There has been some talk in the puckosphere about how the Kings gave up too much in the Dustin Penner trade. One aspect of this opinion stuck out for me, and that’s the idea that it’s not Colten Teubert, but the 1st round draft pick, that was “too much.” That of course depends on what the Oilers do with the pick. As an exercise, I decided to look at Edmonton’s draft history regarding picks in the 14th-to-30th over-all range. Here they are:
Number in parentheses after player’s name is career games played.
- 2008 (22nd overall) – Jordan Eberle (51)
- 2007 (15th overall) – Alex Plante (4)
- 2005 (21st) – Riley Nash (0)
- 2005 (25th) – Andrew Cogliano (310)
- 2004 (14th) – Devan Dubnyk (44)
- 2004 (25th) – Rob Schremp (97)
- 2003 (22nd) – Marc-Antoine Pouliot (179)
- 2002 (15th) – Jesse Niinimaki (0)
- 2000 (17th) – Alexei Mikhnov (2)
- 1997 (14th) – Michel Riesen (12)
- 1996 (19th) – Matthieu Descoteaux (5)
- 1993 (16th) – Nick Stajduhar (2)
- 1991 (20th) – Martin Rucinsky (961)
- 1990 (17th) – Scott Allison (0)
- 1989 (15th) – Jason Soules (0)
- 1988 (19th) – Francois Leroux (249)
- 1987 (21st) – Peter Soberlak (0)
- 1986 (21st) – Kim Issel (4)
- 1985 (20th) – Scott Metcalfe (19)
- 1984 (21st) – Selmar Odelein (18)
- 1983 (19th) – Jeff Beukeboom (804)
- 1982 (20th) – Jim Playfair (21)
- 1981 (29th) – Todd Strueby (5)
- 1979 (21st) – Kevin Lowe (1254)
I put the good picks in italics. There are five of them. I count 13 of 17 picks pre-2003 in which the prospect played between 0 and 21 career games. So we’ll call it 5 out of 24, or a 21% chance (historically) of getting a really good NHL player.
And, for good measure, here are the rest of the Oilers’ first round picks (1st through 13th overall):
- 2010 (1st) – Taylor Hall (64)
- 2009 (10th) – Magnus Paajarvi (62)
- 2007 (6th) – Sam Gagner (287)
- 2001 (13th) – Ales Hemsky (490)
- 1999 (13th) – Jani Rita (66)
- 1998 (13th) – Michael Henrich (0)
- 1996 (6th) – Boyd Devereaux (627)
- 1995 (6th) – Steve Kelly (149)
- 1994 (4th) – Jason Bonsignore (79)
- 1994 (6th) – Ryan Smyth (1050)
- 1993 (7th) – Jason Arnott (1162)
- 1992 (13th) – Joe Hulbig (55)
- 1991 (12th) – Tyler Wright (613)
- 1981 (8th) – Grant Fuhr (868)
- 1980 (6th) – Paul Coffey (1409)
That’s 10 out of 15, or 67%, for the Oilers when picking in the top 13. That’s three times better than they did with the 14th-30th pick.
Slightly off topic, but I would just like to stop and marvel at the following draft record (draft round in parentheses):
- 1979 – Kevin Lowe (1), Mark Messier (3), Glenn Anderson (4).
- 1980 – Paul Coffey (1), Jari Kurri (4), Andy Moog (7)
- 1981 – Grant Fuhr (1), Steve Smith (6)
- 1982 – 🙁
- 1983 – Jeff Boukeboom (1), Esa Tikkanen (4)
- 1984 – 🙁
- 1985 – Kelly Buchberger (9)/
I guess the main thing that caught my eye was that their first three picks in their first NHL draft were Lowe, Messier and Anderson.