Ask any NHL team and they would probably agree, getting a top end goalie is a hard thing to do. That might be especially so in a hockey pool draft, when top end goalies are just as good as those top end forwards we're always chiming on about.When forwards (and defense) are getting a point for every goal and assist they get, not to mention having the ability to play in all 82 games, finding a evening out point for goaltenders wasn't all that difficult, when the true number one goalies, in a healthy season, are playing 60-70 games in a season and certainly, they're not capitalizing every night on the 2 points for a win and another 2 points for a shutout. Still, there is a school of thought at the draft, that you need at least one good goalie, if you're going to win this pool and if you can get two, you might be able to make up for the lack of top end forwards late.
In recent years, this has created a bum's rush for goaltending at the draft, as illustrated by the table down below. What we see here is goalies taken by round over the last nine drafts, thankfully, the structure of the pool hasn't changed, so this does become a pretty good exercise in statistics.
Last year's draft saw a record-high in goalies taken in the 1st round, topping out at 19 keepers in a 25-team draft, not leaving a lot for the rest of the pool. That rush wasn't quite as significant as the 2015 draft, where 38 of 54 goalies were gone by the end of the 2nd round.
| Year | Teams | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 2017 | 25 | 19 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2016 | 25 | 18 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2015 | 27 | 18 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 3 |
| 2014 | 23 | 7 | 16 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2013 | 24 | 6 | 15 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| 2012 | 17 | 7 | 11 | 8 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2011 | 22 | 10 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2010 | 20 | 8 | 13 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 2009 | 17 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Does it really pay off in the end? Stuart, last year's winner, didn't take his first goalie until the 3rd round and his second goalie until the 13th round, opting to exchange Louis Domingue for Keith Kinkaid at the opening Waiver Draft and then the rest was history. Having a little bit of luck at the one-third point of the season certainly helps.
Of the top 25 players in hockey pool scoring last year, only six of them were goalies, five of them were taken in the 1st round, while Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets, wasn't taken until the 5th round.
How much help was Hellebuyck as such a good bargain pick? Not much. Neil, who ended up with the pick, finished 18th.
I think everyone certainly feels more comfortable with at least one starting goaltender that they can hang their hat on after the draft, but it is a long season and lots of things can certainly happen. If you can identify the teams that you think will be at the top of the overall standings at the end of the year, pick out their number one goalie, then you might have a pretty good case for a 1st round pick, but if you're hoping that Cam Talbot, Mike Smith and/or Carey Price are going to turn around their clubs in the coming year, enough so to be a 1st round pick, you're taking a huge gamble and could be better off with Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos or an Alex Ovechkin, all three players going in the 2nd round last year.
Don't let me disrupt your strategy though... I mainly did this post out of my own curiosity.
NHL free agency has been a long process for unrestricted free agent defenseman Toby Enstrom, so much so, that he's decided to head home to Sweden, signing with MODO on Friday. Enstrom is coming off a 5-year deal, which paid him $5.75 million per season and he wasn't able to perform at a high level, thanks to numerous injury problems over the last few years. The last season where Enstrom was worthy of being picked in the pool was back in 2015, when he finished 70th among all defensemen in scoring. Since then, he's been a fringe player or not at all.
Some injury concerns in Philadelphia these days, as Sean Couturier has suffered a knee injury in a charity game a couple of weeks ago and it is just now seeing some light in the news. It appears that it is an MCL injury, one that he had just rehabbed not long ago, only to return in a summer game and it is believed that it will keep him out until the middle of training camp. The current projected date is around September 19th, only about 10 days before the hockey pool draft, so we'll know more about whether or not he'll be good to go or not, so stay tuned.
Columbus Blue Jackets top prospect Vitaly Abramov won't be joining his fellow teammates in the next few weeks at the Traverse City rookie tournament, as he had off-season wrist surgery and won't be ready to go just yet. The 2016 3rd round pick has been amazing at the junior level, but still needs to find his way into cracking the NHL roster here soon. His numbers in his QMJHL career have been staggering, finishing three seasons with 301 points in 185 games. It only seems like a matter of time before he makes it and becomes a hockey pool favourite, but it might not be this year.
The New Jersey Devils announced on Monday afternoon, that they signed their top pick in the 2018 entry draft, defenseman Ty Smith. Smith was the 17th overall selection, scouted as one of the top skaters in his draft class and now becomes the 23rd player in the class to sign his entry-level deal.
With that being said, one of our pool worthy goalies from last season, Vegas' Malcolm Subban still qualifies as a rookie for this season, as he has only appeared in a total of 24 NHL games in three seasons and is still only 24 years old.
I think the Nashville Predators are going to get themselves a pretty good season out of defenseman Ryan Ellis and that was before he signed an 8-year, $50 million extension on Tuesday. Maybe some job security will make the guy play a whole lot better, but the Predators brass will certainly feel much better, now that the deal is done and dusted, before the story gets out of hand.
Of course, the day before I actually had my projection posts set to publish, news came down of a major injury and I didn't find the time or the wherewithal to post about it before my schedule picked up that night.
The Anaheim Ducks have re-signed restricted free agent forward Ondrej Kase on Wednesday, giving him a 3-year deal, reportedly carrying a salary cap hit of $2.6 million in each season.
