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Now that we have a projection system togather for CHL players, we can have a first look at the results of the 2009 draft. There were 77 CHL players in their first year of eligibility drafted this summer (though Matt Hackett, who I mentioned last week, was not one of them since he was eligible in 2008). 34 of these players were from the OHL, 26 from the WHL and 17 from the QMJHL. They break down as follows:
League Total Forward Defense Goal
OHL 34 20 12 2
WHL 26 17 8 1
QMJHL 17 8 7 2
Total 77 45 27 5
The Projectinator sees the WHL as the highest-quality league in the CHL. However, at least for this year, the scouts disagree, and NHL teams drafted more players from the OHL than from any other league. Next week when we look at the best undrafted players, we'll see that the great majority of them are from the Western Hockey League. Is this some sort of bias at work? It's far too early to tell.
Here is a complete list of the 77 first-year CHL players drafted this year. The table shows their overall rank in the draft (Draft) and their rank among first-year CHLers (CHL_Rk), as well as their Projectinator estimate in the last column (10YE). The higher the number, the better the professional career the system sees the player having. Now this is a big table, so take your time looking it over, especially near the top.
Player Club Draft CHL_Rank League Pos GP G A P/GAA PIM 10YE
Tavares, John NYI 1 1 OHL F 56 58 46 104 54 1.16
Duchene, Matt COL 3 2 OHL F 57 31 48 79 42 .55
Kane, Evander ATL 4 3 WHL F 61 48 48 96 89 .88
Schenn, Brayden LAK 5 4 WHL F 70 32 56 88 82 .96
Kazdri, Nazem TOR 7 5 OHL F 56 25 53 78 31 .63
Glennie, Scott DAL 8 6 WHL F 55 28 42 70 25 .78
Cowan, Jared OTT 9 7 WHL D 48 7 14 21 45 .64
Ellis, Ryan NSH 11 8 OHL D 57 22 67 89 57 .94
De Haan, Calvin NYI 12 9 OHL D 68 8 55 63 40 .56
Kassian, Zack BUF 13 10 OHL F 61 24 39 63 136 .40
Kulikov, Dmitri FLA 14 11 QMJHL D 57 12 50 62 46 .61
Holland, Peter ANA 15 12 OHL F 68 28 39 67 42 .40
Caron, Jordan BOS 25 13 QMJHL F 56 36 31 67 66 .57
Paradis, Philippe CAR 27 14 QMJHL F 66 19 31 50 74 .30
Ashton, Carter TBL 29 15 WHL F 70 30 20 50 93 .36
Despres, Simon PIT 30 16 QMJHL D 66 2 30 32 74 .37
Ferraro, Landon DET 32 17 WHL F 68 37 18 55 99 .43
O'Reilly, Ryan COL 33 18 OHL F 68 16 50 66 26 .47
Clifford, Kyle LAK 35 19 OHL F 60 16 12 28 133 .17
Clark, Matt ANA 37 20 OHL D 63 3 20 23 91 .30
Roussel, C-O NSH 42 21 QMJHL D 68 11 33 44 77 .49
Werek, Ethan NYR 47 22 OHL F 66 32 32 64 83 .53
Ponich, Brett STL 48 23 WHL D 72 1 17 18 117 .34
Elliott, Stefan COL 49 24 WHL D 71 16 39 55 26 .89
Gelinas, Eric NJD 54 25 QMJHL D 67 10 29 39 80 .57
Doherty, Taylor SJS 57 26 OHL D 68 2 18 20 140 .53
Blacker, Jesse TOR 58 27 OHL D 67 4 17 21 54 .28
Barrie, Tyson COL 64 28 WHL D 68 12 40 52 31 .74
McNabb, Brayden BUF 66 29 WHL D 67 10 26 36 140 .73
Devane, Jamie TOR 68 30 OHL F 64 5 12 17 92 .22
Beck, Taylor NSH 70 31 OHL F 67 22 36 58 36 .39
Latta, Michael NSH 72 32 OHL F 65 22 35 57 92 .38
Howse, Ryan CGY 74 33 WHL F 61 31 13 44 12 .38
Nestrasil, Andrej DET 75 34 QMJHL F 66 22 35 57 67 .45
Morrison, Adam PHI 81 35 WHL G 13 - - 2.49 - .30
Abney, Cameron EDM 82 36 WHL F 48 1 3 4 103 .17
Deslauriers, N. LAK 84 37 QMJHL D 68 11 19 30 80 .29
Eakin, Cody WSH 85 38 WHL F 54 24 24 48 42 .42
Button, Ryan BOS 86 39 WHL D 70 5 32 37 43 .41
Fournier, Gleason DET 90 40 QMJHL D 66 3 25 28 64 .28
Cizikas, Casey NYI 92 41 OHL F 55 16 20 36 30 .29
Hutchings, Alex TBL 93 42 OHL F 63 34 34 68 60 .44
Savard, David CLB 94 43 QMJHL D 68 9 35 44 33 .40
Berube, J-F LAK 95 44 QMJHL G 20 - - 2.89 - .48
Vey, Linden LAK 96 45 WHL F 71 24 48 72 20 .52
Szwarz, Jordan PHX 97 46 OHL F 67 17 34 51 76 .33
Foucault, Kris MIN 103 47 WHL F 26 9 8 17 16 .28
Foligno, Marcus BUF 104 48 OHL F 65 12 18 30 96 .22
Weller, Justin PHX 105 49 WHL D 32 0 4 4 30 .14
Wilson, Garrett FLA 107 50 OHL F 53 17 18 35 44 .39
Pasquale , Edward ATL 117 51 OHL G 61 - - 3.02 - .52
Froese, Byron CHI 119 52 WHL F 72 19 38 57 30 .44
Chiarot, Ben ATL 120 53 OHL D 67 2 10 12 111 .23
Sol, Cody ATL 122 54 OHL D 66 1 6 7 128 .25
Vincour, Tomas DAL 129 55 WHL F 49 17 19 36 23 .43
Bourque, Gabriel NSH 132 56 QMJHL F 60 22 39 61 82 .33
Roy, Olivier EDM 133 57 QMJHL G 66 - - 2.84 - .65
Dumont, Gabriel MTL 139 58 QMJHL F 51 28 21 49 63 .30
Stajcer, Scott NYR 140 59 OHL G 35 - - 3.57 - .15
Flemming, Brett WSH 145 60 OHL D 64 3 25 28 89 .30
Varone, Philip SJS 147 61 OHL F 58 19 33 52 32 .41
Zador, Michael TBL 148 62 OHL G 28 - - 3.65 - .23
Bathgate, Andy PGH 151 63 OHL F 44 4 12 16 10 .24
Bubnick, Jimmy ATL 155 64 WHL F 72 25 32 57 41 .39
Bloodoff, Evan PHX 157 65 WHL F 71 12 9 21 77 .16
Valentine, Scott ANA 166 66 OHL D 43 1 8 9 71 .25
Shields, David STL 168 67 OHL D 61 1 16 17 28 .29
Maggio, Daniel NYR 170 68 OHL D 44 2 14 16 60 .4
Mitchell, Garrett WSH 175 69 WHL F 71 10 5 15 140 .11
Randell, Tyler BOS 176 70 OHL F 73 24 13 37 99 .22
Callahan, M. DET 180 71 WHL F 70 14 13 27 188 .30
Koper, Levko ATL 185 72 WHL F 71 23 36 59 57 .38
Anthony, Steven VAN 187 73 QMJHL F 67 19 29 48 47 .28
Smith, Barron TOR 188 74 OHL D 34 0 2 2 57 .18
Casavant, B. WSH 205 75 QMJHL F 68 39 41 80 49 .43
Kivisto, Tommy CAR 208 76 WHL D 65 1 21 22 49 .32
Gilbert, David CHI 209 77 QMJHL F 67 11 32 43 24 .28
The interesting stuff starts right at the top, with John Tavares. How good is Tavares' 10YE mark of 1.16? Well, a value of 1.00 or higher is basically a superstar projection. For example, Eric Lindros had a 1.00 10YE in 1991. Though, 1.16 is certainly not the highest ever recorded, or even the highest in recent history. Mario Lemieux had an astronomical value of 1.50 in 1984, but Sidney Crosby topped that, with a mind-boggling 1.84 10YE in 2005. With such a projection, you might think that Crosby could be considered something of a disappointment so far in his career, even with the great success he has met with in the NHL to date. I would suggest it's more a result of the Predictanator breaking down somewhat when dealing with extreme values like this. When you get into Crosby and Lemieux territory, the values start getting nebulous due to the great extent with which they dominated their peers.
So is there a scoring championship in Tavares' near future? He's going to have a tough time in that department, facing the talents of Ovechkin, Malkin and Crosby and his own lack of talented teammates at present. He's certainly performing as expected so far, with six points in his first five games, averaging 3.6 shots per game and playing over 21 minutes. The Islander rookie doesn't have a lot of competition for ice time on the Island, of course, but he's looking good so far.
Colorado hasn't been shy about playing their raw rookie forwards, with Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly both playing every game so far. O'Reilly has four points to Duchene's three, but the Projectinator wasn't terribly impressed with either one, with 10YE scores of .55 and .47 respectively. They're outperforming those projections so far, but it's still far too early to know if they'll persist in doing so.
As draft time approached, Duchene was thrown into the mix with Tavares and Victor Hedman in the discussion of who might be drafted first overall. As for the Projectinator, there was another forward who could be included in the group, but it wasn't Duchene. It was Brayden Schenn, who the Kings grabbed with the #5 pick.
Why does Schenn rank so far ahead of Duchene according to the Projectinator, given that Duchene scored more points per game than Schenn? First of all, remember that the WHL is the lower-scoring league, and is the higher-quality league as well. This makes Schenn's fewer points more valuable than Duchene's greater number, but there are also two other important reasons that we haven't discussed yet. The first is that Schenn was born on August 22, over seven months later than Duchene (January 16), which has a significant impact at this age. The second is because of their individual performances in the years prior to their first draft-eligible years. In 2007/08, Schenn scored 71 points in 66 games, compared to Duchene's 50 points in 60 games. The same adjustments for scoring level, league quality and age apply to these as well. In addition, the Projectinator doesn't like forwards with “unbalanced” goals and assists totals. Duchene's 50 points in 2007/08 included 30 goals and only 20 assists, which the Projectinator interprets as him being more dependant on linemates for points that Schenn, who had a good balance between the two.
We won't really know who's better until they've played for a few years, but the system sees Duchene in a much more pessimistic light that the scouts do, ranking him 18th among CHL players in 2009. Evander Kane, the only other 2009 draftee playing in the NHL right now, ranked only a few spots lower than Schenn. It seems that Los Angeles and Atlanta made out well with their first round picks, while Colorado went with the hype rather than the numbers. Duchene might very well outplay his projection by a good degree, several players every year will do that, but the western boys were safer bets this year. |
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