[CASe333]

I was looking through the nhl first round draft history for the last 10 years and figured after wasting too much time I may as well also waste yours and share my findings. Here is my summary:

Of the 300 first round picks in the last 10 years, 146 player or around half have played meaningful games in the nhl; 54 qualify as elite players (allstars or players who avg >0.5 ppg). So given this stat you could say you have a 50% chance of getting a nhl player with your first round pick and 18% chance he is a super star. Let's break it down even further.

A). In the last decade, the flames have a fairly bad first round record when we consider players who have since played in the nhl but we should also consider the lack of top ten picks we have had when making criticisms. We have picked 4 good players in the last decade which really isn't that bad:
2003= Phaneuf (#9), 2007 Backlund(#24), 2009 Erixon (# 23), 2011 Baertshi (#13)

B). In the NHL picking 1-3 gets you a player who is guaranteed to play in the NHL (100%) and has ~2/3 chance of being a star.

C). Picks 4-7 gets you a NHL player (80% of the time) with a 1/3 chance of him being a super star.

D). Picks in the range of 8-14 gives you over a 50% of getting a NHL player who plays meaningful time in the nhl and in the last 10 years a bit over a 10% chance he ends up being a super star.

E). The 15-29 picks show a major drop with only ~10% players having played meaningful games and a chance of 3-4% of picking a super star.

F). Finally, picking 30th in the last decade gave you a 0% chance for a regular player or star which is a trend just waiting to be bucked, so go Iggy!