Welcome to the Thursday Ramblings where I begin a series, I discussed two weeks ago and had the idea for a while ago. Let me get to a quick story of how I came about this idea: For some reason I always felt like players from either the AJHL or BCHL never turn out, so I rarely took them ever in my fantasy drafts. It may have been the Beau Bennett pick that burned me but that was also due to injury stopping his NHL career. I decided since no other hockey is going on, and I cannot keep watching the same clips of prospects over and over, to look back and see how many of the players from the BCHL and AJHL turn out. Then at the same time I thought I would check out other leagues to see the success rates and post some ramblings on those.

I went as far back as 2008, as I cannot really predict what the 2019 draftees will turn out to be. Also, players from 2016-2018 I compared common rates of past draftees and combined that with draft round success rates from these articles completed recently and as far back as 2015 (as it is pretty common to know that success rates for players drafted crash after round one):

Sportsnet: https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/analyzing-value-nhl-draft-picks/

From Jokke Nevalainen here at Dobberprospects a couple weeks ago: https://dobberprospects.com/nhl-draft-pick-probabilities/

Hockey Graphs: https://hockey-graphs.com/2015/05/06/when-the-trade-market-and-draft-market-intersect-and-how-to-exploit-them/#more-3391

Additionally, in 2008-2012 I made the cutoff 200 games played (and they still have to be playing) and lowered the number to 100 with the same conditions for 2013-2015

I should have added the leagues I gathered data on were the USHL, BCHL, AJHL, USNDTP, EJHL, CJHL, OJHL, MJHL, WCHA, USMAAA, MWEHL, NAHL, CCHA, Big Ten, H-East, ECAC, NCHC, H-East, High-MA, High-MN, High-CT, High-NJ, High-WI, High-QC, High-ON, High-NH, High0MI, High-NY, and the USPHL.

Before I get started here is my #GoodTweet of the week:

**********************

From 2008 to 2018 there were approximately 2324 total players drafted, and out of those players 42 were from the BCHL and 21 were from the AJHL, so a pretty low number of players drafted from both leagues, with the BCHL double the AJHL randomly enough. That comes to 1.81% of players from the BCHL and 0.9% of players form the AJHL, not a high amount.

Out of the 42 players drafted out of the BCHL 23.81% of them have turned in to NHL players (10 players) and of the 21 AJHL players drafted 28.57% of them became NHL players (six players). I made a chart of per year drafted players, and I added 2019 because I had the data.

Interesting chart as you can see. The BCHL has really taken off these past two drafts (in relation to these two leagues) but that could just be coincidence. The success rate chart is pretty hilarious as the four players drafted in 2011 and 2016 from the BCHL worked out, and the AJHL’s greatest success was in 2017 with Cale Makar being awesome, Ian Mitchell being a top prospect for Chicago, and Parker Foo as the likely player not to make it since he was drafted in round five (also by Chicago) and has not been very impressive.

Now if you overlay the charts it looks wild. No players from the AJHL between 2008 and 2011 became NHL players (under my stipulations), yet half of each totals players drafted in 2012 and 2013 turned out. 

I also checked out when they were drafted per round and found interesting results. The BCHL has a success rate for 75% in round one, but that was four players out of the 42 from 2008 to 2018, or 9.52% of all BCHL players drafted. The AJHL is quite interesting in that in the first round two out of the four players drafted are a top prospect (Jacob Bernard-Docker in 2018) or a Calder favorite (Cale Makar in 2017), and the two that did not make it were Dylan Olsen in 2009 and Joe Colborne in 2008 (yes he was above 200 games but he has not been an NHL player for years).

The round success rate is

The BCHL crashes to be below 34% after round one, and oddly enough round six produces better than round five and round seven, and also has the least number of players drafted from rounds four to seven. Players drafted after round one rarely turn out, and thankfully the BCHL percentage shows that, but the AJHL rate is all over the map because of the low total draft pool. Oddly enough only one player from the AJHL was drafted in the second round and they turned out, but if you take a player from the AJHL in round four or seven, they will never work out. Here is the combined chart:

If you segment the rounds and success rate it is all over the map depending on the segment. For total numbers sake 18 BCHL players were taken from round one to four, and 24 from rounds five to seven. Rounds 1-4 success rate for the BCHL is 52.78% and rounds 5-7 success rate is 13.70%.

The AJHL has 10 players taken from round one to four, and 11 taken in rounds five to seven. With a 50% success rate in rounds one to four (even with no success in round four), and 17.78% success in rounds five to seven. Keep in mind the low number of AJHL players drafted.

Now to see the rounds drafted with the added 2019 players

A majority of players from these leagues get drafted after round three.

There will be a comparison once I am done all the leagues to see who has the best success rate, and how the success rates fall after round one and two.

Next week I will look at the USHL which has the highest number of drafted players I took from 2008-2018.

Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts.

Follow my twitter: @FHPQuinn