Red Wings in '89: Best draft ever?

by James Mirtle on Sep 4, 2009 8:00 AM CDT Comment 57 comments

by Mark Avery - AP

James -

So Sillinger retired. That means the draftees in the 1989 Red Wings draft class have played, by my count, 5,721 NHL games (and counting with Lidstrom; we'll not discuss the what-might-have-beens of Vladimir Konstantinov's career).

In terms of NHL games played by the draftees of a single team in a single draft, is this the most successful draft in NHL history? If not where does it rank?

Thanks for considering the question,
Scott (redwingshardware.blogspot.com)

Great question. Here's how the Red Wings draft breaks down:

Round	Num.	Player	Pos	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
1	11	Mike Sillinger	C	1,049	240	308	548	644
2	32	Bob Boughner	D	630	15	57	72	1,382
3	53	Nicklas Lidstrom	D	1,330	228	769	997	442
4	74	Sergei Fedorov	C	1,248	483	696	1,179	839
5	95	Shawn McCosh	C	9	1	0	1	6
6	116	Dallas Drake	R	1,009	177	300	477	885
7	137	Scott Zygulski	D	0	0	0	0	0
8	158	Andy Suhy	D	0	0	0	0	0
9	179	Bob Jones	D	0	0	0	0	0
10	200	Greg Bignell	D	0	0	0	0	0
10	204	Rick Judson	L	0	0	0	0	0
11	221	Vladimir Konstantinov	D	446	47	128	175	838
12	242	Joe Frederick	R	0	0	0	0	0
12	246	Jason Glickman	G	0	0	0	0	0
				5,721	1,191	2,258	3,449	5,036

Scott's done some research on this and said he can't find another draft class with more than 5,000 games, so by that definition anyway, this is pretty darn impressive. The '79 Oilers class was just more than 4,100 and had Messier leading an impressive group in its own right. The '77 Canadiens was at about 4,600, albeit with 27 draft picks that year, including my pal Rod Langway.

Check out his look through the annals here.

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Was the Red Wings' 1989 draft class the best ever?

Yes

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No

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Great question.

FWIW, the most productive Caps draft (by games played -4373) was 1984, led by Kevin Hatcher, Stephen Leach, Michal Pivonka and Kris King – not nearly as impressive by metrics other than NHL games played as those listed in your post.

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by J.P. on Sep 4, 2009 8:08 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

The 2004 draft year is going to blow that draft away in terms of impact and relevance, even if they don’t catch them in games played.

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by Fehr and Balanced on Sep 4, 2009 12:49 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Heh, three first-rounders can do that.

by ChicoMaki on Sep 4, 2009 3:09 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Two future Hall of Famers drafted after the top 50. Amazing!

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by Fauxrumors on Sep 4, 2009 8:13 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Really interesting post! To bad my Habs were just shy of first (1100 gp). The most impressive thing is that the wings are still counting!

by lightweight on Sep 4, 2009 8:18 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

It’s hard to think of a better draft. Sillinger, Boughner and Drake all had great careers in their own rights. Lidstrom is a HOF’er and an all-time great defenseman. Fedorov has legit HOF credentials as well. Konstantinov might well have been in that discussion too if not for the tragic accident.

And I think they intended to draft Pavel Bure at #116 before Vancouver just beat them to the punch taking Bure #113. Detroit would ‘settle’ for Drake, but just imagine if they would have had Bure as well.

Perfect storm and an all-time great draft. Hard to imagine we’ll ever see that again given how Europe is better scouted and the timing of the Russian players exploding onto the NHL scene after the fall of communism.

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by Hooks Orpik on Sep 4, 2009 8:30 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Fedorov and Bure

That would have made for an awkward locker room once Anna Kournikova started dropping by.

by scsu on Sep 4, 2009 10:11 PM CDT up reply actions 1 recs

Volley for serve…

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by Yankee Canuck on Sep 5, 2009 7:44 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Best draft ever??

Dunno man, Scott Zygulski was kind of a huge bust.

by jackweiland on Sep 4, 2009 9:59 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

No way man! Scott Zygulski just never got a fair chance!

by David M. Getz on Sep 4, 2009 10:01 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I hope Scott Zygulski is reading this, wherever he may be today.

Sorry dude. JUST MESSIN!!!!

by jackweiland on Sep 4, 2009 10:16 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

class of '89

What is crazy is that the most successful draft of all time only has a success rate of 42.8% and three of them were career plumbers. What I would like to see how this group of guys compares in points per game to other “successful” years. Anyone feeling ambitious?

by boristheblade on Sep 4, 2009 10:01 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

What is crazy is that the most successful draft of all time only has a success rate of 42.8% and three of them were career plumbers

Not that crazy. Right now there are 690 NHL jobs and 210 players drafted every year. That’s a lot of guys for not a lot of openings.

by David M. Getz on Sep 4, 2009 10:02 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bruins '79

The Bruins got 4934 games in 1979, thanks mostly to Bourque and McCrimmon. That cuts the Red Wings’ lead down to 900 games.

by Copronymus on Sep 4, 2009 10:41 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Oilers comparable

Lidstrom, Fedorov, Sillinger vs Lowe, Messier, Anderson … quite comparable I’d say. I don’t see the need to focus where the player was drafted. At the end of the day its all about the end product.

by puckdonkey on Sep 4, 2009 10:45 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Flames '84

By my count, they’re at 4,975 games – draft included Gary Roberts, Brett Hull, Gary Suter, Paul Ranheim (all over 1000 games), plus Jiri Hrdina (and Ken Sabourin!)

One of the top 5 drafts ever, by any metric…too bad they never kept Hull…

by maimster on Sep 4, 2009 10:56 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

yeah book just closed on that one now with Roberts gone, by my admittedly hasty math about 1590 goals from that draft which is alot I’d say

Hrdina came over a bit too late to make as much impact as he might have otherwise

by looooob on Sep 4, 2009 12:44 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I’d put the 84 Flames draft up against this Red Wings draft any day. But damn, either team would love to repeat, lol.

by Resolute on Sep 4, 2009 1:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

It might be worth considering how many selections the Wings had compared to some other historic drafts. The following list is GP per selection using some of the drafts we’ve talked about here (along with a few others) with likely HoF candidates in brackets:

Bruins 1979 – 705 (Bourque)
Oilers 1979 – 691 (Messier, Anderson)
Nordiques 1979 – 654 (Goulet)
Oilers 1980 – 547 (Coffey, Kurri)
Jets 1979 – 501 (None)
Canucks 1979 – 443 (None)
Flames 1984 – 412 (Hull)
Red Wings 1989 – 409 (Lidstrom, Fedorov)
Caps 1984 – 398 (None)
Habs 1977 – 170 (Langway)

I’m not sure if this is a better way to do things but it does show that the Red Wings had a lot more opportunities than some of the teams they’re being compared with. Also, I haven’t checked everyone’s 1979 year, but that looks like a bad year to have traded away your picks (also, yay for expansion creating more spots!).

by Scott Reynolds on Sep 4, 2009 12:15 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

79 was a double cohort draft with 2 years of draft eligible players taken, it was as a result as good as it gets

by looooob on Sep 4, 2009 12:45 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well, drafting Russians in 1989 deep in the draft when one didn’t know whether one would be able to sneak them out of Russia or not is as big an asterisk as the double cohort in 1979.

The draft in 1979 was also limited to six rounds. The Oilers signed Huddy as a free agent that year because they ran out of rounds to draft him. Should not he be included also?

by godot10 on Sep 4, 2009 2:09 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

hmm my post was certainly not meant to poke holes in the Oilers (or anyone else’s ) 79 draft, just answering the part about 79 being a bad year to trade pick and expansion creating more spots

79 was a deep deep draft class, the oilers still rocked that draft, credit due

by looooob on Sep 4, 2009 2:13 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Actually, teams drafted a ton of Russians (21 in all) in 1989 specifically because they were expecting the border to open. Sergei Priakin had already made his debut with the Flames, and it was well known the Soviet Hockey Federation was cash poor. There was no issue with sneaking them out of Russia. It was known they were about to come through the front door.

by Resolute on Sep 4, 2009 3:39 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I suppose, but there’s a reason Fedorov, Bure, etc., slipped as far as they did in the draft. No one had a clue if those high calibre players would get out of there.

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by James Mirtle on Sep 4, 2009 8:20 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I would argue that there’s a big difference between taking a risk on players you might never get a game out of, and simply having more players to choose from. Did the Wings get lucky? Sure, to some extent, but they also knew which Russians to get. Further, in the case of Konstantinov at least (and possibly Fedorov as well; I don’t really remember) the organization took active steps to get him out of Russia.

by J. Michael Neal on Sep 4, 2009 10:03 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I believe they smuggled Fedorov away during some sort of game in Vancouver that the Red Army team was in the area for? I might be making that up, but they did have to help Fedorov out as well, and for some reason, I’m thinking it was in Vancouver that they did so.

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by IAmJoe on Sep 5, 2009 3:25 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah. Federov hopped on a flight to Detroit.

by red army line on Sep 5, 2009 5:24 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Actually for some reason I think it was in the Pacific Northwest, but in the U.S., not Canada.

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by James Mirtle on Sep 5, 2009 11:28 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bure

Wasn’t allowed to be picked any later than the third round that year due to games played for Red Army, and since no one wanted to risk an early pick on an unknown quantity, he slipped to the sixth. The Canucks managed to get him out of his game requirement clause by including exhibition games, which satisfied the NHL brass, and offering a quarter million dollars to the Soviet Federation, which kept them calm, if not happy.

Kind of odd, looking back: NHL teams draft players that have contractual obligations all the time, and any team drafting Bure would only have had to waited on year before he was available.

Of course, the fact that Fedorov had to sneak out during the Goodwill Games (irony alert!) when he was 19 showed the fear players had of the Soviet Federation not keeping their promises. Glad to be living in the times I do.

by Thursday on Sep 6, 2009 10:46 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

It is one of the reasons I respect Larionov and Fetisov as much as I do.

by J. Michael Neal on Sep 7, 2009 8:27 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

With no border issues, Bure and Fedorov would have been top ten picks, easily. There was no question these guys were going to be good.

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by Back In Black on Sep 5, 2009 1:47 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

not sure where else to mention this, so I"ll put it here

84 Habs also very solid, first 4 players taken all over 1000 games, the rest were duds, although they did take the ‘other Crosby’ late

the best player and HOFer for them is a goalie though and that hurts their numbers (GP etc)

by looooob on Sep 4, 2009 2:00 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Montreal’s 1987 draft was very comparable: Cassels, LeClair, Desjardins, and Schneider. 3 of the 4 reached 1000 games, and LeClair’s late injuries kept him just short at 967 (but he played 1000 if you include playoff games). They also picked Ed Ronan in the late rounds, who had a bit role in the 1993 Cup team.

Unfortunately, part way through the 1994-95 season none of the players were Habs anymore.

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by saskhab on Sep 4, 2009 4:38 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

I really shouldn’t promote the wings being a habs fan, BUT, not only do they have the top draft result in 1989, but their 1983 draft (Yzerman, Klima, Probert, Kocur, Grimson) is 2nd best! By my count 5069 gp!
The habs have the best overall drafting through the 80’s however, with an average years draft gaining 2746gp. The wings come in third with an average of 2436gp, and surprisingly (maybe not with some of their past stars) Buffalo comes in 2nd with an average draft year earning 2470gp. I have the whole list figured out if you are interested in other teams.
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by lightweight on Sep 4, 2009 2:18 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

From the nineties on, it looks like the 1990 Devils have the most games played in a draft, with 4,016. Impressively, not one of the nine players who played in the NHL played 1000 (though Brodeur has 999), making it a team effort.

by Nick W on Sep 4, 2009 3:11 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

How about worst draft?

Can anyone “top” the 1997 Flames? 11 players selected, four played in the NHL, led by 2nd round pick John Tripp’s 43 games. Top pick, Daniel Tkaczuk was taken 6th overall and only played 19. Combined, 81GP, 8G, 16A, 24 P.

Ugh.

by Resolute on Sep 4, 2009 3:49 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Not surprisingly, best Flames teams (89 Cup plus 88 President’s Cup) follow closely on the 84 draft…97 draft early in the dead years of 97-03…

by maimster on Sep 4, 2009 4:17 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Habs didn’t have a first rounder in the “amazing” 1999 draft, so it’s not like they had any real busts, but they still never selected a player who played in a NHL game.

Check that… Matt Carkner has played in 2 NHL games post-lockout (1 in 05-06 for San Jose, 1 for Ottawa last year), making the Habs 1999 draft grand total:

11 players (highest 39th overall – Alexander Buturlin): 2 GP, 0 G, 1 A.

I remeber back in Oct. 2001, goaltender Vadim Tarasov should have gotten called up, but he got hurt while the Habs had a huge rash of injuries. It ended up being the Habs had to call up 18 year old Olivier Michaud from junior, who became the youngest goaltender to play in Habs history. He never made it back to the NHL, and same with Tarasov who went back to Russia.

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by saskhab on Sep 4, 2009 4:21 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

The Worst Draft, Period -- Edmonton Oilers 1990

The term "failed" does not adequately describe the 1990 Entry Draft for the Edmonton Oilers. Of the eleven players selected, not one ever appeared in an NHL game. We are not just saying an Oilers game; we’re talking about the entire National Hockey League. This is an accomplishment (if one can use that word in this context) that is surely unique amongst all the teams in the NHL. It is possibly unique in all of professional sport.

Now, it should be pointed out that the St. Louis Blues didn’t have a player from the 1983 Entry Draft make the NHL. But that’s only because the Blues that year elected not to attend the draft and forfeited all their picks! In 1990, the Oilers were there, at their table, all twelve, long rounds. You would think that based simply on the law of averages there would be at least one guy out of that bunch in the last twenty years to make the over-expanded NHL.

Adding insult to injury, the Oilers made an invalid claim with their eleventh-round selection (227th overall) and lost the pick without any compensation. Overall, it was a red-letter day.

For the record, here is the "Murders Row" of players selected that draft year by the Edmonton Oilers who never appeared in an NHL game: Scott Allison (17th overall), Alexander Legault (38th overall), Joe Crowley (59th overall), Joel Blain (67th overall), Greg Louder (101st overall), Keijo Sailynoja (122nd overall), Mike Power (143rd overall), Roman Mejzlik (164th overall), Richard Zemlicka (185th overall), Petr Korinek (206th overall) and Sami Nuutinen (248th overall).

And just for interest sake, the Oilers traded their fourth-round pick to Toronto who selected Greg Walters (80th overall). He never appeared in an NHL game either.

by Matthew McCallum on Sep 4, 2009 4:21 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nothing says “end of a dynasty” than having that kind of draft right after winning your 5th Cup in 7 years.

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by saskhab on Sep 4, 2009 4:40 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Damned Edmonton and its inferiority complex. Always trying to one-up Calgary! ;)

You guys win this one, lol.

And yeah, not hard to see why the Oilers sucked in the early 90s and the Flames in the late, what with outstanding first round picks like Allison, Bonsignore, Sundblad, Tkaczuk, Fata, Hulbig, Reisen, Mattsson and others.

by Resolute on Sep 4, 2009 4:57 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

But that’s only because the Blues that year elected not to attend the draft and forfeited all their picks!

I don’t believe the NHL gave them a choice in the matter. Weren’t they barred due to the ownership struggle (and specifically, Bill Hunter’s application to move the team to Saskatoon)?

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by Doogie2K on Sep 5, 2009 1:41 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Nope. Ralston Purina boycotted the 1983 Draft by choice. Here’s a good summary of that long, hot summer in St. Louis.

by Matthew McCallum on Sep 5, 2009 4:23 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

So it sounds like the old owners said, “we’re not sending anybody, we fired everyone,” and the NHL was left holding the bag going, “dude, I don’t know,” and nothing happened out of it. Strange situation. You’d think the NHL would let/make the previous Blues staff speak on their behalf. Maybe they couldn’t, legally.

Wasn’t there a post on SLGT that had more info?

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by Doogie2K on Sep 5, 2009 6:08 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Welcome to the Ziegler era of the NHL.

by Resolute on Sep 6, 2009 5:40 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Wasn’t there a post on SLGT that had more info?

Yes, there was. Matthew’s summary just about sums it up – Ralston Purina said there would be no Blues reps at the draft, and when the team’s remaining exec and scouts showed up, they couldn’t do anything at the draft since they weren’t authorized by ownership to be there.

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by Nael M. on Sep 6, 2009 9:03 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

1000 games

One other item I noticed while looking at this…it’s surprising when you see that some guys have played 1000 games in the NHL. Looking at Flames ’84, I was surprised Paul Ranheim had that many games. Same for Dallas Drake (and even Sillinger, although he played a long time). Andrew Cassels…even Eric Desjardins, although he was quite good, he seemed to be hurt a lot.

There is a lot of incentive for guys to play as long as they can at the dollars they can make, that’s for sure.

by maimster on Sep 4, 2009 7:05 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

This has to be an unbreakable record for the foreseeable future. The Devils have a pretty good reputation for drafting and in 1990, 10 of their 14 picks made it to the NHL. Even so, their highest total GP from a draft year is still only 4,016 – quite a ways off from 5,000 much less, 5,721!

If Lidstrom stays healthy and continues playing for as long as he possibly could, could he push this draft year into 6,000 games?

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by John Fischer on Sep 4, 2009 7:28 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

This record would appear to be very close to unbreakable – except if you perhaps made the measure a how many games played per selection instead, which for the ’89 Red Wings class would be 409 games apiece. Interestingly, the ’79 Oilers draft is in fact better in terms of games apiece at 691 (although this was a loaded draft – only 23 players out of 126 (18%) did not play a game).

by HugoAgogo on Sep 4, 2009 7:43 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

But that’s making those 12-round picks equal to a team that had four second rounders, or whatever. It doesn’t work either.

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by James Mirtle on Sep 4, 2009 8:23 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I see what you are saying – clearly I looked at it from an average games played because a larger number of selections means that it is more likely that a draft will be superior in terms of counting statistics and hence as no team is likely to have 14+ selections today, it makes this record unbreakable (like John said). Clearly there are strength of draft and number/relative position of selection issues in comparing across drafts.

It’s likely impossible to develop a perfect metric in this regard, but it would be interesting looking into the data and seeing if there was any way that you could factor out one or more of the issues that immediately comes up when you compare across drafts. Might see if I can expand upon the Daoust spreadsheet to include older drafts and then (attempt) to standardise the results adjusting for the draft strength, although I’m not sure how to go about controlling all the possible confounding factors at play.

by HugoAgogo on Sep 5, 2009 12:51 AM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Average the production of the picks within each round, so that all rounds are weighted equally, and then average those.

by J. Michael Neal on Sep 5, 2009 7:18 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, I was thinking that, but it still doesn’t take into account the importance of position within a round.

Otherwise you would find selection success ratios that are beyond 2 standard deviations away from what’s expected by chance just due to position (i.e. position 1 is more likely to see a significant result than position 30).

Ideally, I might try to use a standard number of picks rather than rounds boundaries – due to changes in the round structure over the years (that way rounds are weighed at equal cut off points hopefully – possibly a proportion of all selections is used).

by HugoAgogo on Sep 5, 2009 8:17 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

My guess is that this is a large factor only in round one. It might still be significant, though much smaller, in round two. After that, my guess is that you won’t notice a difference. There are ways you could try to reduce this effect, but in aggregate, it probably doesn’t make much difference. The ability to pick up a player that is a big boost anywhere in one of the later rounds is probably enough to overcome first round position.

So, it would be a factor, but I don’t think it’s enough to hide large trends.

by J. Michael Neal on Sep 6, 2009 4:19 PM CDT up reply actions 0 recs

What About Playoff Games Played...?

The numbers listed at the top do not appear to include playoff games played – which would skew the results even higher (to the tune of 6419 games played).

by HugoAgogo on Sep 4, 2009 7:29 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Be Careful

Great work by Scott to put all those numbers together…

Just be careful that you don’t automatically associate game’s played with their quality of play in said games. If we go strictly by those the games played methodology, then John Anderson as a better pick in the 1977 Draft than Mike Bossy. Of course, that’s ridiculous… its no different for overall teams.

In no way am I marginalizing the Red Wings ‘89 Draft… I’d kill for the Kings ’09 Draft to have the success. But when I look back, Kevin Lowe is a pretty good “3rd Best Guy.” And can we please penalize teams for NOT keeping the best players they draft? Yes, the ’84 Flames!!

But yeah, games played is not equal to quality. Hell, Dan Cloutier played 351 games!

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by Cheap Seats on Sep 4, 2009 11:00 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs