reading my draft board, I'm not saying Crouse isn't one of the top whatever prospects, I just know someone else likes him more than I do, so he'll be gone by pick 51. It's a draft board, not a ranking. So my draft board at this point: Eichel McDavid Hanifan Marner Provorov Strome Werenski Merkley Barzal Andersson Yevgeni Svechnikov Filip Ahl Veeti Vainio Ryan Pilon Nicolas Meloche Thomas Schemitsch Mitchell Vande Sompel Kyle Capobianco Loik L�veill� Brendan Guhle Oliver Kylington Noah Juulsen Jakub Zboril Vince Dunn Thomas Chabot J�r�my Roy Jansen Harkins Anthony Beauvillier Jake DeBrusk Anthony Richard Dante Salituro Kay Schweri Daniel Sprong Christopher Mastom�ki Dmytro Timashov I've looked at many of them in previous years, what I end up isn't close to what Button, McKeens, or McKenzie end up with.

That's interesting, because his numbers this year are very good

Part 2 For me, there are the big two, I prefer Eichel, but preferring McDavid isn't unreasonable. Then, roughly, the next 7, the three defensemen, Marner, Strome, Merkley, and Barzal. After that, there's a real drop. The dropoff is big enough that I don't want to be picking 10. I would try to trade down and get maybe 21 and 31 from Buffalo, fair, don't know. At pick 10, the consensus seems to be Zacha, who had a big year at age 16, not so exciting this season in Sarnia. I went through box scores to see if he had picked it up the last month, didn't see it, then I got bored. Or maybe Crouse, not for me, my study indicates I'm looking for scorers, and Crouse doesn't score enough, though people do like him. Meire, maybe. But the Sabres at 31 will have a choice of many good players, I wouldn't be surprised if most of my picks 10-15 were available at 31. For 11, Svechnikov isn't that far off the consensus, so I'm going to guess that Svechnikov is gone by 31. So for draft board pick 12, we do hop off the main line, Filip Ahl. What I am looking for is big guys that score, and Ahl is that. He's a baby (born mid-June), yet he's had two full years in SWE-20. His SWE-20 team was OK, he's the top scorer on the team, did I mention he's big? Yes I would love it if his time in SHL was more successful, I would love it if his team in SWE-20 was more dominant, but this draft doesn't have a strong 10-20. So my draft board at this point: Eichel McDavid Hanifan Marner Provorov Strome Werenski Merkley Barzal Andersson Yevgeni Svechnikov Filip Ahl

You are missing the point. Kylington was percieved as a star at 16. He's 30 pounds lighter than Andersson. Kylington was playing with adults because he is gifted offensively. The reason I'm looking at where they were playing at age 15 is to determine why Andersson was there. He was playing with adults because he can play defense, Andersson is far more comparable to Risto than to Kylington.

I like Kylington for that reason, but Andersson was playing U-20 (the Swedish Elite League) at about 15, and was playing further up (Allsvenskan) by age 16

I study NHL draft history, and from that generate ideas to value the next group of 17 year olds. The results have very little in common with about 25 NHL teams, Craig Button, or Bob McKenzie, but my study of the 2014 draft indicates there is a lot in common with the St Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Detroit Red Wings. Today we will look at Rasmus Ristolainen. Risto didn't have offensive numbers that jump off the page, so what can you take from his early career that would indicate his future success? Well, of course, he was playing with adults almost as a tottler. Drafted in 2013, in 12-13 he played 52 games in Liiga (the top Fin league), in 11-12 he played 40 games in Liiga, 8 in U-20. In 10-11 they gave him 1 game with adults, and 27 games U-20. This tells me that we are looking for defensemen who play with adults very early. Risto got his first game with adults about the age of 15. It says something about what the people around him thought of him. What has received little comment, well I don't read much, so I might be wrong, is how strong the top-end defensemen are this draft. Hanifan, Provorov, and Werenski are excellent, but each will be gone by the Sabres second pick at 21. My board has two more excellent defensemen, the fifth I will save for another day, but the fourth best defenseman on my board resembles Risto in that he was playing with adults at a very young age (that's good). Additionally, he is extremely heavy (that's good), and he scores (that's good). In 14-15 he scored well for the Barrie Colts in his first season on small ice. In 13-14 he played 43 games with adults in the Swedish 2 league. In 12-13 he played 38 games with adults. In 11-12, he played 13 games in the U-20. He will come in somewhere around 10 on my draft board, he is vastly underrated. The Sabres should draft Rasmus Andersson with the 21st pick in the first round.

McDavid

No, I wasn't understanding the division by 5 year clause. Hoss answered the question. It's in place so you can't offer a player a long contract so you can avoid paying with draft picks.

thanks

See that's what I'm not getting. I'm hearing you say that it's 8mm for one year, divided by 5, so the compesation would be reasonable.

Ok Hoss, I'm not understanding. What keeps the Sabres from offering Nyqvist or Toffoli 8m for one year? Tarasenko 10m for one year? Minimum length of an offer sheet? Good sportsmanship?

It isn't very different than the site IKP quotes from time to time, just a bit more developed I think

Two problems. The first is time involved. I decided to get what I want, I couldn't scrape, so I'm hand typing off of elite prospects. I have a few thousand player/years now, so adding a metric would be a few weeks of work. If I had thought it through, I could have saved goals for and goals against, since I use the difference as my metric of how good the team is. Having both numbers might be useful, as you say. The second problem is accuracy. Anthony DeAngelo spent half the season with Sarnia and half with Sault Ste. Marie. I know how many points he scored in Sarnia, but not how many Sarnia scored while he was there. I could go through box scores, which would be misery, and OHL stats may be to the point where that number is available, but it certainly wouldn't be universally available.

Each dot is its own team year. Bennett only has one dot because I don't use playoffs, for the same reason I don't use WJC, so he didn't get an NHL dot. I doubt I would have given Bennett an OHL dot had he played 60 games in the AHL, but a lot of people have two dots. The very bottom has the list of players, their league, and their score. So you can't tell for a traded player in the same league, but you can for a changed league. The tool-tip in the chart also tells you the league. The PPG is multiplied by the league index. Off the top of my head, I think NHL is 4000 and OHL is about 400 for forwards. Then you got to consider team context. If Kingston is a high scoring team, Bennett will score more, if he had played for the Sabres, he would of scored fewer points, so you need to create some context for the player. So had I given Bennett a dot for the playoffs, 5/12 is about .4, times 4000, about 1600 before I start adding and subtracting for context. That's why Pastrnak has such big numbers, but he scored well in the NHL, he should have big numbers. If you look at Pastrnak's dots, the AHL and the NHL are near each other (well... in my world), meaning that the league index adjusted somewhat appropriately, sometimes they're not, so I try to address that. It also tells you that what happened with the Bruins wasn't that abnormal, because he was having an excellent year in the AHL I try to take into account all the data I have, I use about 5 things, some data come and go. That's why the numbers float some. I use some things that are different between forwards than defensemen.