rakish

If you have google and a half hour, you can find out who the top performers were the past 5 or 6 years. It would be nice to have the whole list like NHL GMs get, but from the short list, I don't see any meaning to the combine top performers.

Up stream (last week) I said I thought the model would like Sergachev more than Bean, without a closer look, the model like Bean more. It's very possible that my MHL numbers (for Sergachev at age 16) are wrong, so I'll look at that the day I do Sergachev. Compare him to other MHL defensemen, compare him to OHL? defensemen at 17. Compare to defensemen his size. Try to figure out why Sergachev was so much better in 2015 than he was in 2014.

I'm going to do them one at a time, because most people will look at my list and say "You value smalls too high," so you will see Keller vs other smalls, and Laine vs other bigs, and be able to rearrange them for your taste in height. In addition, how valuable is a defensemen vs a forward? This method works OK for forwards, and not-so-much for defensemen, to be honest, I could put a lot more work into defensemen, but I am out of energy. I think your understanding of the method is good, but you need to create tools to do the work because your brain can't do that many variables. Now that I'm looking at what my model does with 2016 draft picks, I think you will look at the Sergachev/Bean numbers and say "Didn't rakish just say the opposite, just last week?"

Eichel better at 17, Matthews better at 16, but you can't really tell Matthews at 17 because the NLA numbers are meaningless. What I was trying to say is I don't care. It's a lot of guesswork dealing with a league like NLA. One of the things I did poorly in previous drafts was valuing 16 year olds because there are so many leagues, and how much that matters. There's tons of noise. I could spend a lot of time on Eichel vs Matthews, but in the end it doesn't matter. We'll know much more in a year. If you look at Eichel's numbers, I agree with Hoss in that Eichel had a very disappointing 2015-2016 since his 2015 numbers are only slightly better than his 2014 numbers. I think you'll like Eichel a lot more next year now that Bylsma has finally figured out he needs to play with Reinhart and not Kane. For me, the real question is Matthews/Laine or Matthews/Keller. And since Matthews was so far ahead at 16, it doesn't matter how he did in the NLA, for me, he's still the best prospect.

These are the top USDP forwards at age 16 1 AUSTON MATTHEWS USDP 1187 2 JACK EICHEL USDP 763 3 MATTHEW TKACHUK USDP 633 4 J.T. MILLER USDP 483 5 DREW SHORE USDP 324 6 JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK USDP 303 7 MAX JONES USDP 248 8 JIM O'BRIEN USDP 241 9 NICOLAS KERDILES USDP 227 10 AUSTIN POGANSKI USDP 214 11 BLAKE GEOFFRION USDP 191 12 SHANE EISERMAN USDP 173 These are the top USHL forwards at age 16 (USDP players play half a season in USDP, and half in the USHL. It used to be the NAHL, but you don't care about that) 1 AUSTON MATTHEWS USHL 655 2 JACK EICHEL USHL 614 3 MATTHEW TKACHUK USHL 314 4 ZEMGUS GIRGENSONS USHL 291 5 KIEFFER BELLOWS USHL 277 6 NICOLAS KERDILES USHL 168 7 JAKOB FORSBACKA KARLSSON USHL 132 8 DANIIL ZHARKOV USHL 82 9 MAX JONES USHL 80 10 J.T. MILLER USHL 79 These are all the players that played in NLA at age 17 drafted by the NHL in the past 10 years: 1 AUSTON MATTHEWS NLA 760

This is a list of prospects drafted in the past 12 drafts who were within one inch of Matthews 74 and ten pounds of his 194. Reading from the left, we have player, his total score, where he played at 17, that score (averaged if more than one), where he played at 16, his 16 score, and his age, which you can ignore because it's already figured in to his score. Note that Matthews gets very little score for his 17th year. Not many NHL players come from NLA, and, Swede's at least, don't let you score your first year in that league (SEL), so I have little faith in this 17th year number. I would need to put a lot of effort into getting better numbers, but it doesn't matter. He's the best player in the draft by a wide margin. 1 CONNOR MCDAVID 2994 -OHL 2132 -OHL 861 17.7 2 JACK EICHEL 1933 -NCAA 1245 -USDP-USHL 689 17.9 3 AUSTON MATTHEWS 1681 -NLA 760 -USDP-USHL 921 18.0 4 ANZE KOPITAR 1410 -SuperElit 794 -Slovenia-Slovenia U20 616 17.1 5 MATTHEW TKACHUK 1342 -OHL 869 -USDP-USHL 473 17.8 6 JAKUB VORACEK 1326 -QMJHL 840 -Czech U20 487 17.1 7 BRAYDEN SCHENN 1259 -WHL 724 -WHL 534 17.1 8 SAM REINHART 1181 -WHL 785 -WHL 395 17.9 9 DYLAN STROME 1150 -OHL 924 -OHL 226 17.5 10 JESSE PULJUJÄRVI 1117 -Champions HL-Liiga 813 -Mestis-Liiga-Jr. A SM-liiga 710 17.4 11 JAMES VAN RIEMSDYK 1105 -USDP-NAHL 1823 -NAHL-USDP-USDP 194 17.4 12 LEON DRAISAITL 995 -WHL 736 -WHL 259 17.9 13 JOEL ARMIA 973 -Liiga 785 -Jr. A SM-liiga 188 17.3 14 TOMAS HERTL 951 -Czech 711 -Czech U20 240 17.8 15 MIKHAIL GRIGORENKO 903 -QMJHL 713 -MHL 190 17.3 16 SEAN MONAHAN 902 -OHL 546 -OHL 356 17.9 17 PIERRE-LUC DUBOIS 901 -QMJHL 632 -QMJHL 268 17.2 18 ROOPE HINTZ 895 -Liiga 579 -Jr. A SM-liiga 316 17.8 19 JONATHAN TOEWS 868 -NCAA 696 -USHS 172 17.4 20 YEVGENI SVECHNIKOV 810 -QMJHL 511 -MHL 299 17.9 21 KYLE BEACH 809 -WHL 336 -WHL 473 17.7 22 ZEMGUS GIRGENSONS 765 -USHL 474 -USHL 291 17.7

2015 My results for 2015 weren't good. My biggest fault was, I believe, that I decided I should should look for improvement, meaning that I took the 17-year-old rating and subtracted the 16-year-old rating. With ratings with so much noise, it ends up that looking for improvement ends up selecting the most likely to be an outlier as a 17 year old. Live and learn. The 2015 draft contest (see below) used Winnipeg's draft, somehow I missed Kyle Connor at #17, which was a no-brainer, since he should have been picked as 4th the 5th forward, but, instead of Harkins, I also could have easily chosen Merkley, who also had a bad 2015. This is what last year looks like with this years model. I may confuse some forwards with defenseman here, we're on a budget. Again the number after is 16 year ranking plus their 17 year ranking. 1 CONNOR MCDAVID 2994 2 JACK EICHEL 1933 3 MITCHELL MARNER 1297 4 KYLE CONNOR 1153 5 DYLAN STROME 1150 6 NICHOLAS MERKLEY 1104 7 MATHEW BARZAL 934 8 DANIEL SPRONG 924 9 ROOPE HINTZ 895 10 SEBASTIAN AHO 857 11 MARTINS DZIERKALS 848 12 MIKKO RANTANEN 831 13 YEVGENI SVECHNIKOV 810 14 JEREMY BRACCO 774 15 ANTHONY RICHARD 736 16 JANSEN HARKINS 736 17 ANTHONY BEAUVILLIER 712 18 TRAVIS KONECNY 703 19 JÉRÉMY ROY 700 20 DMYTRO TIMASHOV 660 21 PAUL BITTNER 642 22 TIMO MEIER 624 23 PAVEL ZACHA 620 24 JAKE DEBRUSK 616 25 FILIP CHLAPÍK 615 26 YAKOV TRENIN 610 27 COLIN WHITE 600 28 JULIUS NÄTTINEN 589 29 FILIP AHL 584 30 CAMERON HUGHES 555 31 COOPER MARODY 555 32 JAKOB FORSBACKA KARLSSON 539 33 BLAKE SPEERS 537 34 CHRISTIAN FISCHER 534 35 JACK ROSLOVIC 534 36 RYAN GROPP 530 37 ERIK FOLEY 525 38 KIRILL KAPRIZOV 524 39 ALEKSI SAARELA 523 40 ROBIN KOVACS 518 41 DENIS GURYANOV 513 42 BROCK BOESER 512 43 THOMAS NOVAK 507 44 CONOR GARLAND 500 45 DENIS MALGIN 487 46 MICHAEL SPACEK 486 47 PAVEL KARNAUKHOV 472 48 ETHAN BEAR 459 49 JOEL ERIKSSON EK 458 50 DENNIS YAN 447 51 JORDAN GREENWAY 445 52 NIKITA KOROSTELEV 442 1 ZACH WERENSKI 1057 2 NOAH HANIFIN 956 3 IVAN PROVOROV 951 4 RASMUS ANDERSSON 921 5 RYAN PILON 757 6 NICOLAS MELOCHE 743 7 VEETI VAINIO 704 8 NOAH JUULSEN 699 9 TRAVIS DERMOTT 602 10 THOMAS SCHEMITSCH 548 11 VINCE DUNN 504 12 JAKUB ZBORIL 451 13 OLIVER KYLINGTON 447 This is their 2015 rankings, the liiga numbers are probably a bit high. 1 CONNOR MCDAVID NHL 3413 2 JACK EICHEL NHL 1440 3 DYLAN STROME OHL 1391 4 KYLE CONNOR NCAA 1303 5 SEBASTIAN AHO Liiga 1252 6 BROCK BOESER NCAA 1179 7 MIKKO RANTANEN AHL 1134 9 MITCHELL MARNER OHL 1091 10 TRAVIS KONECNY OHL 900 11 COLIN WHITE NCAA 872 12 MATHEW BARZAL WHL 868 13 ANTHONY RICHARD QMJHL 867 14 ROOPE HINTZ Liiga 843 15 ANTHONY BEAUVILLIER QMJHL 809 16 ALEKSI SAARELA Liiga 799 17 TIMO MEIER QMJHL 929 18 KIRILL KAPRIZOV KHL 726 19 TRAVIS KONECNY OHL 713 20 FILIP AHL SuperElit 663 21 CHRISTIAN FISCHER OHL 626 22 JULIUS NÄTTINEN OHL 610 23 COOPER MARODY NCAA 602 24 DMYTRO TIMASHOV QMJHL 600 25 JEAN-CHRISTOPHE BEAUDIN QMJHL 594 26 CAMERON HUGHES NCAA 586 27 GIORGIO ESTEPHAN WHL 579 28 JAKOB FORSBACKA KARLSSON NCAA 577 29 NICOLAS ROY QMJHL 571 30 YEVGENI SVECHNIKOV QMJHL 569 31 DANIEL SPRONG QMJHL 558 32 LAWSON CROUSE OHL 550 33 ADAM GAUDETTE NCAA 549 34 JOEL ERIKSSON EK SHL 549 35 THOMAS NOVAK NCAA 547 36 JACK ROSLOVIC NCAA 542 37 PAVEL ZACHA OHL 509 38 LUKAS JASEK Czech U20 508 39 MATHIEU JOSEPH QMJHL 503 40 JORDAN GREENWAY NCAA 500 41 ROBIN KOVACS Allsvenskan 495 1 NOAH HANIFIN NHL 1026 2 ZACH WERENSKI NCAA 971 3 ANDREW NIELSEN WHL 842 4 IVAN PROVOROV WHL 795 5 RASMUS ANDERSSON OHL 658 6 ETHAN BEAR WHL 544 7 TRAVIS DERMOTT OHL 518 The 2015 draft contest looks like this. Even though I did a terrible job with the first pick, the rest of the picks were OK, so I'm still hoping to win this thing. The World Juniors part of this competion wasn't as exciting this year, as only one pick of mine and two of Pronman's played in the WJC. I had the most points as Korshkov had a big tournement. It was a far cry from last year, when Button had 6 WJC players and I had 5. This year the 4 participants who chose Connor at pick 17 look like they each only got one NHL player out of this draft, mostly because Merkley had a bad year. Winnipeg's #198 pick probably puts him out front. Viewed singly, each may be a bit different, since another participants choice previous to yours will preclude your choice. Who Winnipeg took: 17 Connor 4th among forwards 24 Roslovic 39th 47 Harkins 71st 78 Foley 51st 108 Spacek 68th 168 Appleton 54th (2016) 198 Niku 14th among defensemen 203 Gennaro 103rd rakish: 17 Harkins 71st 25 Andersson 5th among defensemen 47 Vainio 38th among defensemen 78 Ahl 20th in superelite, though lower in higher leagues 108 Pilon Where did you play last year, and why did you play there? 168 Levelle 13th among defensemen (undrafted in real world) 198 Abols 82nd (2014) (undrafted) 203 Korshkov 50th (2014) (undrafted) Hockey News 17 Connor 4th 25 Merkley 49th 47 Roy 34th among defensemen 78 Foley 51st 108 Korostelev 80th 168 Fitzgerald 98th (undrafted) 198 McKenzie 78th (undrafted) 203 Noel 97th (undrafted) Button 17 Connor 4th 25 Merkley 49th 47 Vande Sompel 39th among defensemen 78 Foley 51st 108 Gavrikov 26th among 2014 defensemen 168 Bouramman 41st among defensemen 198 Marsh 76th 203 Noel 97th (undrafted) McKenzie 17 Connor 4th 25 Merkely 49th 47 Siegenthaler 61st among defensemen 78 Booth (goaltender) 108 Pilon Where did you play last year, and why did you play there? Pronman - taken from a reddit copy and paste, so may be inaccurate. 17 Konecny 10th 25 Kylington 43rd among defensemen 47 Looke 92nd 78 Pilipenko no stats on 2015 108 Wotherspoon 27th among defensemen 168 Aho the Swede 24th among defensemen in 2014 draft (undrafted) 198 Tkachev 102 in 2014 draft (undrafted) 203 S Olsson the forward? the goaltender? I'm going with the forward 111th (undrafted)

2014 Since Liger was talking about McCann this morning, it works out well that I get to the 2014 draft. Notes on my draft contest below. The model has evolved a bit, this is what it the current model would have thought at the time as the top 17 year olds, I ended up with Reinhart, Holmstrom, Point, Barbashev, and Glover. Had I used the current model, I would have drafted Martin instead of Glover, but, except for that, things are pretty much the same. These are the 20th highest rated forwards, 9 highest rated defensemen, at age 17. The number following each name is their total score for ages 16 and 17, so you will notice that the year 18 scores are similar. 1 WILLIAM NYLANDER 1276 2 SAM BENNETT 1221 3 SAM REINHART 1181 4 LEON DRAISAITL 995 5 AXEL HOLMSTRÖM 896 6 NICK RITCHIE 876 7 BRAYDEN POINT 858 8 ROBBY FABBRI 842 9 KEVIN FIALA 809 10 MICHAEL DAL COLLE 799 11 SONNY MILANO 794 12 JAKE VIRTANEN 767 13 KASPERI KAPANEN 755 14 NIKOLAI GOLDOBIN 745 15 IVAN BARBASHYOV 698 16 NIKOLAJ EHLERS 656 17 CHASE DE LEO 654 18 JAYCE HAWRYLUK 621 19 JARED MCCANN 616 20 NICK SCHMALTZ 614 1 AARON EKBLAD 1043 2 BRYCEN MARTIN 821 3 HAYDN FLEURY 606 4 ROLAND MCKEOWN 604 5 ANTHONY DEANGELO 593 6 ALEXIS VANIER 487 7 JACK GLOVER 444 8 MARCUS PETTERSSON 424 9 JULIUS HONKA 389 As 18 year olds in 2014-2015, this is how they are rated. Garland was an overager drafted in the 2015 draft. Korshkov, undrafted, was selected in the 2015 draft contest by me. 1 DAVID PASTRNAK NHL 1550 2 SAM BENNETT OHL 1316 3 MICHAEL DAL COLLE OHL 1237 4 LEON DRAISAITL WHL 1193 5 WILLIAM NYLANDER SHL 1100 6 DYLAN LARKIN NCAA 1024 7 KEVIN FIALA SHL 1011 8 JOSHUA HO-SANG OHL 866 9 AXEL HOLMSTRÖM SHL 803 10 NIKITA SCHERBAK WHL 802 11 ROBBY FABBRI OHL 781 12 JAKUB VRÁNA SHL 777 13 NIKOLAJ EHLERS QMJHL 776 14 CONOR GARLAND QMJHL 762 15 JARED MCCANN OHL 754 16 NIKOLAI GOLDOBIN Liiga 718 17 KASPERI KAPANEN Liiga 712 18 SAM REINHART WHL 710 19 NICK RITCHIE OHL 699 20 BRAYDEN POINT WHL 689 21 NICK RITCHIE OHL 680 22 SONNY MILANO OHL 675 23 KEVIN LABANC OHL 668 24 OSKAR LINDBLOM SHL 651 25 BRENDAN PERLINI OHL 647 26 YEGOR KORSHKOV MHL 645 27 ROURKE CHARTIER WHL 641 28 ALEX TUCH NCAA 607 29 JAYCE HAWRYLUK WHL 576 30 KEVIN FIALA AHL 574 31 MICHAEL BUNTING OHL 569 32 JAKE VIRTANEN WHL 566 33 IVAN BARBASHYOV QMJHL 562 34 JUSTIN KIRKLAND WHL 550 35 CHRISTIAN DVORAK OHL 536 36 PIERRE ENGVALL SuperElit 517 1 AARON EKBLAD NHL 1907 2 ANTHONY DEANGELO OHL 785 3 TRAVIS SANHEIM WHL 774 4 JULIUS BERGMAN OHL 478 5 JONI TUULOLA Liiga 454 6 JULIUS HONKA AHL 428 7 ANTHONY DEANGELO OHL 410 8 ALEX LINTUNIEMI OHL 396 9 JOHN NYBERG SuperElit 354 10 BRETT LERNOUT WHL 347 11 CARL NEILL QMJHL 336 12 DYSIN MAYO WHL 318 13 HAYDN FLEURY WHL 314 14 BRANDON HICKEY NCAA 312 15 RYAN MANTHA OHL 295 16 BLAKE SIEBENALER OHL 291 17 PETTER HANSSON SuperElit 288 18 ALEXIS VANIER QMJHL 276 19 KYLE WOOD OHL 270 20 DOMINIK MASIN OHL 270 21 JAKE WALMAN NCAA 262 As 19 year olds, in 2015-2016, this is how they rated. Desroacher and Mangiapane were drafted as overagers the following year. 1 LEON DRAISAITL NHL 1587 2 WILLIAM NYLANDER AHL 1550 3 JAYCE HAWRYLUK WHL 1375 4 CHRISTIAN DVORAK OHL 1285 5 DYLAN LARKIN NHL 1233 6 SAM REINHART NHL 1227 7 KEVIN LABANC OHL 1220 8 MICHAEL DAL COLLE OHL 1205 9 DAVID PASTRNAK NHL 1176 10 SAM BENNETT NHL 1079 11 NIKOLAJ EHLERS NHL 1064 12 ROBBY FABBRI NHL 1036 13 NICK SCHMALTZ NCAA 1026 14 KASPERI KAPANEN AHL 904 15 JAKUB VRÁNA AHL 879 16 CONOR GARLAND QMJHL 859 17 FRANCIS PERRON QMJHL 836 18 MAXIM LETUNOV NCAA 833 19 AXEL HOLMSTRÖM SHL 814 20 OSKAR LINDBLOM SHL 805 21 NICK RITCHIE AHL 799 22 BRAYDEN POINT WHL 792 23 ANDERS BJORK NCAA 773 24 ANDREW MANGIAPANE OHL 722 25 KEVIN FIALA AHL 701 26 JAKE EVANS NCAA 689 27 VLADISLAV KAMENEV AHL 669 28 NIKOLAI GOLDOBIN AHL 661 29 ALEX TUCH NCAA 657 30 JOHN QUENNEVILLE WHL 645 31 RYAN MACINNIS OHL 645 32 JARED MCCANN NHL 602 33 JAKE VIRTANEN NHL 600 34 BRENDAN LEMIEUX OHL 600 35 ONDREJ KASE AHL 590 36 SONNY MILANO AHL 581 37 JOSHUA HO-SANG OHL 571 38 NICOLAS AUBÉ-KUBEL QMJHL 566 39 ANTHONY ANGELLO NCAA 529 40 BRETT POLLOCK WHL 520 41 CHASE DE LEO AHL 519 42 SPENCER WATSON OHL 508 43 NIKITA SCHERBAK AHL 495 44 RYAN DONATO NCAA 492 45 LUKAS VEJDEMO SHL 490 46 BRETT SENEY NCAA 488 47 AUSTIN POGANSKI NCAA 469 48 DAKOTA JOSHUA NCAA 453 49 ERIC CORNEL OHL 453 50 YEGOR KORSHKOV KHL 452 1 AARON EKBLAD NHL 1970 2 TRAVIS SANHEIM WHL 1082 3 JAKE WALMAN NCAA 817 4 JULIUS HONKA AHL 552 5 ANTHONY DEANGELO AHL 507 6 HAYDN FLEURY WHL 498 7 KYLE WOOD OHL 471 8 ROLAND MCKEOWN OHL 427 9 RYAN REHILL WHL 421 10 STEPHEN DESROCHER OHL 440 11 DOMINIK MASIN OHL 420 12 JONI TUULOLA Liiga 420 13 CARL NEILL QMJHL 398 15 ALEXIS VANIER QMJHL 357 16 JACK DOUGHERTY WHL 351 17 GUSTAV FORSLING SHL 338 18 MICHAEL PRAPAVESSIS NCAA 335 Last time we looked at the 2014 draft contest, Hockey News was a bit ahead. After 2015, to me it looks close between me, the Hockey News, and Craig Button. For 2015, I have: 6 - (among forwards) Reinhart 55 - Barbashev 19 - Holmstrom 34 - (among defensemen) Glover 84 - Engvall 22 - Point 36 - Mayo 33 - Bristedt (overager) 78 - Kontos (overager 2 years) The Hockey News: 10 - Bennett 55 Barbashev 8 McKeown 16 Dougherty 22 Brycen Martin 36 Dyson Mayo 27 Adam Ollas Mattsson 19 Axel Holmstrom 23 Jacob Middleton Button: 6 - Sam Reinhart 27 Vlad Kamenev 22 Braydon Point 95 Anton Karlsson 35 Ondrej Kase 22 Brycen Martin 44 Spencer Watson 26 Vladislav Gavrikov 37 Emil Johansson Murray: 6 - Sam Reinhart 34 Brendan Lemieux 49 Eric Cornel 100 Vaclav Karabacek (goaltender) Jonas Johansson 22 Brycen Martin 96 Maxwell Willman (overager) 92 Chris Brown 37 Victor Olofsson (overager)

I'm not disagreeing with you Swamp, I'm saying you can take the same data and come up with wildly different conclusions.

I'll take a stab at the intention. People are terrible at trying to force their facts into their analysis. I saw almost the same list as Swamps, though from a very different perspective. I will copy and paste from the comments on nakedcapitalism.com 1). Obama has been at war longer than any President in U.S. history. 2). Obama has bombed more nations than anyone in human history including Adolph Hitler. 3). Obama is the first U.S. President to openly admit to using and supporting torture (I’ve banned SOME torture”). 4). More Democrats have lost elective office (and more Republican have won elective office) under Obama than any President in U.S. history. 5). Obama is the first and only President to fail to achieve an economic growth rate of 3% or better in any year of his terms. 6). The Obama recovery has been the weakest in U.S. history in about the last 70 years. 7). Income inequality has grown faster under Obama than any President in recent if not all U.S. history. 8). Obama is the first President in recent U.S. history to never prosecute a major Wall Street figure for breaking the law. Both Swamp's and this list are probably each factually correct, but each are taking a biased look at that data to fit into their narrative. I'm with Liger on this term limits, I think Dfork is too young to remember how depressing the Reagan years were, the only light at the end was knowing he'd have to leave in 8 years. I'm sure Obama has been that way for the right. Who wrote the term limit opinion?

Defensemen day 2. For me, this one is kind of interesting. The model was designed to value 17 year olds, so I don't use any data that I can't get for most leagues, but it seems to work OK for NHL players. These are defensemen who were very good at a young age, Bogosian and Myers, once firmly part of this group, are no longer near the rest.

4

Today it's defensemen. It's more difficult to value defensemen because they get better later. I charted a handful of players who have been talked about lately, and added two players to show what a late-round success looks like, Parayko (Blues)(grey line) and Lindell (Stars)(royal blue). With less KHL and Czech to NHL interaction, Kempny's(lime green) numbers will have the highest likelihood of error. Kempny's latest two years have been pretty good. To me, it looks like he will score like Jake McCabe(red line) did in 2015, but since he's about 3 years older, I wouldn't expect him to get much better. NHL hockey player? yeah. Might be the perfect BlackHawk third pair. Additionally, Casey Martin(black) Griffin Reinhart(purple) Brycen Martin(baby blue)

In 2015, Brycen Martin had a very good half season, and a very ordinary half season. This is very good: 2015-16 Saskatoon Blades [A] WHL 25 3 21 24 but this, not so much Everett Silvertips WHL 41 3 10 13 At least part of this can be attributed to moving to a team with a better prospect (Montreal's Noah Juulsen) and the criminally undrafted Cole MacDonald In my draft rankings, his 2015 Saskatoon half season I have Martin as the 5th best defensemen in that age group (Desroacher was drafted as an overager the next year). As you can see, the entire group except Ekblad is outside the NHL. 1 AARON EKBLAD NHL 1970 2 TRAVIS SANHEIM WHL 1082 3 JAKE WALMAN NCAA 817 4 JULIUS HONKA AHL 552 5 BRYCEN MARTIN WHL 517 6 ANTHONY DEANGELO AHL 507 7 HAYDN FLEURY WHL 498 8 KYLE WOOD OHL 471 9 STEPHEN DESROCHER OHL 440 10 ROLAND MCKEOWN OHL427 yet his Everett half season came in as the 52nd best in 2015 for that draft class. I generally average those numbers if he stays in the same league, so in my pipeline list he ended up 5th behind Fasching, Borgan, Guhle, and Estephan. If the 5th in draft class represents reality, he's either first or second in the pipeline, if 52nd is real, then he's off the pipeline list completely. 2014, in my model, he comes in 26th and 40th, between his two half years. In 2013, as predraft players, he came in 3rd for defensemen in his age group In 2012, as 16 year olds, he came in 2nd. So the model really likes him (meaning he can score, and he's not small), at least early in his career and the 2015 good half season.

Hoss was in the bracket challenge, so I expect him back.

Food porn? I do food porn

Missed games create some noise in the system, I don't know of a way to get it better without an enormous increase in data acquisition time. Consider a player being traded midseason. Tavares was traded midseason, so his percentage of points in your system doesn't really work, since he would have a very small percentage for each team. I use ppg vs the best (or often) the second best player on the team. That way Tavares is compared to the second best scorer on team 1, then compared to the second best scorer on team 2.

If you want to do this research, I can provide some scraping code

I think, in the end, what the question requires is a long hard look at Cam Fowler, PJ Subban, and Mark Pysyk's numbers at age 16 and 17 to try to pull apart what matters, and what doesn't.

Good liger, you are most of the way there, but your numbers aren't contextual. For instance if Stamkos shows up, all the Sabres' defensemen will score more next year. And context is the hard part. What part of, let's pick one at random, Sergachev, who I've never heard of because I'm still working on the process, and look at his numbers. Mikhail Sergachev has wonderful size, he's really young (born in June), his ppg is excellent, the tough part is figuring out how much of that is due to passing the puck to Christian Fisher or Lemieux, and Fisher or Lemieux putting the puck in the net. If I had enough resources, which I don't, I could get a better idea on the contextuality of Sergachev's scoring, so I need to rely on the relationship in scoring between Sergachev and Chatfield. Sergachev is much better than Chatfield on a scoring basis, so I would be surprised if the model didn't love Sergachev. Now looking back, how did Sergachev do as a 16 year old? He's near the top of his team for defensemen on his MHL team. The Russian international teams love him, what's not to like? In a week or two I'll be able to compare him to past draft picks, and current 17 year olds, by taking that data and resolving it to a number, but my guess is he'll be around Provorov, Werenski, or Hanifan. Bean, on the other hand, plays with a top prospect, likely as a pairing, and is outscored by a lot. So I wouldn't put as much stock in Bean's numbers than Sergachev, even though as raw numbers, Bean scores a lot.

I think the pick value has some value as to trading up or trading down, though I almost always want to trade down. The question though, indicates I haven't expressed the point I'm trying to make. A third round pick doesn't have a set value, one taken by Central Scouting or Colorado has very little value because the eye test doesn't work that well at the top of the draft, and is pretty much useless past the first round. Over the past decade, Tampa's assessment of talent has been much better than, say, New Jersey. The got Johnson for nothing, Kutcherov for a third, Bishop for almost nothing, Palat for a 7th. The value of Tampa's later round picks are much higher than the value of New Jersey's, or Central Scouting. It's hard to know how much value teams put in the eye-test vs data analysis, but my armchair analysis leads me to believe this is a major reason why Tampa is still playing, and New Jersey isn't. Inkman and Blue(!) have argued this is all luck, yet the hardest-core teams, Calgary, Colorado, New Jersey, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo, have been playing golf for weeks. As I said earlier this week, I think Toronto has changed, and are pretending to be hard-core. It's going to get much worse for the eye test people, since someone like Nathan Gerbe will no longer get to the fifth round, since Toronto, Winnipeg, the Islanders, or the next team that figures out how to do this, will grab Gerbe where he should have been taken, near the end of the first round to mid second round. And Inkman, or DFork, will argue 'eff Nathan Gerbe,' but look at my top fifteen or so of 17 year olds from 2012 (the model really nails 2012, so don't take it as a random choice). Do notice the 12th best 17 year old didn't get drafted. Also note that St. Louis took two of these players, and Tampa took two, though Connolly didn't help them, and Gusev hasn't arrived yet, and Anaheim took two. 1 TAYLOR HALL OHL 1210 (15913) 2 MIKAEL GRANLUND Liiga 1143 (7651) 3 TYLER SEGUIN OHL 966 (14653) 4 TEEMU PULKKINEN Jr. A SM-liiga 894 (7456) 5 VLADIMIR TARASENKO KHL 774 (13822) 6 CAM FOWLER OHL 689 (11939) 7 DEVANTE SMITH-PELLY OHL 653 (7537) 8 MAXIM KITSYN MHL 636 (2283) 9 JADEN SCHWARTZ USHL 631 (8123) 10 JEFF SKINNER OHL 614 (8813) 11 BRETT CONNOLLY WHL 549 (4583) 12 ARTEMI PANARIN KHL 547 (8040) 13 ALEXANDER BURMISTROV OHL 511 (4977) 14 TYLER TOFFOLI OHL 508 (8737) 15 KIRILL KABANOV QMJHL 483 (3151) 16 NIKITA GUSEV MHL 470 (6648) Drafting well isn't the only way to build a good team, Washington is terrible, the Rangers trade their picks for talent, Chicago hasn't drafted a valuable player in years.

My theory is they over-value height after the first 30 picks. It's really hard to skate if you're tall, and only the top athletes can do it. They also don't draft enough overagers. It's rare to find a 17 year-old after the first 100 picks, 18 and 19 year olds are much better odds. They draft too many high school players. LA has only drafted one high school player since 2005, and that was a goaltender. Buffalo has drafted 14 if I remember right. On goals, no, if you look at Eichel's college year, it isn't the number of goals that stands out. If you only looked at goals, you wouldn't think Eichel was the best player on BU, or BC, whichever. Some people pay attention to primary vs secondary assist, but can I get that for everyone, scraping? On defenders, I no longer look at any NHL data. Wildcard seems to want to learn scraping, so I'll be updating that code if you want to get in on that. My favorite metric from when I was doing that was the power play time of your opponent forwards, which is old, but still around here - http://www.limedata.us/1.php. I stopped doing it because I believe to get good data would involve 5 interns taking notes on every game, and I'm not willing to hire 5 interns to take notes on every game. I believe Chicago and Anaheim know how often, say, Mark Giordano, pinches when he can, how often that leads to a chance, and how often that leads to a chance against. I guessing Pittsburgh and Minnesota talk about WOWY Corsi numbers scraped off the NHL's play-by-play, and Calgary thinks he's good. But it's hard to tell, my view of Toronto's drafting totally changed this week. So I'm wrong person to ask about defenders, one of the kids, or Blue, pay far more attention to that stuff.

I don't have a chart handy, but I think there's a real gentle slope in what you get from draft picks, after the first ten or fifteen. So I'm in the camp of wanting 4 thirds rather than one second, but I think you're right, if you're valuing like CSS, you're lost after the first 30 picks or so.

The Millenium Prize Problems sounds like the Longitude Prize given in the 17th century by European governments encouraging people to develop a method for figuring out where you were in the ocean.

I know what your're thinking. You're thinking that you'll take a look at Central Scounting draft ranking, because they draft correctly, and see who they like at #8 or #9, I forget which Buffalo has. While I can't grade McKenzie over a long term because TSN lacks the server size to keep McKenzie's old draft lists up, thedraftanalyst.com saves old CSS draft lists, so we'll see the results of drafting correctly. This is the list Buffalo would have taken had they used the Central Scouting and chosen the top ranked North American propect available at their draft pick. I'll also list who Buffalo actually chose, 2005-2010, so six years. The numbers are, of course, years played in the NHL, games, goals, assists, points. The Central Scounting team makes Regier's drafting look visionary. In these six years, had they use the CSS NA rankings, Buffalo would have drafted NHL players Tyler Myers, Mark Pysyk, and I think Jordan Schroeder might still be in the NHL somewhere. 2005: #13 Buffalo Sabres Marek Zagrapan © #48 Buffalo Sabres Philip Gogulla (LW) #87 Buffalo Sabres Marc-André Gragnani (D) 6 78 3 15 18 #96 Buffalo Sabres Chris Butler (D) 8 387 13 71 84 #142 Buffalo Sabres Nathan Gerbe (W/C) 8 394 58 80 138 #182 Buffalo Sabres Adam Dennis (G) 1 0 - - - #191 Buffalo Sabres Vyacheslav Buravchikov (D) #208 Buffalo Sabres Matt Generous (D) #227 Buffalo Sabres Andrew Orpik (F) #13 CSS (NA) Kenndal McArdle (LW) 4 42 1 2 3 #48 CSS (NA) Dan Collins (RW) #87 CSS (NA) Patrick Davis (RW/C) 2 9 1 0 1 #96 CSS (NA) Vyacheslav Trukhno (C/LW) #142 CSS (NA) Nick Drazenovic (C/LW) 3 12 0 0 0 #182 CSS (NA) PAUL KURCEBA not drafted #191 CSS (NA) Jean-Philippe Paquet (D) #208 CSS (NA) CHRISTIAN HANSON not drafted 42 3 6 9 #227 CSS (NA) DEVEREAUX HESHMATPOUR not drafted 2006: #24 Buffalo Sabres Dennis Persson (D) #46 Buffalo Sabres Jhonas Enroth (G) 7 147 - - - #57 Buffalo Sabres Mike Weber (D) 8 351 9 44 53 #117 Buffalo Sabres Felix Schütz (C/LW) #147 Buffalo Sabres Alex Biega (D) 2 58 1 7 8 #207 Buffalo Sabres Benjamin Breault © #24 CSS (NA) Cory Emmerton © 4 139 12 9 21 #46 CSS (NA) Nigel Williams (D) #57 CSS (NA) Ben Shutron (D) #117 CSS (NA) Bobby Hughes © #147 CSS (NA) GRAHAM POTUER not drafted #207 CSS (NA) Benjamin Breault © 2007: #31 Buffalo Sabres T.J. Brennan (D) 4 53 5 8 13 #59 Buffalo Sabres Drew Schiestel (D) #89 Buffalo Sabres Corey Tropp (RW/LW) 3 148 6 21 27 #139 Buffalo Sabres Brad Eidsness (G) #147 Buffalo Sabres Jean-Simon Allard © #179 Buffalo Sabres Paul Byron (W/C) 6 200 28 38 66 #187 Buffalo Sabres Nick Eno (G) #209 Buffalo Sabres Drew MacKenzie (D) #31 CSS (NA) Tommy Cross (D) 1 3 0 1 1 #59 CSS (NA) Ruslan Bashkirov (LW) #89 CSS (NA) Ben Ryan © #139 CSS (NA) Dávid Skokan (C/RW) #147 CSS (NA) Matt Fillier (LW) #179 CSS (NA) Paul Postma (D) 6 125 8 11 19 #187 CSS (NA) ERIC DOYLE not drafted #209 CSS (NA) Drew MacKenzie (D) 2008: #12 Buffalo Sabres Tyler Myers (D) 7 462 57 136 193 #26 Buffalo Sabres Tyler Ennis (C/W) 7 368 92 131 223 #44 Buffalo Sabres Luke Adam (C/LW) 5 90 15 11 26 #81 Buffalo Sabres Corey Fienhage (D) #101 Buffalo Sabres Justin Jokinen (RW) #104 Buffalo Sabres Jordon Southorn (D) #134 Buffalo Sabres Jacob Lagacé © #164 Buffalo Sabres Nick Crawford (D) #12 CSS (NA) Tyler Myers (D) 7 462 57 136 193 #26 CSS (NA) Colby Robak (D) 4 47 0 4 4 #44 CSS (NA) Mikhail Stefanovich (W/C) #81 CSS (NA) A.J. Jenks (C/W) #101 CSS (NA) Philippe Cornet (LW) 1 2 0 1 1 #104 CSS (NA) Kelsey Tessier © #134 CSS (NA) Jacob Lagacé © #164 CSS (NA) KRUISE REDDICK not drafted 2009: #13 Buffalo Sabres Zack Kassian (RW/LW) 5 234 38 36 74 #66 Buffalo Sabres Brayden McNabb (D) 4 189 5 41 46 #104 Buffalo Sabres Marcus Foligno (LW/RW) 5 267 36 57 93 #134 Buffalo Sabres Mark Adams (D) #164 Buffalo Sabres Connor Knapp (G) 1 2 - - - #194 Buffalo Sabres Maxime Legault (RW) #13 CSS (NA) Jordan Schroeder (C/RW) 4 107 11 16 27 #66 CSS (NA) Ryan Button (D) #104 CSS (NA) Seth Helgeson (D) 2 41 0 3 3 #134 CSS (NA) GABRIEL LEMIEUX not drafted #164 CSS (NA) DANNY MATTSON not drafted #194 CSS (NA) BRENNAN YADLOWSKI not drafted 2010: #23 Buffalo Sabres Mark Pysyk (D) 4 125 5 21 26 #68 Buffalo Sabres Jérôme Leduc (D) #75 Buffalo Sabres Kevin Sundher © #83 Buffalo Sabres Matt MacKenzie (D) #98 Buffalo Sabres Steven Shipley © #143 Buffalo Sabres Gregg Sutch (RW) #173 Buffalo Sabres Cédrick Henley (LW) #203 Buffalo Sabres Christian Isackson (RW/C) #208 Buffalo Sabres Riley Boychuk (LW) #23 CSS (NA) Mark Pysyk (D) 4 125 5 21 26 #68 CSS (NA) Stanislav Galiev (RW/LW) 2 26 1 3 4 #75 CSS (NA) Ivan Telegin (W/C) #83 CSS (NA) Bill Arnold © 1 1 0 0 0 #98 CSS (NA) Patrick McNally (D) #143 CSS (NA) Brandon Davidson (D) 2 63 5 7 12 #173 CSS (NA) JAKE FALLON not selected #203 CSS (NA) JOSH SHALLA drafted the next season #208 CSS (NA) CASEY THRUSH not drafted