This past June, more second and third year draft eligible players were selected in the NHL Entry Draft than ever before. In 2009, eleven draft re-entry (or overage draft) Ontario Hockey League players were selected by NHL teams. This matches the number of second and third time eligible OHL players taken in the 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005 Entry Drafts combined (11). I decided to take a closer look at this phenomenon and discover why it's happening. In doing so, I went over previous Central Scouting Final Rankings to determine if player placement in previous rankings had anything to do with it. Are the players being drafted in their second or third go of it, former highly touted players who were passed over, or were they players who came out of nowhere and caught the eyes of scouts?First, I'd like to explain the draft process a little more clearly for those who don't have a clear knowledge of it. Each NHL Entry Draft, North American players of three age groupings are eligible. There are two sets of those who are first time eligible for the draft and they were born from January 1 to September 15 of one year, or from September 16 to December 31 of the previous year. For example, at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, first time eligible players were born from January 1 to September 15 of 1991, and from September 16 to December 31 of 1990. But as mentioned, there are second and third time eligible players as well; players who were passed over in previous drafts but are still eligible to be selected. These would include the players born January 1 to September 15 of that same year the late birth date first year eligible players were, as well as the entire year before that. For example in 2009, second year eligible players were born from January 1 to September 15 of 1990, while third year eligible players were born anytime in 1989. To help set up a pattern, 2008 would have seen the birth years of 1990, 1989 and 1988; 2007 would have seen the birth years of 1989, 1988, and 1987, and so on.
Confused yet? I hope not.Â
Because I am an OHL writer and I follow the league closely, I decided to examine the process from an OHL perspective. As such, my research conducted is only pertinent to eligible Ontario Hockey League players.
As I mentioned before, at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, eleven second and third time eligible players were selected. That's nearly 25% of the entire crop of OHL players selected. The draft years of 2008 (5), 2007 (0), 2006 (1), and 2005 (5) saw only eleven selected in total. That's quite the jump. I went back and examined previous Central Scouting Final Rankings in order to see if there is a pattern or science to being selected after originally being passed over. Here's what I found...
Second and Third Year Eligible Players Drafted into the NHL
| Â NHL Draft Year | Â Player Name | Â Central Scouting Final Ranking in Original Draft Year |
| Â 2009 | Â Matt Hackett | Â Not ranked in 2008 |
| Â | Â Jaroslav Janus | Â 11th (goaltender) in 2008 |
| Â | Â Matt Kennedy | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â | Â David Kolomatis | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â | Â Lane MacDermid | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â | Â Michael Pelech | Â 124th in 2008 |
| Â | Â Corey Cowick | Â 177th in 2007 |
| Â | Â Scott Timmins | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â | Â Eric Wellwood | Â Not ranked in 2008 |
| Â | Â Jordan Nolan | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â | Â Kyle Neuber | Â Not ranked in 2008 or 2007 |
| Â 2008 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â Andrew Campbell | Â Not ranked in 2007 or 2006 |
| Â | Â Matt Martin | Â Not ranked in 2007 |
| Â | Â Justin Azevedo | Â 203rd in 2006 |
| Â | Â Mike Murphy | Â 27th (goaltender) in 2007 |
| Â | Â Justin DiBenedetto | Â Not ranked in 2007 or 2006 |
| Â 2007 | Â | Â |
| Â 2006 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â Peter Aston | Â Not ranked in 2005 or 2004 |
| Â 2005 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â Luciano Aquino | Â Not ranked in 2004 or 2003 |
| Â | Â Nicholas Tuzzolino | Â 133rd in 2004 |
| Â | Â Adam Dennis | Â 29th (goaltender) in 2004, not ranked in 2003 |
| Â | Â Marek Kvapil | Â Not ranked in 2004 or 2003 |
| Â | Â Danny Syvret | Â 199th in 2003 |
That brings us to a total 14 players un-ranked at all by the Central Scouting Bureau in their previous draft years, to 8 that were previously ranked. Not exactly overwhelming, but still an advantage. So let's take this even further. Only 3 of the 22 players were ranked above the 20th percentile of their position. If you want to look at it that way, you could say that the Central Scouting Bureau really only expected 3 of these 22 players to be drafted in the first place. The majority of the ones who were ranked (5/8), were ranked incredibly low on Central Scouting's List.Â
This leads me to believe that the majority of the players selected by NHL teams the second or third time through the draft, were those who didn't have much value heading into their original draft year. Maybe they were too small, maybe they were under scouted, or maybe they were being hidden by a teams depth. Either way, they weren't expected be drafted in their original draft years and thus didn't get a lot of exposure.Â
In turn, this had me asking another question. Does this mean that those players ranked highly by the CSB and then passed over, have little chance of being NHL draft selections? Let's look at the research (players passed over inside the top 80% of their position) from 2008, 2007, 2006 and 2005 (since we can't use 2009 yet because they haven't been passed over a second time yet)...
| Original Draft Year | Â Player Name | Â Central Scouting Final Ranking |
| Â 2008 | Â Brett Theberge | Â 86th |
| Â | Â Luke Pither | Â 89th |
| Â | Â Zach Harnden | Â 93rd |
| Â | Â Boby Mignardi | Â 94th |
| Â | Â Michael Lomas | Â 97th |
| Â | Â Michael D'Orazio | Â 139th |
| Â | Â Jordan Skellet | Â 149th |
| Â | Â Andrew Perugini | Â 19th (goaltender) |
| Â 2007 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â Matt Lahey | Â 76th |
| Â | Â Aaron Alphonso | Â 82nd |
| Â | Â Dan Kelly | Â 84th |
| Â | Â Patrick Lusnak | Â 120th |
| Â | Â Matt Smyth | Â 159th |
| Â | Â Justin Levac | Â 168th |
| Â | Â Andrew Loverock | Â 13th (goaltender) |
| Â | Â Lukas Flueler | Â 14th (goaltender) |
| Â | Â John Murray | Â 19th (goaltender) |
| Â | Â Andrew Engelage | Â 21st (goaltender) |
| Â 2006 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â John Hughes | Â 70th |
| Â | Â Michal Klejna | Â 74th |
| Â | Â Ryan McDonagh | Â 102nd |
| Â | Â Keaton Turkiewicz | Â 105th |
| Â | Â Andrew Fournier | Â 108th |
| Â | Â Jesse Biduke | Â 124th |
| Â | Â Nathan Martine | Â 127th |
| Â | Â Trevor Soloman | Â 135th |
| Â | Â Matt Dias | Â 167th |
| Â 2005 | Â | Â |
| Â | Â Devereaux Heshmatpour | Â 68th |
| Â | Â Tom Mannino | Â 102nd |
| Â | Â Ryan Wilson | Â 115th |
| Â | Â Mark Versteeg | Â 116th |
| Â | Â Kevin Henderson | Â 118th |
| Â | Â Kevin Baker | Â 120th |
| Â | Â Todd Perry | Â 121st |
| Â | Â Wayne Savage | Â 10th (goaltender) |
| Â | Â Kyle Gajewski | Â 23rd (goaltender)Â |
So what does it all mean?Just by looking at the table, you can see that all 11 players ranked inside the top 100 skaters have since gone un-drafted. Some quality players in there too, like current Kitchener Ranger captain Dan Kelly, Barrie Colts scoring sensation Luke Pither, and former Brampton Battalion stand-out John Hughes. I think it's no co-incidence that none of the players passed over from inside the top 100 have since gone undrafted. Perhaps it was a perceived attitude problem, or personality flaw. Perhaps it was a lack of a physical quality. Any way you slice it, the CSB thought highly of these players but the NHL balks (and continues to balk at them). This leads me to believe that quite possibly these players struck a red flag for NHL teams at some point, and thus they deemed them not worthy of a draft selection due to a belief that they couldn't be NHL players. While the sample size is small, I do think that 11 players over 4 years is enough proof to suggest it's more than merely a case of bad luck where NHL teams had them on their list, but just didn't get around to drafting them.Â
Only one OHL player in 2009 went un-drafted by NHL clubs after being ranked inside the CSB's top 100. This was Belleville's Matthew Tipoff. It just so happens that Tipoff has exploded offensively this season and is inside the OHL's top 5 in scoring. A quality player and a quality draft prospect in my opinion, but has history shown us that other breakout players like Alex Friesen, Chris DeSousa, Jason Akeson and Tony DeHart have a better chance of getting drafted in 2010, since they weren't ranked by Central Scouting?
I realize the narrowness of the spectrum of research at hand here. I only looked at a five year span and I only looked players from the OHL. However, it's obvious that from the data presented, there is something to say about being ranked highly by a scouting service and then going undrafted. Knowing what we do now, about Devereaux Heshmatpour's inability to skate, inability to improve and overall lack of desire to play hockey, would we rank him 68th again in 2005? Absolutely not, and that...I think...is my point. Do NHL teams know something about these players that the Central Scouting Bureau doesn't? I'll bring another example to the table. Current Swift Current Bronco's (WHL) overage defender Eric Doyle was originally ranked 69th in 2007 by the Central Scouting Bureau but went undrafted (If I recall, he was ranked even higher by The Hockey News). Since then, he's finished inside the top 8 of WHL defenseman scoring twice (2008 and 2009) and hasn't gotten a sniff. He didn't even get a prospect or training camp invite this summer!Â
I've left one question unanswered thus far though. Why are NHL teams making the shift to selecting more and more "draft leftovers." In today's cap age, teams are capped (no pun intended) to a 50 contract limit and an organizational limit of 90. With the organizational limit much larger than the contract limit, teams can select overage players and challenge them at the professional level for a couple of seasons before losing their rights. Of course, teams could use a contract spot up on these players the following year by signing them as overagers, but is this the smart thing to do? What's more valuable to a team, a 6th or 7th round draft pick, or a spot on the 50 contract list? By selecting players a year earlier, they can stick them in the minors on AHL deals and then sign them to an NHL deal if they prove worthy. If not, you lost a late round pick, BUT you didn't use up a valuable contract spot or money in the process. Look at the OHL players drafted as overagers in 2009. David Kolomatis, Michael Pelech, Jaroslav Janus, and Lane MacDermid are all finding themselves in this position currently; playing in the AHL or ECHL on minor league deals as they try to impress their NHL clubs enough to earn an NHL contract. Seems pretty smart to me, which makes me believe this isn't just a trend, but a strategy which many teams will start using.Â
So I ask you, is being highly touted for the NHL draft and then going unselected the kiss of death for a prospect? What are the reasons for so many overage players being selected in the NHL draft?
As always, feel free to check out the blog, OHL Prospects. Recent game reports include Saginaw, Peterborough, Brampton, Sudbury, Mississauga and more!
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NHL Central Scouting have released their complete rankings of 211 players for the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.
The International Scouting Services have released their Mid-Term Rankings for the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.
