|
When last we checked in with the fictional Saskatoon Westerns (the former St. Louis Blues), general manager Ardal Ekrub had made a series of moves to reshape the team's roster and to acquire a number of draft picks in the 1983 NHL Entry Draft, the team's first in its new location in Saskatchewan. Knowing that the team had already traded away its top two picks in this draft before the change of ownership, Mr. Ekrub was counting on his Project-a-Tron objective drafting system to identify the best available players.
"We think there are certain types of players that will be overlooked by other teams in this draft, and we expect to be able to select many good ones", he tells the Saskatoon media in the days leading up to the draft. While he was clearly correct that certain types of players are heavily discounted by most hockey insiders, it would be a number of years before the effectiveness of his system could really be proven. Very few 18-year-old players step right into an NHL lineup to make a real impact on the game. The team would have to muddle through for at least a few seasons before their young players developed enough to change the face of the club.
Looking over at his list of Project-a-Tron projections (which are, coincidentally, identical to what we know today as the Projectinator), Ekrub knows he's not going to get a lot of the best players. He doesn't have a pick until #33, though he's acquired a large number of picks soon after that one. He hopes that his advantage in objective evaluation of players will offset his lack his of early draft choices.
The following tables show the top 30 players according to the system, including their projected peak GVT (PGVT+) and where they were drafted in the actual 1983 NHL Entry Draft, for reference.
Top 30 Players Available at 1983 NHL Entry Draft
Rank Player Pos League PGVT+ Drafted
1 Dale Derkatch F WHL 11.6 140
2 Pat LaFontaine F QMJHL 11.2 3
3 Petr Klima F Cze 11.2 86
4 Bruce Cassidy D OHL 10.3 18
5 Lane Lambert F WHL 9.1 25
6 Raimo Helminen F Fin 9.1 -
7 Brian Bradley F OHL 8.8 51
8 Randy Heath F WHL 8.7 33
9 Dan Quinn F OHL 8.3 13
10 Peter Andersson D Swe 8.2 73
11 Esa Keskinen F Fin 8.2 -
12 Steve Yzerman F OHL 7.9 4
13 Cam Neely F WHL 7.9 9
14 Sylvain Turgeon F QMJHL 7.9 2
15 Shawn Evans D OHL 7.9 24
16 Vesa Salo D Fin 7.9 49
17 Petr Rosol F Cze 7.7 -
18 Esa Tikkanen F Fin 7.4 80
19 Jari Torkki F Fin 7.3 115
20 Andrew McBain F OHL 7.0 8
21 Alfie Turcotte F WHL 6.8 17
22 Wayne Groulx F OHL 6.6 172
23 Iiro Jarvi F Fin 6.6 54
24 Adam Creighton F OHL 6.5 11
25 John Tucker F OHL 6.4 31
26 Dan Hodgson F WHL 6.4 83
27 Normand Rochefort F ECAC 6.2 10
28 Patrick Emond F QMJHL 6.1 103
29 Gerald Diduck D WHL 6.0 16
30 Tommy Albelin D Swe 6.0 158
31 Mikko Makela F Fin 6.0 65
It's clear now that at this point in time, NHL teams were still either reluctant to draft European players, or were not investing sufficient resources into scouting them. As such, the Westerns end up with a significant European flavor in their draft results. In particular, there may be a large amount of Finnish spoken in the Saskatoon dressing room in the coming years, with four Finns drafted in 1983.
Saskatoon Westerns 1983 Entry Draft Picks
Pick Player Pos League PGVT+
33 Dale Derkatch F WHL 11.6
43 Petr Klima F Cze 11.2
46 Raimo Helminen F Fin 9.1
48 Brian Bradley F OHL 8.8
54 Peter Andersson D Swe 8.2
56 Esa Keskinen F Fin 8.2
62 Petr Rosol F Cze 7.7
69 Esa Tikkanen F Fin 7.4
90 Jari Torkki F Fin 7.3
111 Wayne Groulx F OHL 6.6
132 Tommy Albelin D Swe 6.0
153 Mark Jooris F ECAC 5.2
174 Claude Gosselin F QMJHL 4.4
195 Steve Pepin F QMJHL 3.9
216 Mike Bishop G OHL 3.7
237 Marc Damphousse F QMJHL 3.4
Despite not having a pick until halfway through the second round, Ekrub was able to draft the first-, third-, sixth-, seventh-, tenth-, eleventh-, seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-best players available, according to the Project-a-Tron. Obviously not all of these players will pan out to meet their expectations, but this is a very clear illustration of the differences between the projections and the scouts.
The Saskatoon management is overjoyed with its crop at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft. "At the very least, this will be a great test of the system", Ekrub was heard to say. "The more players we can draft that other teams aren't interested in, the bigger sample we have to judge our results. And at best, we've just drafted the core of a team that will be very good for a long time."
One thing many NHL fans probably don't think much about is roster and Reserve List management. To document this evaluation of objective drafting, we need to be as realistic as possible. As such, the team's list of available players is very important, and must follow the rules.
An NHL team is permitted a Reserve List of 80 players, which includes players under contract and players who have been drafted but not yet signed. Of these 80, at most 50 can be under professional contracts. North American players must be signed within two years of being drafted, or else they are able to re-enter the draft (if young enough) or become free agents. European players are not subject to this restriction. Once a European is drafted, he remains on the team's Reserve List until he is released or his rights are traded.
Since his team started out with such a thin roster, Ekrub won't have to worry about a real Reserve List crunch for several years. Even after adding 16 draft choices, the Saskatoon Westerns have only 61 players on their list, 19 less than the maximum allowed. The table below lists all players on the Saskatoon Reserve List, with age provided and a (k) beside a player's name indicating that he is under contract with the team.
Saskatoon Westerns 1983-84 Reserve List
Pos Name Age (1983-84)
G Beaupre, Don (k) 21
G Bishop, Mike 18
G Heinz, Rick (k) 28
G Parro, Dave (k) 26
G Skidmore, Paul (k) 27
D Albelin, Tommy 19
D Andersson, Peter 18
D Brownschidle, Jack (k) 27
D Delorme, Gilbert (k) 20
D Dore, Andre (k) 25
D Giles, Curt (k) 24
D Hagglund, Roger 21
D Julien, Claude (k) 23
D McCrimmon, Brad (k) 24
D McKay, Darren (k) 21
D McTaggart, Jim (k) 23
D Norwood, Lee (k) 23
D Posavad, Mike (k) 19
D Ruff, Marty (k) 20
D Smyth, John (k) 21
D Stewart, Bill (k) 25
D Wilson, Rik (k) 21
C Bradley, Brian 18
C Brooke, Bob 21
C Callander, Jock (k) 21
C Derkatch, Dale 18
C Federko, Bernie (k) 27
C Galarneau, Michel (k) 22
C Gilmour, Doug (k) 20
C Groulx, Wayne 18
C Helminen, Raimo 19
C Jooris, Mark 19
C Keskinen, Esa 18
C Klassen, Ralph (k) 28
C Lemieux, Alain (k) 22
C Pepin, Steve 18
C Tookey, Tim (k) 22
C Tudor, Rob (k) 27
C Wickenheiser, Doug (k) 22
LW Anderson, Perry (k) 21
LW Eades, Cary (k) 21
LW Damphousse, Marc 18
LW Fenton, Paul (k) 22
LW Gosselin, Claude 18
LW Pettersson, Jorgen (k) 27
LW Propp, Brian (k) 24
LW Rabbitt, Pat (k) 21
LW Tikkanen, Esa 18
LW Torkki, Jari 18
LW Skjodt, Charlie (k) 27
RW Crawford, Bob (k) 23
RW Ganchar, Perry (k) 19
RW Graham, Dirk (k) 23
RW Klima, Petr 18
RW Markell, John (k) 27
RW Michayluk, Dave (k) 21
RW Mullen, Joe (k) 26
RW Paslawski, Greg (k) 22
RW Reeds, Mark (k) 23
RW Rosol, Petr 19
RW Zemlak, Richard (k) 20
Players on Reserve List (Maximum 80): 61
Players Under Contract (Maximum 50): 43
Before the season starts, the league moves the Winnipeg Jets to the Norris Division, and Saskatoon enters the Smythe Division to match the geography of the western teams as best as possible. It's a shame that the Kings couldn't have shifted instead of the Jets, which would have made the Smythe a truly Western Canadian division. But that's just not realistic—Los Angeles is just too far from any other team in the league at this time to make that workable. So the Westerns begin their NHL life in the same division as the dominant Edmonton Oilers, which will certainly make getting out of the division in the playoffs—assuming the playoffs are even made—quite the challenge.
Using GVT, we can estimate how well the team performs based on its roster. This will never be precise, and the results must be taken with a grain of salt. The point is not to show exactly how well a team using objective drafting would perform, since an examination of the players acquired through such a drafting strategy should be enough for that. The seasonal results are more for fun, as are the playoff results in particular, since those will be determined randomly, game-by-game, using the teams' relative winning percentages.
As is turns out, the Westerns manage a fourth-place finish in the Smythe Division in 1983-84, the same that the real-life Blues had in the Norris Division that year. The biggest names acquired by Ekrub—Brian Propp, Bernie Federko and Don Beaupre—have the biggest impact on the team, but of course a heavy price was paid for those men.
Saskatoon Westerns 1983-84 NHL Season Results
GP W L T GF GA Pts Finish
80 32 39 9 314 324 73 4th, Smythe Division; 13th overall
Player Pos GP OGVT DGVT GVT
Propp, Brian LW 79 10.4 5.5 15.9
Federko, Bernie C 79 12.2 2.3 14.5
Mullen, Joe RW 80 8.2 2.0 10.2
Crawford, Bob RW 80 7.2 2.0 9.2
Pettersson, Jorgen LW 77 5.7 2.3 8.0
Gilmour, Doug C 80 4.0 3.3 7.3
Beaupre, Don G 51 0.0 6.7 6.7
Dore, Andre D 80 2.2 4.2 6.4
Wickenheiser, Doug C 73 1.8 3.4 5.2
Wilson, Rik D 54 1.4 3.1 4.5
McCrimmon, Brad D 71 0.4 4.0 4.4
Giles, Curt D 70 1.8 2.5 4.3
Stewart, Bill D 56 1.2 1.7 2.9
Reeds, Mark RW 65 0.8 1.6 2.4
Lemieux, Alain LW 69 1.8 0.4 2.2
Tookey, Tim C 66 1.3 0.4 1.7
Paslawski, Greg RW 60 0.1 1.5 1.6
Delorme, Gilbert D 71 -0.8 2.3 1.5
Graham, Dirk RW 6 0.3 0.2 0.5
Norwood, Lee D 14 0.1 0.4 0.5
Michayluk, Dave RW 14 0.1 0.3 0.4
Brooke, Bob C 9 0.0 0.3 0.3
Fenton, Paul LW 8 0.2 0.0 0.2
Ganchar, Perry RW 1 -0.1 0.1 0.0
Markell, John RW 2 -0.1 0.0 -0.1
Tudor, Rob C 10 -0.1 0.0 -0.1
Galarneau, Michel LW 39 -0.3 0.1 -0.2
Brownschidle, Jack D 64 -1.1 0.7 -0.4
Klassen, Ralph C 5 -0.5 -0.2 -0.7
Anderson, Perry LW 58 -1.2 0.5 -0.7
Heinz, Rick G 10 0.0 -2.1 -2.1
Parro, Dave G 19 0.0 -6.2 -6.2
Total 80 57.1 43.3 100.4
Federko, Propp and Joe Mullen form quite an effective first line, and the second line of Doug Gilmour with Bob Crawford and Jorgen Pettersson is decent as well. Greg Paslawski and Mark Reeds make a fairly effective checking pair, but the blue line corps needs some work yet. Their goaltender Beaupre is good, but the backups are terrible. 73 points is about as good a result as you could have hoped for—beating what the real-life Blues did this season by two points—and is enough to take the fourth playoff seed in the Smythe Division.
Playoffs - First Round
The Westerns' first playoff opponent is, as feared, the mighty Oilers. The 1984 edition of this team have the second-most points in the league, and the best goal differential in the circuit. Saskatoon gives their faithful a brief glimmer of hope by shocking Edmonton with a 6-5 win in the first game. Losses of 5-7, 5-8 and 0-2 followed, however, preventing any surprises in the round.
Summing up the season, Ardal Ekrub offers the following: "It was a good year. It was nice to see the players we acquired contributing like we hoped they would. And I was very pleased with how our first draft turned out. I think we're on our way to building a very good team. We just need some time." |
Conn Smythe Watch (05/25)
3 comments have been left for this article. 
Dale Derkatch! What a steal!
Seriously, though, the Projectinator (or Project-a-Tron) was based on data that included 1983 players and beyond, so of course it will pick wisely. I'd be more impressed if the Project-a-Tron were based only on data available prior to 1983.
And since the Entry draft started in 1963, and it takes years to determine a player's Peak GVT, the Project-a-Tron would have to be based on a very small sample of data, maybe 12 years?
Actually Rob, the Projectinator was developed using a data set of 1989 to 1998, so these projections are "pure", so to speak. I wouldn't want to go too far back from 1983, since into the 1970s the character of the draft was quite different (19-year-olds instead of 17-year-olds being the standard).
The purpose of these articles, other than a bit of fun, is to show how strong the objective draft rankings can be. It's fine to start with 2009 or whatever and watch over the years as the players develop, but this will be much more exciting than waiting 10 years. The articles are not meant to show what could have been done at the time, just what can be done now, using the hypothetical past as an illustration.