Just a pet project here. Flyers fans love to complain about how the Flyers are terrible at drafting and developing goalies. Well here's how everyone has done, by the numbers, in drafting goalies since 1995 (just to choose a round number).
Team - # of goalies selected - best picks
Anaheim - 12 - Byrzgalov (2nd), Gerber
Atlanta - 10 (since 2000) - Lehtonen (#2 ), Nurminen, Pavelec (2nd)
Boston - 12 - Raycroft
Buffalo - 13 - Biron (#16), Noronen (#21), Miller, Enroth (2nd)
Calgary - 11 - Sabourin, McElhinney
Carolina - 14 - Giguere (#13), Ward (#25)
Chicago - 15 - Leighton, Anderson (3rd), Crawford (2nd)
Colorado - 19 - Denis (#25), Aebischer, Budaj (2nd), B. Johnson
Columbus - 8 (since 2000) - Leclaire (#8), S. Mason (3rd)
Dallas - 10 - Dan Ellis (2nd), M. Smith
Detroit - 12 - Howard (2nd)
Edmonton - 15 - Markkanen, Deslauriers
Florida - 16 - Auld (2nd)
LA - 19 - Huet, Quick (3rd), Bernier (#11)
Minnesota - 9 (since 2002) - Harding (2nd)
Montreal - 10 - Garon (2nd), Halak, Price (#5)
Nashville - 15 (since 1999) - Rinne, Lindback
NJ - 11 - C. Mason
New York Isles - 17 - Luongo (#4), DiPietro (#1)
New York Rangers - 13 - LaBarbera (3rd), Holmquist, Lundquist
Ottawa - 9 - Emery (4th), Elliot
Philadelphia - 22 - Boucher (#22), Nittymaki, Cechmanek
Phoenix - 15 - Esche
Pittsburgh - 18 - Aubin (3rd), Caron (3rd), Fleury (#1)
San Jose - 16 - Toskala (4th), Kiprusoff
St. Louis - 12 - None
Tampa Bay - 17 - Norrena
Toronto - 12 - Tellqvist (3rd), Rask (#21), Riemer (4th)
Washington - 16 - Varlamov (#23), Neuvirth (2nd), Holtby (4th)
Vancouver - 14 - Schneider (#26)
Also, turns out a number of goalies of note were taken in 1994 (Storr-LA, Cloutier-NYR, Theodore-MTL, Turco-DAL, Thomas-QUE/COL, Hedberg-PHI, Nabokov-SJ, Vokoun-MTL, Grahame-BOS). Remarkably, Thomas, Hedberg, Nabokov, Vokoun and Grahame were all taken within 10 picks of one another in the 9th round in 1994, but I digress.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that drafting a goalie is hard. No one team has shown that they've really figured it out more than anyone else, though teams like Buffalo and Nashville have found some winners. I've bolded a few teams, notable for their success or failure. The Flyers have been trying their darndest to get a winner spending more picks on goalies than anyone else, and had some success but no franchise goalie.
The above chart, however, shows that getting a franchise goalie is either luck or a matter of using a top-5 pick on a can't-miss prospect. Other #1 goalies like Niemi, Backstrom and Hiller, were undrafted.
Now if you want to fault the Flyers for not prioritizing on acquiring an established goalie, that may be another matter....
No comments:
Post a Comment