Round 14 of Saturday's Draft

It was a record number of participants in Saturday's hockey pool draft, which meant we had a record number of players taken (336, to be exact) and it was a really interesting day, seeing where everyone went.  Every round of the draft certainly has some kind of purpose to each team in the pool and the last round is the way that everyone finishes up, which gives you a glimpse at the rest of their draft.

In round 14, we had picks #313 through #336, which saw 10 forwards, 10 defensemen and 4 goalies picked.  A pretty solid split, given the number of teams and the number of open positions per team.

I found it really interesting that there were 10 forwards taken, which meant that teams in the pool felt that making sure the goalie and defensemen positions were taken care of.  To most teams, getting in on those top goalies and defensemen are important, because there are a greater number of forwards with scoring prowess than there are players on the back end that can get your team points.

With that being said, according to my projections, the likely winner of the round will be Ryan M., who picked up Dainius Zubrus of the Devils with his last pick in the draft, 330th overall.  If my projections are correct, which they likely won't be, but I have no other measure for this post, Zubrus should be a 45-point player this year, which would be a significant.

Even with the number of players taken, I figure that there were also another three players slated for 40 points this season: Viktor Stalberg of the Predators (Kristy & Don), Mark Letestu of the Blue Jackets (Mike) and Matt Cullen of the Predators (Wyllie).

The real winning formula then becomes, do these 40+-point players and the defensemen that are taken in earlier rounds, beat teams that took forwards earlier and their defensemen that they took late?  The best defensemen, according to my projections, are Ryan Wilson of the Avalanche (Dale C.), Andy Greene of the Devils (Leo), Luke Schenn of the Flyers (Dale B.) and Ryan Murphy of the Hurricanes (Allan).  A 15-to-20 point gap can be significant between players in a round, but that can be easily be made up in some rounds.

Let's take Ryan's picks, for instance... in taking Zubrus, who is projected for 45 points in the 14th round of the draft, his highest defenseman was Slava Voynov of the Kings, who he took in the 6th round.  No question, he is one of the higher projected defensemen in the draft, top-third maybe and I have him projected for 35 points.  80 points between the two isn't so bad.

In the 6th round, Dale C., who took Wilson in the 14th round, also took David Backes of the Blues in the 6th round, who I have projected to score 65 points.  That's 90 points right there.  Leo took Michael Ryder of the Devils for 45 projected points and a 70-point combo.  Dale B. took another defenseman, Tobias Enstrom of the Jets, in the 6th round, so he doesn't count.  Allan also took a defenseman, Andrei Markov of the Habs, so he doesn't count either.

Well, needless to say, the selection style did change throughout.

Of the four teams that picked goalies in the 14th round, none of those teams picked a starting goalie before the 7th round, which is interesting.  Cindy picked Ray Emery of the Flyers and Clayton picked Jacob Markstrom of the Panthers in the 7th, which suggests that they were looking for more skater points early on, likely because the top-rated goalies were gone and that's what they'd sell out their picks for early on.  The other two teams picked up back-ups as their first two goalies, as Stuart picked Jhonas Enroth of the Sabres in the 11th round and Grant picked Ben Scrivens of the Kings in the 13th round.  Their skaters better pay off.

If you were not saving your last pick for bigger points from a forward or taking a back-up goalie to fill the void, you were taking a defenseman in the last round and these strategies will be fun to watch as they pan out.  Needless to say, I'm rather curious.