NHL Power Rankings: Best all-time value draft picks of every team
By Jeremy Tuch
What would happen if we put together a starting six of players each team has picked? Who would have the best draft value? Here’s where we find out.
Starting with the first NHL Amateur Draft in 1963, 11,586 players have been selected to join the ranks of the National Hockey League. A good number of them have gotten to play in the big league, and some of them have succeeded tremendously, though not necessarily for the team they were drafted to.
So that got us thinking, what would be each team’s best lineup of all time of just players they drafted? If every player ended up playing for the same franchise they were drafted to, who would have the best lineup?
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That would be easy to figure out. So we’re going to add a level of difficulty here. We will aim to find out who used their draft picks the best, and make a lineup of the best value pick at each position for each team since 1963. That means those mid-to-late round picks get a chance to shine.
We are determining the relative value for each player by taking his Point Share total (thanks to hockey-reference.com) and comparing it to the average Point Share total of every player ever picked in that draft slot.
This will obviously skew results toward the past, but that’s ok because the newer players haven’t had a chance to make their lasting impact on their respective teams yet.
Additionally, we will not be including the most recent draft, because obviously players like Jack Hughes haven’t had a chance to suit up for their team yet (to be fair, Jack Hughes was already picked by the New Jersey Devils franchise in 1977, when the then-named Colorado Rockies selected a different Jack Hughes with the 142nd overall pick, and that Jack Hughes played in 46 games for them).
You’ll see names in unfamiliar places, and names you won’t recognize without looking up who that guy actually is. Just imagine the easiest way to name drop ever, and that’s what we have here. That’s fine. Lots of research was put into this to make sure it’s correct, so you have our word.
We begin our power ranking with the most obvious team on the list.