<p><center><iframe loading="lazy" width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QQcfw_SXghw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center></p>
<p>The <i>Edmonton Sun</i>&rsquo;s Terry Jones <a href="http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/10/22/jones-edmonton-oilers-2010-draft-class-could-be-off-the-charts">wrote a fascinating piece the other day</a> about the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; work at the 2010 NHL Draft. While the tone of the piece &ndash; and particularly the quotes from AHL head coach Todd Nelson &ndash; are Prendergastian in terms of their optimism, it&rsquo;s well worth reading because the team reveals a lot of their philosophy on draft day.  </p>
<p>In my experience, people in any field &ndash; sports, politics, whatever &ndash; are at their most revealing when they are confident in the decisions they&rsquo;ve made. Jones&rsquo; piece is clearly premised on the idea that the 2010 Draft was a spectacular success (I think it looks good, but not outrageously so), and Stu MacGregor really gets talking about how the Oilers made the decisions they did.</p>
<h3>Positional Picks</h3>
<p>It&rsquo;s abundantly clear that &ndash;outside of the first round, at least &ndash; the Oilers make decisions based on perceived positional need.</p>
<ul>
<li>MacGregor on Martin Marincin: &ldquo;We got the pick in a trade for Riley Nash and with that pick we were really hoping to get a defenceman.&rdquo;</li>
<li>MacGregor on Tyler Bunz: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the pick we&rsquo;d decided ahead of time that we intended to use to get a goalie.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: Within limits, this is fine. For first round picks, there&rsquo;s likely enough scrutiny to objectively choose the best player available with little regard for position &ndash; this is especially true at the very top of the draft &ndash; but with later picks there is always going to be a cluster of guys without much daylight between them. In these cases, deferring to positional balance isn&rsquo;t a bad thing. Also, with goaltenders, my personal belief is that given the difficulty in projecting them forward, using a late round pick on the best guy available (as the Oilers did with Bunz and previously with Roy) is an excellent strategy.</p>
<h3>Size</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/Vending_Machines.JPG" width="500" height="460" alt="" /></p>
<ul>
<li>MacGregor on Tyler Pitlick: &ldquo;We went for size in Pitlik. We just saw a big kid at 6-foot-2 with a real good wrist shot.&rdquo;</li>
<li>MacGregor on Curtis Hamilton: &ldquo;Hamilton&rsquo;s selection was totally about size and real good hockey sense.&rdquo;</li>
<li>MacGregor on Ryan Martindale: &ldquo;Again, he was a big kid.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: Again, within limits, this is fine. Size is a virtue. The thing with picking guys like Pitlick, Hamilton and Martindale is that they were all consensus picks to go in that range &ndash; they were hockey players who happened to be big, not big guys who happened to play hockey. The Oilers have, over the years, struggled to stay within limits, though &ndash; the Prendergast years are full of coke machine picks and selections like Cameron Abney and Mitch Moroz under MacGregor bear close scrutiny.</p>
<h3>Minimizing risk on European picks</h3>
<ul>
<li>MacGregor on Martin Marincin: &ldquo;A lot of the decision involved the knowledge he planned to come to North America to play junior as an 18-year-old.&rdquo;</li>
<li>MacGregor on Kristians Pelss: &ldquo;Frank Musil did some clandestine work to see if he&rsquo;d come over to play for the Oil Kings. Knowing that, I figured &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s take a swing at this guy.&rsquo;&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: One of the difficulties with making a European pick is knowing whether he&rsquo;s really interested in an NHL career, as well as whether he&rsquo;s in a good development situation. A good way to minimize those risks is to focus on Europeans willing to play major junior. The Oilers haven&rsquo;t made it a hard and fast rule &ndash; see Oscar Klefbom &ndash; but I&rsquo;d argue it&rsquo;s healthy that they consider this perspective.</p>
<h3>Assessment of draft success</h3>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/Success_prison_hulk.jpg" width="427" height="500" alt="" /></p>
<ul>
<li>More MacGregor: &ldquo;If you get two guys who make it to the NHL, that&rsquo;s a real good draft. Three is exceptional. Any more beyond that is off the charts.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: There&rsquo;s enough ambiguity in MacGregor&rsquo;s statement (i.e. What constitutes a guy who &lsquo;makes it?,&rsquo; Should first overall picks be included?, etc.) that it&rsquo;s hard to know for sure where his line for success/failure is. Personally, I think a team that gets two-three full-time NHL&rsquo;ers out of a given draft year (excluding first overall picks) is probably doing fairly well.</p>
<h3>Final points: Notes on the 2010 Draft</h3>
<p>I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t make a few points on the 2010 Draft while writing on this. Jones is bullish (&ldquo;It may turn out to be one of the greatest days in Edmonton Oilers history&rdquo;), while Lowetide <a href="http://lowetide.ca/blog/2012/10/2010-draft-progress.html">wrote an intelligent piece the other day</a> in which he expressed optimism.</p>
<p>I like the draft as a whole; I think it was good but not outrageously so. At first overall the team made a pick I agree with in Taylor Hall, but had they chosen Tyler Seguin they would not yet have cause to regret the decision, so it really comes down to the late work.</p>
<p>I only really see two guys as potential impact players in the NHL: Martin Marincin and Tyler Bunz. Marincin&rsquo;s athletic tools are exceptional and he&rsquo;s clearly a bright player, but he&rsquo;s raw enough that an extended minor-league stint to fine-tune his defensive game is probably in order. Bunz is tracking very well, but is three games into his pro career so it&rsquo;s far too early to say definitively one way or the other.</p>
<p>Beyond that, there are a bunch of legitimate prospects. Tyler Pitlick is a good, well-rounded player but has never produced enough at any level post-draft to justify assessment of him as a scorer in the NHL. I think he&rsquo;ll play, but probably as a depth guy. Curtis Hamilton&rsquo;s coming off a tough year but has good size and physical attributes and might round out as a lower-tier NHL&rsquo;er (he&rsquo;s a PK regular in Oklahoma and has looked good as a depth guy early). Brandon Davidson is a rookie pro but seems to have a nice mix of abilities &ndash; he reminds me a little bit of Corey Potter in terms of how he plays the game.</p>
<p>Then there are long shots. The organization loves Kristians Pelss and it&rsquo;s easy to see why, but his offence has been so anemic over the years that I have trouble seeing him as a guy who sticks in the NHL. Ryan Martindale spent last year in the ECHL and struggled; people have come back from that but right now he&rsquo;s decidedly a dark horse. Tiny Kellen Jones is a scorer in college but may have a tough transition to the professional game.</p>
<p>There were other picks too, already nearly forgotten. Jeremie Blain wasn&rsquo;t signed by the Oilers but did catch on with the Canucks organization; he&rsquo;s a point-per-game guy in the ECHL through five games and someone I likely would have retained if I were running the Oilers. I&rsquo;d slot him in ahead of Pelss or Martindale. 6&rsquo;2&rdquo; Drew Czerwonka was less lucky; he&rsquo;s playing for Kootenay in the WHL and has had a tough start to the season after an off-season injury. Injuries have been a problem down the line for him.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a good group overall, but not the stuff of legend.</p>
<h3>Recently by Jonathan Willis</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/24/big-decisions-the-curtis-joseph-trade-that-never-happened">Big decisions: the Curtis Joseph trade that never happened</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/23/barons-win-4-3-justin-schultz-now-leads-the-ahl-in-scoring">Barons win 4-3; Justin Schultz now leads the AHL in scoring</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/16/nhl-offers-the-players-a-5050-split">NHL offers players a 50/50 split</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/16/standing-still">Mitch Moroz is standing still</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/15/ten-points-this-is-no-time-to-panic">10 Points: This is no time to panic!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/13/the-edmonton-oilers-blue-line-its-a-dog-eat-dog-world">The Edmonton Oilers blue line: It&#8217;s a dog eat dog world</a></li>
<li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/12/nugent-hopkins-eberle-pointless-in-ahl-opener-barons-lose-2-1">Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle pointless in 2-1 loss</a></li>
</ul>

<center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QQcfw_SXghw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center>
<p>The <i>Edmonton Sun</i>&rsquo;s Terry Jones <a href="http://www.edmontonsun.com/2012/10/22/jones-edmonton-oilers-2010-draft-class-could-be-off-the-charts">wrote a fascinating piece the other day</a> about the Edmonton Oilers&rsquo; work at the 2010 NHL Draft. While the tone of the piece &ndash; and particularly the quotes from AHL head coach Todd Nelson &ndash; are Prendergastian in terms of their optimism, it&rsquo;s well worth reading because the team reveals a lot of their philosophy on draft day.  </p>
<p>In my experience, people in any field &ndash; sports, politics, whatever &ndash; are at their most revealing when they are confident in the decisions they&rsquo;ve made. Jones&rsquo; piece is clearly premised on the idea that the 2010 Draft was a spectacular success (I think it looks good, but not outrageously so), and Stu MacGregor really gets talking about how the Oilers made the decisions they did.</p>
<h3>Positional Picks</h3>
<p>It&rsquo;s abundantly clear that &ndash;outside of the first round, at least &ndash; the Oilers make decisions based on perceived positional need.</p>
<ul>
    <li>MacGregor on Martin Marincin: &ldquo;We got the pick in a trade for Riley Nash and with that pick we were really hoping to get a defenceman.&rdquo;</li>
    <li>MacGregor on Tyler Bunz: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the pick we&rsquo;d decided ahead of time that we intended to use to get a goalie.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: Within limits, this is fine. For first round picks, there&rsquo;s likely enough scrutiny to objectively choose the best player available with little regard for position &ndash; this is especially true at the very top of the draft &ndash; but with later picks there is always going to be a cluster of guys without much daylight between them. In these cases, deferring to positional balance isn&rsquo;t a bad thing. Also, with goaltenders, my personal belief is that given the difficulty in projecting them forward, using a late round pick on the best guy available (as the Oilers did with Bunz and previously with Roy) is an excellent strategy.</p>
<h3>Size</h3>
<p><img src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/Vending_Machines.JPG" width="500" height="460" alt="" /></p>
<ul>
    <li>MacGregor on Tyler Pitlick: &ldquo;We went for size in Pitlik. We just saw a big kid at 6-foot-2 with a real good wrist shot.&rdquo;</li>
    <li>MacGregor on Curtis Hamilton: &ldquo;Hamilton&rsquo;s selection was totally about size and real good hockey sense.&rdquo;</li>
    <li>MacGregor on Ryan Martindale: &ldquo;Again, he was a big kid.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: Again, within limits, this is fine. Size is a virtue. The thing with picking guys like Pitlick, Hamilton and Martindale is that they were all consensus picks to go in that range &ndash; they were hockey players who happened to be big, not big guys who happened to play hockey. The Oilers have, over the years, struggled to stay within limits, though &ndash; the Prendergast years are full of coke machine picks and selections like Cameron Abney and Mitch Moroz under MacGregor bear close scrutiny.</p>
<h3>Minimizing risk on European picks</h3>
<ul>
    <li>MacGregor on Martin Marincin: &ldquo;A lot of the decision involved the knowledge he planned to come to North America to play junior as an 18-year-old.&rdquo;</li>
    <li>MacGregor on Kristians Pelss: &ldquo;Frank Musil did some clandestine work to see if he&rsquo;d come over to play for the Oil Kings. Knowing that, I figured &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s take a swing at this guy.&rsquo;&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: One of the difficulties with making a European pick is knowing whether he&rsquo;s really interested in an NHL career, as well as whether he&rsquo;s in a good development situation. A good way to minimize those risks is to focus on Europeans willing to play major junior. The Oilers haven&rsquo;t made it a hard and fast rule &ndash; see Oscar Klefbom &ndash; but I&rsquo;d argue it&rsquo;s healthy that they consider this perspective.</p>
<h3>Assessment of draft success</h3>
<p><img src="https://publish.oilersnation.com/wp-content/uploads/Image/Success_prison_hulk.jpg" width="427" height="500" alt="" /></p>
<ul>
    <li>More MacGregor: &ldquo;If you get two guys who make it to the NHL, that&rsquo;s a real good draft. Three is exceptional. Any more beyond that is off the charts.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
<p>My take: There&rsquo;s enough ambiguity in MacGregor&rsquo;s statement (i.e. What constitutes a guy who &lsquo;makes it?,&rsquo; Should first overall picks be included?, etc.) that it&rsquo;s hard to know for sure where his line for success/failure is. Personally, I think a team that gets two-three full-time NHL&rsquo;ers out of a given draft year (excluding first overall picks) is probably doing fairly well.</p>
<h3>Final points: Notes on the 2010 Draft</h3>
<p>I&rsquo;d be remiss if I didn&rsquo;t make a few points on the 2010 Draft while writing on this. Jones is bullish (&ldquo;It may turn out to be one of the greatest days in Edmonton Oilers history&rdquo;), while Lowetide <a href="http://lowetide.ca/blog/2012/10/2010-draft-progress.html">wrote an intelligent piece the other day</a> in which he expressed optimism.</p>
<p>I like the draft as a whole; I think it was good but not outrageously so. At first overall the team made a pick I agree with in Taylor Hall, but had they chosen Tyler Seguin they would not yet have cause to regret the decision, so it really comes down to the late work.</p>
<p>I only really see two guys as potential impact players in the NHL: Martin Marincin and Tyler Bunz. Marincin&rsquo;s athletic tools are exceptional and he&rsquo;s clearly a bright player, but he&rsquo;s raw enough that an extended minor-league stint to fine-tune his defensive game is probably in order. Bunz is tracking very well, but is three games into his pro career so it&rsquo;s far too early to say definitively one way or the other.</p>
<p>Beyond that, there are a bunch of legitimate prospects. Tyler Pitlick is a good, well-rounded player but has never produced enough at any level post-draft to justify assessment of him as a scorer in the NHL. I think he&rsquo;ll play, but probably as a depth guy. Curtis Hamilton&rsquo;s coming off a tough year but has good size and physical attributes and might round out as a lower-tier NHL&rsquo;er (he&rsquo;s a PK regular in Oklahoma and has looked good as a depth guy early). Brandon Davidson is a rookie pro but seems to have a nice mix of abilities &ndash; he reminds me a little bit of Corey Potter in terms of how he plays the game.</p>
<p>Then there are long shots. The organization loves Kristians Pelss and it&rsquo;s easy to see why, but his offence has been so anemic over the years that I have trouble seeing him as a guy who sticks in the NHL. Ryan Martindale spent last year in the ECHL and struggled; people have come back from that but right now he&rsquo;s decidedly a dark horse. Tiny Kellen Jones is a scorer in college but may have a tough transition to the professional game.</p>
<p>There were other picks too, already nearly forgotten. Jeremie Blain wasn&rsquo;t signed by the Oilers but did catch on with the Canucks organization; he&rsquo;s a point-per-game guy in the ECHL through five games and someone I likely would have retained if I were running the Oilers. I&rsquo;d slot him in ahead of Pelss or Martindale. 6&rsquo;2&rdquo; Drew Czerwonka was less lucky; he&rsquo;s playing for Kootenay in the WHL and has had a tough start to the season after an off-season injury. Injuries have been a problem down the line for him.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s a good group overall, but not the stuff of legend.</p>
<h3>Recently by Jonathan Willis</h3>
<ul>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/24/big-decisions-the-curtis-joseph-trade-that-never-happened">Big decisions: the Curtis Joseph trade that never happened</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/23/barons-win-4-3-justin-schultz-now-leads-the-ahl-in-scoring">Barons win 4-3; Justin Schultz now leads the AHL in scoring</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/16/nhl-offers-the-players-a-5050-split">NHL offers players a 50/50 split</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/16/standing-still">Mitch Moroz is standing still</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/15/ten-points-this-is-no-time-to-panic">10 Points: This is no time to panic!</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/13/the-edmonton-oilers-blue-line-its-a-dog-eat-dog-world">The Edmonton Oilers blue line: It's a dog eat dog world</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://publish.oilersnation.com/2012/10/12/nugent-hopkins-eberle-pointless-in-ahl-opener-barons-lose-2-1">Nugent-Hopkins, Eberle pointless in 2-1 loss</a></li>
</ul>

How the Edmonton Oilers run their draft

Recent articles from Jonathan Willis

Breaking News