Are the Red Wings Terrible at Drafting?

The Detroit Red Wings are considered, in most circles, as the model franchise in the NHL. With four Stanley Cups in the past 14 years -- and six trips to the Finals -- it's hard to argue against that belief. Impossible, actually. But are they overrated when it comes to their success at the NHL Entry Draft?

On Monday, the great Maple Leafs blog, Pension Plan Puppets, unveiled an overwhelming analysis of every pick in the NHL draft from 1994 to the present created by one of their members. One of the surprising observations? The Detroit Red Wings are, according to his analysis, one of the worst teams in the NHL when it comes to the draft.

Blasphemy!

From the analysis:

"Detroit has the best scouting department in the NHL" is one of most repeated phrases in any draft discussion, but I'm not convinced that's true. Player development? Top notch. But actually consistently drafting NHL-calibre players? Not their forte. If you refer back to the first chart posted above, you'll notice that Detroit is DEAD LAST in 3 of the 4 categories (% that made it to the NHL, % that played 200 games, # of games played per player drafted), and 27th in the other. That's not good. Of course, drafting 2 franchise players in the late rounds makes up for that, but when the bulk of your drafted players end up being "busts", that's not a good sign.

If you're interested in seeing the Red Wings' complete draft history, Pro Hockey Reference is a nice resource.

You can't argue with the numbers in the study, and I suppose the observation is correct that, in terms of consistently drafting players that make the NHL, the Wings are near the bottom of the pile. But is it because they're just not very good at scouting? Or is it something else?

My thoughts ...

Quality is better than Quantity

While it's true the Red Wings, over the given time period, had the least successful draft record in terms of getting players to the NHL, playing 200 games, and games-played-per-player, the players that did make the NHL, for the most part, turned out to be impact talents, or, at the very least, useful players for playoff teams: Tomas Holmstrom, Pavel Datsyuk, Jiri Fischer (before his career was cut short), Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall, Jiri Hudler, Valtteri Filppula, Tomas Fleischman (traded to Washington), and Jonathan Ericcson stand out. Based on this year's postseason, there appears to be plenty of promise for Darren Helm and Justin Abdelkader, while Kyle Quincey, a Red Wings draftee who was picked off waivers by the Kings, is a fine young player.

Basically, there's no middle ground for the Red Wings; they either get an impact-type player, or they get nothing.

Is that a bad thing? Frankly, I don't think so. These are the types of players (high-end, elite level talent) that you win Stanley Cups with.

Using the database, the team's with the highest success rates of putting players into the NHL were the San Jose Sharks, Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators. Buffalo Sabres and Colorado Avalanche. Since 1994, those five teams combined to win two Stanley Cups between 1994 and 2008 (both for Colorado) while they played in just four Finals (two for the Avs, one for Buffalo, one for Ottawa).

Picking near the end of the draft is difficult

The best players, obviously, come at the top of the draft, and the Red Wings, as a result of their constant winning over the past decade-and-a-half, have not held a pick in the top 20 since 1991 (they selected Martin Lapointe), which is a rather incredible run. They also had no first-round pick seven times dating back to 1994.

Again, using the database, the success rate of first-round picks from 1996-2006, in terms of simply making the NHL is, roughly, 83 percent. The success rate plummets all the way down to 54 percent for the second round, and continues to drop to 39 percent for the third round. By not owning a first-round pick seven times, Detroit's success rate is already taking a significant hit.

By comparison, if you will recall the top teams in terms of getting players to the NHL, San Jose held 11 top 20 picks, including nine in the top 10, while Boston made seven selections at the top of the draft. Ottawa had nine picks in the top 20, including two No. 1 overall picks, a No. 2 pick, and two other top 10 selections. Needless to say, It's a lot easier to draft NHL talent when you're consistently picking at the top of the draft. I'm not ready to say Boston, for example, is better at the draft because it had the luxury of picking Joe Thornton No. 1 overall, or because it produced more third liners and marginal NHL players over the years (this goes back to the quality over quantity argument).

One final example: Only 28 percent of the players taken between picks 20 and 30 from 1994-2008 have played more than 200 games in the NHL . For picks in the top 10? 47 percent.

So, is Detroit bad at the draft? Not at all. Its poor record, in my opinion, has more to do with where it's been picking in recent years as opposed to a shortcoming in the scouting department (and another PPP member sort of touched on this particular part of the debate with this follow-up post.) And despite picking near the end of the draft, the Wings have still managed to produce their share of quality NHL players and consistently put a contending team on the ice.

Having said all of that, the entire database is worth downloading if you're interested in the NHL draft -- hell, even if you're not all that interested it's worth the look simply because it had to have taken an absurd number of hours to compile. It's an impressive resource and can lead to some interesting discoveries. For example, Jaroslav Obsut is the only player between 1994 and 2008 taken 187th overall to play in the NHL ... he played seven games.

Fascinating.