Best Player Available

There is more than one way to win at the draft table. Over the weekend, Edmonton Oilers assistant general manager Keith Gretzky talked about the team’s outlook on the entry draft later this month.

Best player available gets thrown around every year, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, if you built your draft list around skill only, names like Nick Suzuki and Kailer Yamamoto could be inside the top five overall. If you believe foot speed needs to be punished, then names like Jason Robertson and Jonah Gadjovich will be well  outside the first round.

What do the Oilers hold in high regard? Well, the club is going to be rolling out Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for most of the next decade, so skill forwards with foot speed should have high value. That means names like Kole Lind and Isaac Ratcliffe may be high on Edmonton’s radar for this year’s draft.

The website Prospects-Stats.com has all kinds of cool things for interested parties to look at, and if you have a few hours check it out. I warn you, it can end up making you sad (Owen Tippet’s goal heat map would be useful on the Oilers when he’s ready).

The OHL has a bunch of kids who shoot the puck like mad, here’s a quick look at the top draft eligible forwards and their shots-per-game totals:

That’s impressive. The WHL portion of the site doesn’t have a shots-per-game column (dear WHL: Please make this available), but all three CHL leagues are covered in points-per-game. Here are the draft eligible players over 1.1/game in this category (among forwards) by league:

At least one of these names should be available when Edmonton picks at No. 22. If they are looking for best player available, and are willing to overlook things like foot speed and rugged play, then this list has to contain the target (and maybe more than one) on draft evening.

I think the Oilers want skill and speed. I want to use two players as an example of how their list may break down. WHL forwards Mason Shaw and Kole Lind have similar points-per-game totals and are likely to go either on day one or early on day two. Shaw is a small (5.09) center with playmaking skills, Lind is an average sized (6.01) winger with speed and skills that include scoring ability.

Somewhere in there lies the key for Edmonton. Assuming the top names above are off the board, I think Lind>Shaw because of the boots and size, the other things (skill) being equal. If those things are true, I also believe Jason Robertson and Jonah Gadjovich will be passed over in the first round.

Edmonton’s best player available is probably going to be a forward who is a volume shooter who has at least a chance of keeping up with Connor McDavid. That’s the target.