Featured Article
The drafting and development of the latest expansion teams
Written by: Holly Gunning on 08/22/2006 
At long last, enough time has elapsed that we can begin to evaluate the drafting and development of the newest NHL expansion teams, the Nashville Predators, Atlanta Thrashers, Minnesota Wild and Columbus Blue Jackets. Nashville entered the league in 1998, Atlanta in 1999, and Minnesota and Columbus in 2000, bringing the league to 30 teams. Five years is the generally-accepted amount of time one must wait after an NHL entry draft to judge a player or draft class. All four of these teams have now had two draft classes pass the five-year mark. Thus, the data that will be examined below is from the 2000 and 2001 draft classes, which are common to all and thus controls for quality of draft.
These four teams are quite comparable in regards to drafting and development because they would have had similar (high) picks in the draft and similar opportunities for their picks at the NHL level. All four teams had one and only one first round pick in 2000 and 2001. They each had two second rounders over two drafts (though not necessarily split between the drafts) except Nashville which had three second rounders. None of the four teams have recently changed AHL affiliates (see note at bottom).
Each year, Hockey's Future evaluates and compares teams on their drafting for the draft class of five years previous, but this article goes further, by looking at movement of players to the pro ranks, and graduation from AHL to NHL. Looking across two combined draft classes helps to even out idiosyncrasies of a particular draft class and begins to show a pattern.
The data below will show that the Wild have done very well in evaluating and developing talent during this period, while the Blue Jackets lag behind the group. At the bottom is a table of the players included in the analysis, showing their pick number and NHL games played.
Finding NHL talent
First, there is the simple question of how many NHL players a team has produced. It seems simple, until you realize that some of the games played were chances to prove that the player wasn't going to pan out as an NHL player.
A cutoff of 10 NHL games eliminates those who only were called up in emergency situations or as a test. Also shown is another cutoff -- playing a full NHL season of 82 games. A measure of quality of the picks, however, is the average number of games per pick. It is perhaps a better measure overall because those who only had cups of coffee will have less of an impact.
| Team | No. of picks | No. playing 10+ NHL games | % playing 10+ NHL games | No. playing 82+ games | % playing 82+ NHL games | Avg. no. of games/pick |
| Nashville | 21 | 4 | 19% | 3 | 14% | 32 |
| Atlanta | 23 | 6 | 26% | 4 | 17% | 42 |
| Minnesota | 16 | 9 | 56% | 4 | 25% | 77 |
| Columbus | 22 | 6 | 29% | 1 | 5% | 21 |
Minnesota leads with 56 percent of its picks (9 of 16) going on to play 10 or more games in the NHL, 25 percent playing 82 or more games, and an average of 77 games per player. Minnesota had the fewest picks in this period with 16, but having retained their first and second rounders, they had fewer late picks who were unlikely to make it. Also, three of the players who played over 10 games were overage Europeans: Maxim Sushinski, Peter Bartos, and Lubomir Sekaras, who are more likely to play in the NHL, though for shorter periods. Atlanta and Columbus each had only one overage European who played 10 games.
Atlanta tied Minnesota for number of players with 82 or more games, with four, and came in second in average number of games played per pick with 42.
At the bottom end, Nashville came out lowest with four (19%) of picks playing 10 or more games, but three of the four have played 82 or more games. Columbus comes out average on percent playing 10 or more games (29%), but when you look at players playing 82 or more games, they drop to just one player, Rostislav Klesla, which comes out to 5 percent of total picks. The average number of games for the Blue Jackets is just 21. It appears that Columbus did the worst, though it should be pointed out that Nashville accomplished its low numbers with the advantage of one more second round pick than the other three teams.
First rounders are naturally the players most likely to have played the most NHL games at this point. One of Columbus' first rounders in this period was Pascal Leclaire, a goaltender. Since goaltenders take longer to develop, it's not surprising that he has played fewer games, bringing the team's hit rate and average games per pick down. An even longer-range look may show a different result for the same draft classes.
Finding pro talent
Next, to isolate development from drafting, we need to first separate out the players who made it to professional hockey from those who did not, and thus could not be developed. Removing those who skipped the development phase must be done as well.
Every team has players who bypassed the AHL, usually first round picks like Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk. Overage Europeans sometimes fall into this category as well, such as Petteri Nummelin for the Blue Jackets.
Below is a look at how teams did finding players who went on to play more than 10 games in the AHL with any team, affiliate or not. This includes players that the team gave up on and never signed to a contract, but who caught on elsewhere. Adding to this the number who bypassed the AHL, we have a measure of how well the scouting staff did in finding talent, separate from development (which will be examined in section 3). The only scouting "hits" that are not measured are Europeans who could potentially play in the NHL, but choose to stay in their home countries.
| Team | No. of picks | Bypassed AHL | AHL 10+ games any team | % in AHL 10+ games any team | Bypass and AHL combined | % of pro players (bypass and AHL 10+) |
| Nashville | 21 | 2 | 7 | 33% | 9 | 43% |
| Atlanta | 23 | 2 | 11 | 48% | 13 | 57% |
| Minnesota | 16 | 4 | 10 | 63% | 14 | 88% |
| Columbus | 22 | 2 | 10 | 45% | 12 | 55% |
Minnesota had four players bypassing the AHL, all from the 2000 draft class: Marian Gaborik, Nick Schultz, Maxim Sushinski, and Lubomir Sekaras. The latter two were overage Europeans, taken with a fifth and an eighth round pick, and neither remain with the club.
Atlanta selected the most players who went on to play 10 AHL games, with 11. Minnesota had the highest percentage, however, with 63 percent. Nashville did the worst in both categories, with just seven players for 33 percent. These numbers change little when bypass players are added in, though Minnesota does take a more commanding lead with an 88% hit rate. In this period, Minnesota had remarkable success finding players who could potentially have been developed into NHL players.
Affiliate graduations
How well are AHL affiliates doing in developing and moving talent to the NHL? Of those who were assigned to the affiliate and good enough to play 10 games for them, how many went on to the NHL?
Below is the number and percentage of picks who played 10 games in the AHL with the affiliate, as well as the number and percentage of those players who made it to the NHL from there, playing 10 games. Those bypassing the AHL (and those who played in the AHL only after the NHL due to the lockout) are taken out of the equation.
| Team | No. of picks | AHL 10+ with affil. | % playing 10+ games with affil | No. who graduate to NHL from AHL affil | % who graduate to NHL from AHL affil |
| Nashville | 21 | 3 | 14% | 2 | 67% (2/3) |
| Atlanta | 23 | 9 | 39% | 4 | 44% (4/9) |
| Minnesota | 16 | 8 | 50% | 5 | 63% (5/8) |
| Columbus | 22 | 9 | 42% | 4 | 44% (4/9) |
The Houston Aeros moved the most players up to the Minnesota Wild, with five (63 percent). The Milwaukee Admirals had a higher percentage (67), but moved just two players up to the Predators, Dan Hamhuis and Timofei Shishkanov. Shishkanov played just two games for Nashville and is now with the St. Louis Blues. The Chicago Wolves and Syracuse Crunch tied at four, both at 44 percent. Syracuse does get credit in the above table for Leclaire, as does Houston for Mikko Koivu, though both are first rounders.
Summary
By virtually every measure, the Minnesota Wild have done the best in both drafting and development among the four most recent expansion teams. The Columbus Blue Jackets have done the worst in finding NHL talent, though somewhat better in finding AHL talent and moving them up to the NHL for a tryout. Atlanta did well in finding talent who played over 82 games, and talent that at least went on to play at the AHL level. Nashville moved the fewest players through the system to the NHL level during this period.
2000 and 2001 selections
| NASHVILLE | Position | Rd. | Overall | NHL games | ATLANTA | Position | Rd. | Overall | NHL games | |
| Scott Hartnell | C | 1 | 6 | 372 | Dany Heatley | LW | 1 | 2 | 272 | |
| Daniel Widing | C | 2 | 36 | Ilja Nikulin | D | 2 | 31 | |||
| Mattias Nilsson | D | 3 | 72 | Libor Ustrnul | D | 2 | 42 | |||
| Libor Pivko | F | 3 | 89 | 1 | Carl Mallette | C | 4 | 107 | ||
| Matt Hendricks | F | 5 | 131 | Blake Robson | LW | 4 | 108 | |||
| Mike Stuart | D | 5 | 137 | 3 | Matt McRae | F | 5 | 147 | ||
| Matt Koalska | F | 5 | 154 | 3 | Zdenek Smid | G | 6 | 168 | ||
| Tomas Harant | D | 6 | 173 | Jeff Dwyer | D | 6 | 178 | |||
| Zbynek Irgl | F | 6 | 197 | Darcy Hordichuk | LW | 6 | 180 | 204 | ||
| Jure Penko | G | 7 | 203 | Samu Isosalo | F | 8 | 230 | |||
| Mats Christeen | D | 8 | 236 | Evan Nielsen | D | 8 | 242 | |||
| Martin Hohener | D | 9 | 284 | Eric Bowen | RW | 8 | 244 | |||
| Dan Hamhuis | D | 1 | 12 | 162 | Mark McRae | D | 9 | 288 | ||
| Timofei Shishkanov | LW | 2 | 33 | 24 | Simon Gamache | C | 9 | 290 | 37 | |
| Tomas Slovak | D | 2 | 42 | Ilya Kovalchuk | LW | 1 | 1 | 305 | ||
| Denis Platonov | C | 3 | 75 | Michael Garnett | G | 3 | 80 | 24 | ||
| Oliver Setzinger | C | 3 | 76 | Brian Sipotz | D | 4 | 100 | |||
| Jordan Tootoo | RW | 4 | 98 | 104 | Milan Gajic | C | 4 | 112 | ||
| Anton Lavrentiev | D | 6 | 178 | Colin Stuart | F | 5 | 135 | |||
| Gustav Grasberg | C | 8 | 240 | Pasi Nurminen* | G | 6 | 189 | 125 | ||
| Mikko Lehtonen* | D | 9 | 271 | Matt Suderman | D | 7 | 199 | |||
| Colin Fitzrandolph | F | 7 | 201 | |||||||
| Mario Cartelli | D | 9 | 262 |
| MINNESOTA | Position | Rd. | Overall | NHL games | COLUMBUS | Position | Rd. | Overall | NHL games | |
| Marian Gaborik | LW | 1 | 3 | 360 | Rostislav Klesla | D | 1 | 4 | 253 | |
| Nick Schultz | D | 2 | 33 | 285 | Ben Knopp | D | 3 | 69 | ||
| Marc Cavosie | C | 4 | 99 | Petteri Nummelin* | D | 5 | 133 | 61 | ||
| Maxim Sushinski* | RW | 5 | 132 | 31 | Scott Heffernan | D | 5 | 138 | ||
| Eric Reitz | D | 6 | 170 | 5 | Tyler Kolarik | C | 5 | 150 | ||
| Brian Passmore | C | 7 | 199 | Shane Bendara | G | 6 | 169 | |||
| Peter Bartos* | LW | 7 | 214 | 13 | Janne Jokila | F | 7 | 200 | ||
| Lubomir Sekaras* | D | 8 | 232 | 213 | Peter Zingoni | F | 8 | 231 | ||
| Eric Johansson | C | 8 | 255 | Martin Paroulek* | LW | 9 | 278 | |||
| Mikko Koivu | C | 1 | 6 | 64 | Andrej Nederost | C | 9 | 286 | 28 | |
| Kyle Wanvig | RW | 2 | 36 | 64 | Louis Manderville | D | 9 | 292 | ||
| Chris Heid | D | 3 | 74 | Pascal Leclaire | G | 1 | 8 | 35 | ||
| Stephane Veilleux | LW | 3 | 93 | 128 | Tim Jackman | LW | 2 | 38 | 27 | |
| Tony Virta* | RW | 4 | 103 | 8 | Kiel McLeod | C | 2 | 53 | ||
| Derek Boogaard | C | 7 | 202 | 65 | Aaron Johnson | D | 3 | 85 | 55 | |
| Jake Riddle | LW | 8 | 239 | Per Mars | F | 3 | 87 | |||
| Cole Jarrett | D | 5 | 141 | 1 | ||||||
| Justin Aikins | RW | 6 | 173 | |||||||
| Artem Vostrikov | F | 6 | 187 | |||||||
| Raffaele Sannitz | D | 7 | 204 | |||||||
| Ryan Bowness | RW | 8 | 236 | |||||||
| Andrew Murray | C | 8 | 242 |
* overage European
Note: for the first year in this six-year period, two teams were affiliated with now-defunct IHL teams, Atlanta with the Orlando SolarBears and Columbus with the Cleveland Lumberjacks. Both joined current affiliates Chicago Wolves and Syracuse Crunch, respectively, in 2001 when the IHL folded. From this sample, only Darcy Hordichuk played for Orlando, and only Peter Bartos played for Cleveland, one season apiece.
Copyright 2006 Hockey's Future. Do not reprint or otherwise duplicate without permission of the editorial staff.
Copyright 2006 Hockey’s Future. Do not reprint or otherwise duplicate without permission of the editorial staff.
HF Quick Navigation
