And now I’m doing a post about it.
Author: namitanandakumar
Friday Quick Graphs: 16 Years of Drafting, Summarized
It’s time for (another) draft day! Whether your team has the 2nd or 20th overall pick in the NHL entry draft, it’s always a useful exercise to look at past outcomes and modify your expectations accordingly.
Who’s Getting Drafted This Year?
Last month, the NHL Central Scouting Service ranked 401 draft-eligible skaters in four separate categories: 217 North American skaters, 140 European skaters, 31 North American goalies, and 13 European goalies.*
Should we care about this?
Exploiting Variance in the NHL Draft
Recently, one of my VanHAC slides was used to justify the Bruins’ decision to take Trent Frederic over Alex DeBrincat (and many others) in the first round of the 2016 NHL Draft. Needless to say, I haven’t slept soundly since then.
Unfortunately, crafting a solid rebuttal isn’t as easy as saying “DeBrincat has a higher ceiling.” To that end, I present a framework for evaluating these types of draft decisions. There are two basic questions to consider:
- What are the outcomes for each player?
- How can we appropriately value these outcomes?
Hockey Graphs 