NHL Teams Gear Up for the Amateur Draft

The National Hockey League entry draft -- the selection of amateurs by the 21 teams in the league -- is hockey’s annual crapshoot.

Each club is looking for 18-year-olds who will be able to help its team. Year after year the top prospects get reams of publicity as their strengths, skills and impressive statistics are analyzed and dissected.

This year, five players are projected as sure things in Saturday’s draft in Vancouver, British Columbia: centers Mike Ricci, Petr Nedved and Keith Primeau and right wing Owen Nolan, all Canadian junior players, and left wing Jaromir Jagr of Czechoslovakia. The hot goalie prospect is Trevor Kidd, also a Canadian junior.

There are 12 rounds in the draft. Squadrons of scouts have spent the winter and spring watching games, searching for the secret to the other 246 selections.

It is easy to identify the top prospects: Ricci and Nolan, for example, have been stars for every team they’ve played for. Still, in the last 10 years nearly as many glamor picks have been disappointments as have become superstars. Of course, Mario Lemieux, No. 1 in 1984, has proven to be more than worth his rating, but 1983’s No. 1, Brian Lawton, has jumped from team to team without much success.

The reality of the draft is that teams build their rosters with players selected in the middle rounds.

Highly skilled center Darren Turcotte, the New York Rangers’ top rookie last season, slipped through to the sixth round in the 1986 draft because, as an 18-year-old, he weighed 145 pounds and played a timid game. The 1990 Calder Trophy winner as rookie of the year, Soviet Sergei Makarov, was a 12th-round pick in 1983. The Calgary Flames gambled that year that he one day would be free to play in the NHL.

“There’s an NHLer in every round of the draft,” Rangers scout Dave McNab said.

The key is to ferret them out.

Imagine selecting this talented team in 12 consecutive rounds: first: Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins); second: Joe Nieuwendyk (Flames); third: Jari Kurri (Edmonton Oilers); fourth: Bernie Nicholls (Los Angeles Kings); fifth: Petr Klima (Detroit Red Wings); sixth: Ron Hextall (Philadelphia Flyers); seventh: Brian Mullen (Winnipeg Jets); eighth: Jiri Hrdina (Flames); ninth: Luc Robitaille (Kings); 10th: David Volek (New York Islanders); 11th: Uwe Krupp (Buffalo Sabres); and 12th: Sergei Makarov (Flames).

In the 1989 draft, the Islanders picked left wing Iain Fraser as their final selection; he was taken 233rd overall. Last season he led Oshawa (OHL) to the Memorial Cup and was the team’s scoring leader with 40 goals and 65 assists. Just a late bloomer, the Islanders say.

“It’s very difficult compared to other sports,” Boston Bruins scout Joe Lyons said. “For instance, you can watch a football player play through college. It puts a little more burden on the scout (in hockey). You need as much history or background on the kid, being able to observe them over a long period of time to see if they’re consistent.”

“It’s all subjective judgment,” said Jack Button, the Washington Capitals’ director of player personnel and recruitment. “There’s very little that’s objective. You’re trying to figure out what they’re going to be. For instance, we had no reason to suspect Paul Cavallini (drafted in the 10th round in 1984) was going to be an all-star defenseman in the NHL. The only reason we drafted him at all was because he had a real, burning desire to be a hockey player.”

Some of the teen-age sparklers turn out to be duds. Doug Wickenheiser, the No. 1 pick in the 1980 draft by the Montreal Canadiens, has played with five NHL teams and has never developed into an impact player. Joe Murphy, whom the Red Wings made the No. 1 selection in the ’86 draft over such players as Jimmy Carson, Brian Leetch and Craig Janney, spent three seasons on the shuttle to the Red Wings’ Adirondack farm club. Detroit traded Murphy to Edmonton last fall, and it wasn’t until the playoffs that he began to produce the offense expected of him.

“It’s scary if you really look at the statistics,” Button said. “One of the reasons is they don’t have that competitive instinct. They peaked at an early age, then stopped improving. People reach a level of competence and then can’t go beyond that. It happens to hockey players and students and lawyers and all people.”

Most scouts are reluctant to name the disappointments, though obviously any player who doesn’t stick in the NHL is a letdown. Flames General Manager Cliff Fletcher says that the first player he drafted in the franchise’s first year was his biggest disappointment. Jacques Richard, taken second overall in 1972, was supposed to be another Guy Lafleur. He was just another journeyman, totaling 160 goals in 10 unspectacular NHL seasons.