2016 NHL Mock Draft - brought to you by KilkennyDan

kind words Dan but lets wait and see if any of those players has a nice NHL career. if your guys sticks around for a decade and mine are no-shows then draft position equals diddlypoo.

 

I've found out over the past few years that playing close attention to the draft can pay unexpected dividends down the line. (A Sabres fan's only link to sanity had been to focus on who was to come versus what was on those rosters.)

I used to quickly forget the prospects in the Sabres pipeline, let alone knowing about another team's prospects. Now, I am much more familiar with every team's org. strengths & weaknesses. It makes it more fun to be an armchair GM.

Note, I said the benefit is that it makes this more fun. I did not say it makes me better at it.

Mstty, I will probably remember that mock trade on a few years - I look forward to discussing it.

 

I have mapped the real draft to our mock draft and developed a proprietary algorithm to grade each team and each Mock GM. (The lower the score the better.) The results for the 30 mock drafts are:

• WPG -22
  LAK -18.3
  MIN -17.5
  DAL -14
  AZ -11
  BUF - 5.29
  VAN -0.33
  MTL 3.2
  SJ 3.75
  WAS 4.5
  TB 10.5
  ANA 12.25
  STL 16
  NJ 21.38
  FL 24
  CAR 25.25
  NAS 26.67
  TOR 29.78
  BOS 34.8
  CO 43.4
  DET 49.75
  NYI 50.5
  CGY 59
  CHI 62.17
  CBJ 62.67
  OTT 63.4
  EDM 65.57
  PIT 65.75
  NYR 67
  PHL 74.86[/*]

I am not going to go to great lengths to reveal the grading algorithm. I will say that it is objective and repeatable. One thing I will say is that if a Mock team selected a prospect that was not taken at all in the real draft it hurt that GM's grade. In very general terms, the scoring is based on the difference between the mock draft and the real draft in terms of where a prospect was selected. For instance, TOR selected Matthews #1 in the mock and that is where he was taken in the real draft; in the grading this resulted in a 0.00 for TOR (skinny). WPG (Joe) got a 0.00 for taking Laine #2, etc.

Again, the lower the score the better; a GM could end up with a negative score (very good) if he selected a prospect that went higher in the real draft. This may not be the most fair way to grade a mock, since it presumes that the real NHL GM is smarter and better able to select players. I think that's a reasonable assumption for the most part. However, it could point to anomalies such as BOS (real) taking T. Frederic 1/#29 and in the mock he went to AZ (Joe) at 4/#108 - giving Joe a whopping -79 points on that one selection. I think Boston reached in the real world more than Joe nailing a first round pick in the fourth.

 

Most GM's selected for more than one team, (see page 1). In order to select the Best Mocker and winner of the game-worn Dahlbeck Rockford IceHog sweater*, I aggregated the scores for both teams. The results are:

• Joe -16.92
  Dan -9.2
  red 13.57
  daniel 16
  Matty 19.86
  sharks 25.78
  Falcons 25.86
  Tim 30.5
  Will 31
  Jordan 32.55
  skinny 33.55
  Alfred 37.83
  Bob 39.1
  j.todd 39.58
  firehalo 50.71
  kjbakerrr 63.4[/*]

(* If anyone is wondering why I'd give this away, let me explain that it is a cool sweater that I won while at an IceHogs game. However, I have several cool sweaters, and this one has not found itself out in public since I won it. I'd much rather that someone enjoy it.)

I will send the sweater to our Best Mocker, LAOJoe. Congratulations!

I would like to thank everyone who participated in this mock; you all made it a lot of fun. Joe, Will, Tim, and FalconsGuy deserve particular mention for their help getting this set up with players and then making sure it went smoothly. It's not easy work to be a mock draft commissioner; you made it, however, appear easy.

 

Thanks Dan. I'm honoured. Or since it's the 4th, I'm honored.

 

Congrats to Joe, this was my first ever mock, I will try to be better prepared next time.

Happy 4th!

 

Way to go, Joe!

Thanks Dan, the man!

signed;
Will the Thrill!

 

i tried hard to be a great mock drafter, and was impressed with others fine drafting. can't believe 3rd place doesn't get a ice hog jockstrap.

 

Congrat's LAOJoe on some nice prize. Wash it first and don't let your brother near it!!!

 

i'd also like to thank dan and joe for finishing in the red. And i really don't want to know how that works. Hockey metrics are confusing enough for me. I don't need metrics to tell you a player on my team sucks or is worthy. I kinda watch the game.

 

Just got it. Thanks Dan! for those that are curious it's this but obviously Dahlbeck instead. If I remember I'll get a back shot because the numbers look cool with the mustache watermark. Seems like a Movember sweater, obviously I guess.

 

I was looking back at this. Good times. My draft picks for the most part turned out well. I'll have to look at the other classes in more depth later.