Quote:
Originally Posted by Geeoff
Personally, I think these low percentages are an argument to draft more than 7 times a year, rather than less
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I think both opinions are right to a certain extent.
As DrunkUncle noted it's foolish to trade a player who has consistently put up points for 2nd + 3rd draft picks. There just aren't enough of these players available to take on the risk of two magic beans turning into a comparable player. When trading a player like Arvidsson (0.62pt/GP + still young) you should always make sure you are getting a comparable player back in return rather than go for the magic bean approach or trading for a star past their prime. Using the %s in op times the amount of draft positions in that percentile results in just 3.57 players being drafted per year that meet the 0.78pt/GP threshold. For the 0.59pt/GP threshold on average only 11.1 players are drafted per year. Looking at the worst trades in NHL history its often a package of journeymen + later round draft picks traded for a superstar that looks really bad historically.
On the contrary, as pointed out in the last post if you can fill your third and fourth lines with younger players drafted after the first round you can save money to pay for multiple star players. Having multiple picks greatly increases odds of drafting a "unicorn" like Point or Marchand but also greatly increases odds of getting a decent 3rd-4th line support player. Having more picks is definitely a good thing so I would always support picking up more picks as long as you aren't giving up an early first round pick or bona fide star player.
For example Tampa Bay is icing two young fourth line players drafted late (Mathieu Josheph, age 19, drafted 120 in 4th round, salary 737,500 and Ross Colton age 22, drafted 118 in 4th round, salary 700,000). Cap circumvention arguments aside, having cheap young players to fill out their roster helps allow them to ice their stacked roster. I never understand why so many teams fill their bottom roster with expensive aging players that are way past their prime. Having one or two veterans is always good especially if they come cheap like a Corry Perry for 750K but some teams seem adamant in filling their bottom lineup with veterans who are almost always more expensive than a player on their entry contract.