The NHL draft has always been about finding inefficiencies. Back in the day teams really heavily scouted North America and not much else. Detroit had huge advantage when they first started scouting Europe. More recently we have seem teams target small skilled players and have someone like Kailer Yamamoto going in the first round, and teams have also started to understand the value in prospects that have been passed over in drafts.
The Jackets this year followed that old Detroit model and looked for players where nobody else was. They made seven picks and for the first time in their history they did not select a player from the Canadian Hockey League. The previous 17 drafts, Columbus had always picked at least one player from the CHL. This is significant because the CHL is largest feeder league for the NHL. The majority of prospects come from this league and it is by far the most heavily scouted league.
The Jackets scouted the CHL but when it came time to make their selections they opted for other players. They picked four players from Europe, Alex Texier from the professional league in France, Daniil Tarasov from the MHL in Russia, Emil Bemstrom and Jonathan Davidson from Sweden, one player from the NCAA, Carson Meyer from Miami University (Ohio), Robbie Stucker from St. Thomas a Minnesota high school, and Kale Howarth from Tier II in Canada the BCHL.
These players are all skilled, but the question that always comes up will be about the competition level. Did these players deserve the big point totals that had, or were they beating up on inferior players. This question comes up every year and it’s usually with regards to those players who play in high school and lower leagues like the BCHL.
League quality plays a great deal in how players are perceived. We really don’t know how a player’s skill will translate from France, even if he played professionally. It’s hard to get a good feel on a player like that because there are so few players who come from that league, scouts have a harder time determining what that player will become, and this causes players like Texier to fall lower in the draft. The Jackets were able to swoop in and hopefully have got some very good players that other teams may have missed. However these concerns are very real and to get a better grasp on these players you do need to see them in a more competitive league.
Corey Pronman had a great tweet when discussing competition levels in regards to Cale Makar, and why you shouldn’t drop these players too far.
There is also a very strategical reason to drafting this way and one that the Blue Jackets will hopefully be taking advantage of. When you draft a CHL player you have their rights for two seasons before you have to sign them, and if you don’t sign them in those two seasons, they re-enter the draft. With players headed to the NCAA, you have their rights until June 1st the year they would graduate, essentially four years. With European prospects, they are similar to that of NCAA prospects in that you have four years to sign them before they can be unrestricted free agents. The Jackets do not have to sign any of the prospects they just drafted for four years. This gives them plenty of time to see these players progress into high levels of hockey where the competition levels are better and they can get a good feel for these players as prospects.
The other benefit here is that players who played a full season in North America are able to be signed as undrafted free agents, where European players are not. These players will be invited to team’s development camps and we will see a few of them sign contracts.
Here are 10 players that right now could be signed for nothing but money and a contract spot. If the Jackets were to add a couple of these players it would give them a nice blend of prospects in both the CHL and overseas. For a team that hasn’t had the most draft picks over the last couple of seasons, this is another way to add talent and depth to a system that could use it.
The Jackets went unconventional with their picks at the draft. They found an inefficiency and exploited it. They control the rights of these players for four seasons which will give them plenty of time to evaluate them and make an informed decision on their future. That process starts right now with development camps upcoming. This will give the organization a decent idea as to where these prospects stack up against one another, and also give them a chance to take a look at some undrafted free agents. If everything goes according to plan this could pay off in a big way for the Blue Jackets.
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