Strong Draft Years

[CaptainYooh]

Just like Forrest Forrest Gump, for no particular reason I was looking through some of the draft years and for the nth time was amazed at how strong was 2003 NHL Draft. Just look at the first two rounds. I mean, yeah, I am still pretty bitter on whom Calgary Flames had passed on to pick Phaneuf (Getzlaf, Perry, Parise, Burns, Weber, Bergeron etc.). Granted, hindsight is 20/20, they didn't know any better at that time and picked the prospect they liked best. For laughs, Byfuglien went 245th that year. But this is not about sour grapes. I wonder if there is any credible research into the factors that make some drafts so incredibly strong and deep compared to other weak years? Was the weather any different in 2003? There has got to be something supernatural about this!

2003 NHL Draft

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Phaneuf eventually crapped the bed, but he was an excellent prospect and pretty much everyone thought he was a good pick. Even in retrospect, he has had a good career.

As for 2003, I recall that the scouts and experts knew early on that it was going to be a deep year. I have no idea why. 1984 must have been a good birth year.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

I think one of the factors that made 2003 so good was the lockout and rule changes. Not that it was the major factor but

Fewer players got oilered
More young players found spots after a year & the cap wiped out some vets
The emphasis on skating pushed even more older players out
The penalties created a bit of a scoring boom

That crop arrived faster with more opportunity than almost any other.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

I think one of the factors that made 2003 so good was the lockout and rule changes. Not that it was the major factor but

The 2003 draft was hyped though. Plenty of talking heads on the TV and print media were talking about how special a draft year it was going into it.

[CaptainYooh]

Well, but it was!

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Well, but it was!

Yeah, not saying it wasn't.

[Bingo]

My rule of thumb in past drafts is always look at the 3 guys taken after a Flames pick, otherwise you end up with a massive amount of hindsight that is silly.

With that said ...

2014 Bennett vs Dal Colle, Virtanen, Fleury - success
2013 Monahan vs Nurse, Ristolanen, Horvat - success
2012 Jankowski vs Maata, Matheson, Malcom Subban - hurting
2011 Baertschi vs Oleksiak, JT Miller, Armia - even
2010 no 1st rounder - n/a
2009 Erixon vs Johansson, Caron, Palmieri - hurting (made up for it)
2008 Nimeisz vs Ennis, Carlsson, Tikohnov - hurting
2007 Backlund vs P. White, Perron, B. Smith - success
2006 Irving vs Vishnevskiy, N. Foligno, Summers - weak draft but hurting
2005 Pelech vs Finley, Niskanen, Downey - hurting

[Hackey]

Luck plays such a big part when drafting individual players but the draft itself plays such a huge part as well. Some years your lucky and have a guy like Monahan fall to 6. I was always in the group that wished the Flames started the rebuild earlier but in reality were very lucky it started when it did. Those drafts before were terrible. RNH and Yakupov drafts were extremely weak. I've said it before if the Oilers had the three 1st before Hall they would have landed P. Kane. Tavares and Stamkos. The three after would have landed them Mckinnon Ekblad and McDavid. Not to get into a debate over all of this but the draft year itself plays such an important part of whether or not you land those quality pieces. Im just so glad that Monahan and Bennett were basically gifted to us because very easily we could be looking at Lindholm and Draisaitl.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

I think one of the factors that made 2003 so good was the lockout and rule changes. Not that it was the major factor but

Fewer players got oilered
More young players found spots after a year & the cap wiped out some vets
The emphasis on skating pushed even more older players out
The penalties created a bit of a scoring boom

That crop arrived faster with more opportunity than almost any other.

This got me thinking, as I've almost agreed with you. But then, if it's a good logic, all subsequent drafts after 2003 should have been correspondingly stronger, which is not the case.

Originally Posted by Bingo

My rule of thumb in past drafts is always look at the 3 guys taken after a Flames pick, otherwise you end up with a massive amount of hindsight that is silly.

With that said ...

2014 Bennett vs Dal Colle, Virtanen, Fleury - success
2013 Monahan vs Nurse, Ristolanen, Horvat - success
2012 Jankowski vs Maata, Matheson, Malcom Subban - hurting
2011 Baertschi vs Oleksiak, JT Miller, Armia - even
2010 no 1st rounder - n/a
2009 Erixon vs Johansson, Caron, Palmieri - hurting (made up for it)
2008 Nimeisz vs Ennis, Carlsson, Tikohnov - hurting
2007 Backlund vs P. White, Perron, B. Smith - success
2006 Irving vs Vishnevskiy, N. Foligno, Summers - weak draft but hurting
2005 Pelech vs Finley, Niskanen, Downey - hurting

You missed 2004, when Flames picked Kris Chucko in 1st...

All good, but I was really more talking about the real or speculated reasons for the good draft "harvest" years vs. bad years rather than the actual successes/failures of the Flames' past general managers.

[Oil Stain]

They changed the eligibility rules surrounding players drafted out of the NCAA so the 2003 draft had two years worth of college players in one.

[Huntingwhale]

That '03 draft will go down as one of the best, if not the best in history when it's all said and done. Just going thru that list in the 1st round, there is really only 1 ''bust'' in Jessiman. Even guys like Pouliot and Nilsson managed to play a couple hundred games each.

Then you move onto round 2. Guys like Loui Erikkson, Klein, Bergeron, Carle, Weber, Crombeen and even Patrick O'sullivan.

3rd round has guys like Lapierre, Backes, Howard, Fraser, Carcille, MacArthur, Picard.

Then the next rounds you have guys like Hejda, Bisonette, Quincy, Stempniak, Mitchell, Richardson, Pavelski. And the list goes on and on. Everyone should click the OP's link and bask in the glory.

Just a sick, sick draft. There might even be a couple HOF guys sprinkled among that list. Hard to fault the Phaneuf pick. At one point if you took out Crosby and Ovechkin, he was the best young player in the league. There were even threads on CP & HF about how we could finally stop the discussion of Phaneuf vs Weber because Phaneuf > Weber.

I hope 10 years from now we can look at the 2013 draft in the same light.

[Komskies]

The Flames own David Jones was taken 5th last overall, 288th place.

Brian Elliott 2nd last overall.

[Vinny01]

Watch out for 2011 I think in 5 years people will remember that draft as a good one
The whole top 10 is pretty solid all are good NHLers today
2nd round has Jenner, Saad, Kucherov, and a lesser extent Jurco, Nieto, Granlund, Spoon
3rd round Trocheck, Lowry
4th round Gaudreau, Pageau
5th round Shaw
7th round Palat

With most of these players still 21-22 there is a lot of room for more to break through but there will be some special players from this draft

Lots of players from that draft have played at least a game in the NHL

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2011e.html

[Vinny01]

2013 had a lot of hype as well and in the draft year 7of the top 10 made their team right away
MacKinnon, Barkov, Jones, Lindholm, Monahan, Ristolinen, Nikushkin

Only Drouin, Nurse, and Hirvat were sent back

[Magnum PEI]

I always laugh at Huge Specimen. Best nickname since Fat Balloon.

[GreenLantern]

Originally Posted by Bingo

My rule of thumb in past drafts is always look at the 3 guys taken after a Flames pick, otherwise you end up with a massive amount of hindsight that is silly.

With that said ...

2014 Bennett vs Dal Colle, Virtanen, Fleury - success
2013 Monahan vs Nurse, Ristolanen, Horvat - success
2012 Jankowski vs Maata, Matheson, Malcom Subban - hurting
2011 Baertschi vs Oleksiak, JT Miller, Armia - even
2010 no 1st rounder - n/a
2009 Erixon vs Johansson, Caron, Palmieri - hurting (made up for it)
2008 Nimeisz vs Ennis, Carlsson, Tikohnov - hurting
2007 Backlund vs P. White, Perron, B. Smith - success
2006 Irving vs Vishnevskiy, N. Foligno, Summers - weak draft but hurting
2005 Pelech vs Finley, Niskanen, Downey - hurting

The part that scares me the most out of that is that the Flames only have one 'success' pick in the last 10 years outside the top 6. I wonder how other teams would match up to that.

[tvp2003]

Effing Tim Ramholt...

Interesting to see the teams with two first round picks that year -- of course the Ducks with Getzlaf and Perry (both home runs), but Philly also had Carter and Richards (who were both pretty good players for several years). The Kings had back-to-back picks at 26 and 27, but took Brian Boyle and Jeff Tambellini (Perry was taken at 28).

Up until 2007/08 the Phaneuf pick was a very good one. Even nowadays, of all the defencemen taken in the first two rounds, Phaneuf still leads in points (although Weber will be passing him shortly).

[united]

1979 is up there with 2003 but with different circumstances (also could've had Gretzky and Ciccarelli), and 1988 wasn't bad either.

[chubeyr1]

Cant complain about the phaneuf pick one bit. Its like going back and saying we should not of selected Monahan or Bennett ten years later! Both great picks a blind monkey would choose.

It was the right pick. For the record though I really wanted Weber in that draft too! Kind of like Gio and Brodie! Gio is great, but I think his partner has a lot to do with that too. No this is not a Brodie versus Gio thread.

Phaneuf is a good nhler. As a first round pick he is definitely not a bust. His draft was in a lockout year though so the draft was stacked!

[Jay Random]

Phaneuf was not drafted in a lockout year. The lockout was 2004-05.