Edmonton Oilers: Should Peter Chiarelli Take Notes From The Coyotes?

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SUNRISE, FL – JUNE 26: Edmonton Oilers General Manager Peter Chiarelli addresses the audience as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Oilers head coach Todd McClellan look on during Round One of the 2015 NHL Draft at BB /

Edmonton Oilers: Sunday night saw Coyotes General Manager John Chayka cut the rope with two struggling high profile prospects in exchange for a solidified NHL regular coming off a 20 goal, 50 point season. Many are shocked to see a team give up on a 3rd overall pick so quickly. But is Chayka just ahead of the curve when it comes to asset management?

Edmonton Oilers: Gunna start this off with a pretty staggering list tweeted out by Cam Lewis of players that have outscored Dylan Strome early on in the center’s career:

Imagine telling A Coyotes fan on draft day in 2015 that all of these guys would have more NHL points than Dylan Strome two-and-a-half years later. Woof. pic.twitter.com/HzQKEddw5A
— Cam (@cooomzy) November 26, 2018

Now look, its only been two-and-a-half years, so it’s still way too early to cross off Strome from having the ability to become the player everyone expected he would be for the Arizona Coyotes. And in my opinion, the 2015 draft is going to go down as producing the most quality NHL players since the 2003 draft that people are still drooling over 16 years later.

However, with that said, the Coyotes have watched this player more than anyone else, and know probably more than anyone, that he wasn’t going to turn into the contributor down the middle for their club that they were hoping to get on draft day.

At just over two years in, this is when many teams like to throw out the frequent claims that they need to be patient, or that these players take time. Instead, John Chayka decided to go against this traditional method of dealing with struggling high-profile draft picks and got a serviceable top 6 forward for his assets rather than waiting until their value potentially hit rock bottom.

Strome and Brendan Perlini may very well turn out to have solid NHL careers. I especially like Strome’s chances if he’s able to put something together playing next to Patrick Kane and former Eerie Otter team-mate Alex Debrincat. But what if they don’t…

EDMONTON, AB – OCTOBER 30: Ryan Strome #18 of the Edmonton Oilers skates during the game against the Minnesota Wild on October 30, 2018 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Draft Busts

Let’s see if you remember hearing any of these highly touted top 10 picks on draft day from

2009 to 2016 that have so far failed to live up to their hype:

2010: Brett Connolly (TB), Alex Burmistrov (ATL), Dylan McIlrath (NYR),

2011: Ryan Strome (NYI)

2012: Nail Yakupov (EDM) Ryan Murray (CBJ), Griffin Reinhart (NYI), Derrick Pouliot (PIT), Slater Koekkek (TB)

2013: No real considerable busts in the top 10, but 9 in the next 20 picks. Curtis Lazar by Ottawa stands out. Calgary had three first round picks in this draft, striking out on two of them.

2014: Michael Dal Colle (NYI), *Jake Virtanen (VAN), *Haydn Fleury (CAR)

2015: *Dylan Strome (ARI)

2016: *Jesse Puljujarvi (EDM), *Olli Juolevi (VAN)

* players who still have a chance of reaching their draft day potential, all-be-it a less likely one.

Courtesy of http://www.hockey-reference.com

Almost every draft year has them. This is only a small sample size of players who were never able to fulfill what franchises expect to be getting in a player they put the faith of selecting with their top draft choice. Now some of these players are still going to put together solid NHL careers. Some still even have a chance of living up to these expectations.

However, almost all of these players were at one point high profile prospects that would carry significant value in a trade the first 2-3 years after they were drafted. And some were held onto until their value diminished and are now either playing in a support role, are out of the league, or were traded for a bag of pucks.

Using data provided from Scott Cullens Statistically Speaking article he wrote in June 2017, I calculated that an average of only 53.86 percent of top 10 picks have turned into top 6 forwards or top 4 D between 1990-2013 per draft year. With an average of just 61.0 percent of all first round picks in the same time frame managing to play over 100 games in the big leagues.

EDMONTON, AB – NOVEMBER 29: Jesse Puljujarvi #98 of the Edmonton Oilers walks to the dressing room prior to the game against the Los Angeles Kings on November 29, 2018 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (Photo by Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images) /

Getting full value for your assets

If most of these high pedigree players are still holding significant trade value for the first few years after they are drafted, why aren’t more teams assessing the player’s likelihood of contributing to their team?

And focusing on getting full value for their asset before it’s too late? Many franchises are electing to hold onto these prospects. Whether it be because they are afraid of admitting the failure of drafting among scouting personnel, or in fear that the player will end up finding his way and did just need some more time.

But in reality, the odds aren’t all that great. I’d be even more curious to find out the percentage of top draft picks that end up fulfilling expectations after not cracking an NHL roster in the first two years after their draft year.

So why not allocate more time to assessing the probability of your prospect being able to transfer his dominance from juniors or other leagues to the NHL? And making that assessment within the time frame that these high pedigree picks could still be used as a valuable bargaining chip rather than watching their worth deteriorate with every waiting season.

It’s not something you see teams do often, but John Chayka has once again gone off untraditional tactics to get the full value of his assets. Which brings us to an essential part of the article…

SUNRISE, FL – JUNE 26: Peter Chiarelli of the Edmonton Oilers attends the 2015 NHL Draft at BB&T Center on June 26, 2015 in Sunrise, Florida. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

Should Chiarelli be taking notes?

As per HockeyReference.com, here is a list of players who have scored more points in the NHL than Jesse Puljujarvi since the 2016 entry draft:

Auston Matthews, Patrick Laine, Pierre Luc-Dubois, Matthew Tkachuk, Clayton Keller, Mikhail Sergachev, Tyson Jost, Charlie McAvoy, Jacob Chychrun, Alexander Debrincat, Samuel Girard, and Jesper Bratt.

That’s a pretty lengthy list of players who have found ways to contribute to their respective clubs in the first couple of years since being drafted. If that list isn’t a compelling enough of an example to show just how unproductive Puljujarvi has been for the Oilers, look no further than Pierre Luc-Dubois. Who has so far played the same amount of games as Jesse (106), and has put up 72 points in compared to Puljujarvi’s whopping total of 30.

With the Oilers desperate need for help on the wing, Peter Chiarelli and his staff have to decide on the direction to go, in order to get the full value out of their asset while he is still in the window of being a significant trading piece.

And so far have done an abysmal job at developing this prospect. Will they wait it out until he finds his footing to take the next step in his career? Or end up watching his value deteriorate right under their eyes in each coming season?

Now look, I’m not a scout. The last thing I’m going to say is that we should trade Jesse Puljujarvi. In the words of Ken Hitchcock “If we expect to win in the west… we need players like him”. In all honesty, from what I have watched, I think he has all the intangibles of being a game-breaking player.

But… what if he isn’t?

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