Draft Hits And Misses - Carolina Hurricanes

Over the next couple of weeks I will look at each team in the NHL, and see how they have performed at the NHL draft. There are basically 3 really important areas to determine the level of success at one of the most inexact sciences in the game – selecting 17 and 18 year old kids and projecting what they will be like over the next 10 or 15 years.

Those three areas are: 1) Success in the first round; 2) Success in the second round and 3) The number of drafted players playing on a team’s roster. I limit it to the first 2 rounds because that is where a majority of the impact players come from, and also where mistakes in judgement are magnified. Players that come after the second round for the most part are fortunate picks and if they work out it is a bonus. Henrik Zetterberg, for example, was a 7th round pick, and although you could claim Detroit was skilled in unearthing a prospect at that point in the draft, if they had known he was going to be as good as he turned out to be, they wouldn’t have waited that long. There is as much good luck as good management for a player like that, and that is factored in in the 3rd area of success.

Now we turn our attention to the Carolina Hurricanes, and their track record since the year 2000.

FIRST ROUND SUCCESS:

The Hurricanes have selected 11 players in the first round, with 7 of them making some impact in the NHL, for a success rate of 64%.

SECOND ROUND SUCCESS:

In the second round, 3 of the 13 players they selected have gone on to play a significant amount of time, resulting in a 23% success rate.

HOME-DRAFTED TALENT:

The Canes had 13 Carolina-drafted players play games with them this past season.

SUCCESSES – Eric Staal, Jeff Skinner and Cam Ward are among the top draft picks by the Hurricanes. Add in Andrew Ladd and Jack Johnson and that is a pretty good group of first round successes.

FAILURES – Igor Knyazev (15th in 2001) and Phillipe Paradis (27th in 2009) are among the not-so-great picks.

STEALS – The Hurricanes have a startling lack of true success in the late rounds. Frederik Andersen was 187th in 2010 but he re-entered the draft two years later and was picked up by the Ducks. Brett Bellemore was 162nd overall in 2007 and has recently made the jump to the NHL level.