Draft Success

Even the good ones get it wrong sometimes. The Colorado/Quebec franchise has had the most success in the draft, and they can't be blamed too much for taking Bryan Fogarty ninth overall in 1987. The guy was the highest scoring defenseman in OHL history, how were they to know he'd end up naked and dead in a school cafeteria kitchen in the middle of the night? The man had problems.
Anyway, Fogarty aside the Nords/Lanche have the greatest success in drafting players in the NHL. I looked at all the picks made in each franchise's history and how many of them reached the 500 point and 1000 point plateau, perhaps not for the original team, simply in their NHL career. I also counted the goalies that were picked by a franchise that played 300 NHL games.
I figured add the 500 point guys, add a bonus point for the 1000 point guys and include the 300 game goalies, divide that number by the number of draft yaers and you get a very basic, yet telling rating of draft success.



I only looked at the "original 21" teams in order to get a large sample of draft years. The top four end up Colorado/Quebec, New Jersey/Rockies/Scouts, Buffalo and the New York Islanders.
Somewhat surprisingly the Rangers lead with 21 different players selected who went on to tally at least 500 NHL points and the Oilers have only nine. St.Louis has the fewest 500 point draftees with six, amazing over a 42 year period. Vancouver is the only team to never have drafted a 1000 point man with Trevor Linden's 867 being tops followed by Rick Vaive at 788. The 'Nucks are also the only team to draft as few as one goaltender to play in at least 300 games. Glen Hanlon played 477 games while Murray Bannerman came close with 289.
Montreal and Colorado/Quebec have drafted the highest number of 300 game goalies with seven each (and half of the total 14 hail from La Belle Province).
I find it interesting to see how disparate the success of drafting is between the top teams on the chart and the ones at the bottom. You often hear how the draft is a crap-shoot, but over a 30 or 40 year period, one would figure that would even out. Some teams just historically draft better than others.

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