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SFU Professor shows Sabres are excellent late round drafters


rickshaw

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This is an interesting article in the Vancouver Sun this weekend. An Simon Fraser University professor crunched the numbers, so to speak and gives our Sabres an A+ for later round drafting over the past 30 years.

 

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/hockey/...8809/story.html

 

Good find. That is interesting but honestly a 30 year recap is pointless. I do think darcy and his staff have done a great job in late rounds. Too many misses in round one tho. As someone said, sure we lack grit but we also lack star power. We missed out by drafting that russian, zags, and persson. Last year appears like a weak draft outside of myers and adam but I think they made up for it this past weekend.

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Good find. That is interesting but honestly a 30 year recap is pointless. I do think darcy and his staff have done a great job in late rounds. Too many misses in round one tho. As someone said, sure we lack grit but we also lack star power. We missed out by drafting that russian, zags, and persson. Last year appears like a weak draft outside of myers and adam but I think they made up for it this past weekend.

That Russian? I'm sorry, Artem Kryukov's name will forever be remembered in this fan's mind as the ultimate WTF moment in Sabres history. Even more so than no goal...

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So excellence is based on how many of your late draftees play as few as one game in the NHL?

 

SDS made the great point that the Sabres' "success" later on might reflect how poorly they've drafted in early rounds.

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the key to successful drafting isn't finding players in the first two rounds, but discovering them late in the lottery.

 

This sort of makes my skin crawl.

 

I'll tell you what - let me hit on top notch talent in the 1st two rounds every year and you can keep your low end nuggets found in the late rounds. You HAVE to hit on those early picks or you wind up just where the Sabres are today - a bunch of middling talent searching for someone (or two) to hitch their wagon to.

 

Now, we may be seeing Drew Stafford plucked away... Yet another roster spot for a Patrick Kaletta to take, while our 1st rounder rides off into the sunset.

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"one of his clients told him he was so convinced of the data he hoped to reach a point where he could make draft decisions without scouting players."

 

I wonder whom that is? :bag:

 

Which begs the question; would Youtube be given severance pay?

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This sort of makes my skin crawl.

 

I'll tell you what - let me hit on top notch talent in the 1st two rounds every year and you can keep your low end nuggets found in the late rounds. You HAVE to hit on those early picks or you wind up just where the Sabres are today - a bunch of middling talent searching for someone (or two) to hitch their wagon to.

 

Now, we may be seeing Drew Stafford plucked away... Yet another roster spot for a Patrick Kaletta to take, while our 1st rounder rides off into the sunset.

 

I'm starting to think that draft success is completely independent of the rounds. It doesn't matter where you find the top notch talent as long as you find it somewhere. Take a look at the last 15 years for Detroit. 1994 is the only year where they've found success early and late with Dandenault and Holmstrom. 1998 might have been a different story without the unfortunate turn of events for Jiri Fischer. Really, other than that, 2000, 2002, 2004 are the only years where we can say they did well in the early rounds (1-3).

 

Since they are the team that is always mentioned when it comes to successful draft, it's worth taking a look to see just how scattered their hits are. It's also worth noting how many times they didn't have a 1st round pick at all, thanks mostly to their attempts at buying teams through trades in the late 90s/early 00s.

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I'm starting to think that draft success is completely independent of the rounds. It doesn't matter where you find the top notch talent as long as you find it somewhere. Take a look at the last 15 years for Detroit. 1994 is the only year where they've found success early and late with Dandenault and Holmstrom. 1998 might have been a different story without the unfortunate turn of events for Jiri Fischer. Really, other than that, 2000, 2002, 2004 are the only years where we can say they did well in the early rounds (1-3).

 

Since they are the team that is always mentioned when it comes to successful draft, it's worth taking a look to see just how scattered their hits are. It's also worth noting how many times they didn't have a 1st round pick at all, thanks mostly to their attempts at buying teams through trades in the late 90s/early 00s.

 

Nice. A good way to look at it... Also interesting is the number of centers they have drafted over time, 8 in just the last 3 years..Must be planning ahead... Oops' sorry to use that P word and get Deluca started again.. :rolleyes:

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Nice. A good way to look at it... Also interesting is the number of centers they have drafted over time, 8 in just the last 3 years..Must be planning ahead... Oops' sorry to use that P word and get Deluca started again.. :rolleyes:

 

This is very interesting. Does that mean that maybe drafting a large amount of centers is a good way to make sure that your lines are always anchored? Building around good centers is undoubtedly important and the Sabres have failed to do that and look where we are? Dying for depth at center.

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This is very interesting. Does that mean that maybe drafting a large amount of centers is a good way to make sure that your lines are always anchored? Building around good centers is undoubtedly important and the Sabres have failed to do that and look where we are? Dying for depth at center.

 

Yeah kinda what I was wondering. Also the high number in last 3 drafts makes we wonder if you think development time is 3-4 years some of these guy's should be stepping in soon if they pan out...

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"one of his clients told him he was so convinced of the data he hoped to reach a point where he could make draft decisions without scouting players."

 

I wonder whom that is? :bag:

 

Which begs the question; would Youtube be given severance pay?

 

Assquatch coming off the bench to drain one from DOWNTOWN!

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This is very interesting. Does that mean that maybe drafting a large amount of centers is a good way to make sure that your lines are always anchored? Building around good centers is undoubtedly important and the Sabres have failed to do that and look where we are? Dying for depth at center.

 

Their position coming out of juniors/college isn't set in stone. Any of those players could easily be converted at any point. Also, that site still continues to list Gerbe as a center, so the validity of their positions is in question.

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Their position coming out of juniors/college isn't set in stone. Any of those players could easily be converted at any point. Also, that site still continues to list Gerbe as a center, so the validity of their positions is in question.

 

Good points, but I guess what I'm getting at is that Detroit is drafting players that they might feel will fit the role of Center well. If they draft a lot of players listed as centers, chances are they might get half of them to be true NHL centers while the rest become wings or never really develop and wind up as flops. Generally if someone is a winger they don't work well being moved to center; we've seen that here in Buffalo with players like Hecht. Players who play center are generally okay with playing either wing or center. The idea of drafting labeled centers is that if they don't work out at center, then they should still be solid wingers. Playing the odds, basically.

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Good points, but I guess what I'm getting at is that Detroit is drafting players that they might feel will fit the role of Center well. If they draft a lot of players listed as centers, chances are they might get half of them to be true NHL centers while the rest become wings or never really develop and wind up as flops. Generally if someone is a winger they don't work well being moved to center; we've seen that here in Buffalo with players like Hecht. Players who play center are generally okay with playing either wing or center. The idea of drafting labeled centers is that if they don't work out at center, then they should still be solid wingers. Playing the odds, basically.

 

Holland's been the GM since 97. The center trend that you pointed out looks to be pretty recent. I wonder if it might just be more coincidental than anything.

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Holland's been the GM since 97. The center trend that you pointed out looks to be pretty recent. I wonder if it might just be more coincidental than anything.

 

I'm not even the one that pointed it out, someone else did. I'm just playing off of it. I could be completely off base for all I know, but just for arguments sake, it seems logical that a GM would plan it that way. I consider it something to think about that sounds good in concept but I am too lazy to investigate on my own. :)

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That Russian? I'm sorry, Artem Kryukov's name will forever be remembered in this fan's mind as the ultimate WTF moment in Sabres history. Even more so than no goal...

 

lol i know who the "russian" is, i just couldn't spell his name and made my post via the blackberry.

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