The Upside of Trading Down at the NHL Draft
February 22, 2023 by Roderick Ioerger
Trading down at the draft is a well-worn attempt to take advantage of another team’s desperation and add assets while trying not to lose player value with the later picks received in return. It takes a leap of faith in an organization’s scouting staff and pick valuation to believe in the decision to move down.
[Author’s Note: When evaluating trades for this article, only the first round of the draft was considered, and trades were limited to those in which only draft picks moved between teams.]
For most teams, that leap often ends in tears and dashed hopes. In fact, between 1990 and 2015 there appears to have been only six meaningful wins for teams who added picks by trading back in the draft, despite the 65 attempts reviewed. Trading down in the NHL draft appears to be a losing move roughly 90 percent of the time.
However, when trading works, it can have remarkable results. The trade wins featured here have led to All-Star caliber players going to the team trading down and significantly less in NHL level talent going back to the team trading up. [Note that the trades below are discussed in chronological order.]
Martin Brodeur
This first example supports just how much scouting matters. In 1990 the New Jersey Devils received the 20th, 24th and 29th overall picks in a trade with Calgary for the 11th and 32nd-overall picks. At 11, Calgary drafted Trevor Kidd, the first goalie drafted in 1990 ended up being a respectable if unspectacular NHL goaltender. He produced 140 wins, 162 losses and 52 ties in 387 regular season games played.
Calgary later used the 32nd pick to select Vesa Viitakoski. Viitakoski managed to play 23 NHL games over three seasons, scoring just two goals with four assists. Viitakoski then returned to Europe where he had a successful 17-year career in the SM-Liiga with the majority of his games played for Ilves Tampere. In the 2001 season he managed 60 points with 34 goals and finished the season second in scoring, just one point behind the leader.
On the other side of the deal, after trading down from 11 to 20th overall, the Devils drafted Martin Brodeur, who ended up becoming the winningest goaltender in NHL history with 691 regular season wins, 125 shutouts, four Vezina Trophies, five Jennings Trophies, one Calder Trophy and three Stanley Cup Championships. In 2018 Martin Brodeur was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
New Jersey used pick number 24 to select defenseman David Harlock, who would play eight years and 212 games in the NHL, the majority of those after being selected by the Atlanta Thrashers from the New York Islanders in the 1999 expansion draft. With the 29th overall pick, the Devils drafted right winger Chris Gotziaman. Gotziaman played four seasons at the University of North Dakota, but failed to crack the NHL during his career. He retired after the 1997 ECHL season.
Jim Carey
In 1992 a slightly less heralded move for a goaltender was made by the Washington Capitals. The Caps traded picks 23 and 95 to Toronto and acquired picks 32, 53 and 97. Several of the players selected with the five total picks are names that most hockey fans are unlikely to remember unless they were deeply invested in either of the teams involved in the early 1990s.
Toronto used their picks to draft Grant Marshall (23rd) and Mark Raiter (95th). Marshall never played for Toronto, but he did have a lengthy NHL career, playing 700 games over eleven seasons, and winning Stanley Cups with Dallas in 1999 and a second Cup with—ironically—New Jersey in 2003. Raiter played out a WHL career and 39 games in the ECHL before retiring.
The Capitals used picks 53 and 97 to draft Stefan Ustorf and John Jakopin, respectively. The German-born Ustorf came over to North America at the beginning of the 1994 season, played 54 games for the Capitals and 311 games at the AHL/IHL level before returning to Germany. Jakopin, the 6’5 defenseman out of Merrimack College, was eventually signed by the Florida Panthers after his college career. He played 113 NHL games over six seasons, but the majority of his hockey was played at the AHL level. Unfortunately, Jakopin was forced to retire due to concussion issues.
Despite not hitting home runs on those two selections, Washington can be seen as a winner in this trade for the player they selected with the 32nd-overall pick, goaltender Jim Carey. While Jim Carey’s professional career was relatively short lived (172 NHL games over five seasons), he did manage to make the most of his time in the NHL. Carey was a two-time Vezina Trophy finalist for the Capitals as the NHL’s top goaltender, and won the award in 1996. He was Calder Trophy finalist in 1994-1995, an All-Star in 1995-1996, and won a World Cup gold medal in 1997.
The Sedin Twins
In 1999 Brian Burke may have pulled off his best trade as an NHL general manager. During the first hour of the draft, the Vancouver Canucks managed to acquire both of the Sedin twins. By trading the first overall pick to the expansion Atlanta Thrashers, Burke moved down a single spot in the draft and enabled Vancouver to draft Daniel Sedin (pick #2) and Max Birbraer (pick #67). Then, with the third overall pick of the same draft—for which Burke paid a heavy price—he was able to add Daniel’s brother Henrik.
Together the Sedin twins would go on to become Hall of Fame players, spending 17 seasons in Vancouver. Initially supporting the existing core of Todd Bertuzzi, Ed Jovanovski and Markus Naslund in the 2000 season, the Sedin twins became the Canucks superstar core players. The twins led the Canucks to the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals (Vancouver lost to Boston in a tight seven game series). The twins were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2022.
A few notes about Patrik Stefan. While a number of factors impaired his ability to live up to the number one draft position, in his draft year, most professional teams believed that Stefan, too, would be an all-star. In fact, Brian Burke and Dave Nonis, his assistant GM, tried everything they could to draft in positions 1,2 and 3. Had they been successful, they very well could have drafted Stefan #1. Sadly, injuries (particularly concussions) hampered Stefan’s playing career. He would play six seasons with the Thrashers and an additional season in Dallas. He played 455 NHL games in his career, with 64 goals and 124 assists.
Josh Bailey
The 2008 draft saw the New York Islanders leadership team trade down twice, moving from fifth to seventh to ninth overall, while adding picks 40, 68, and 37 in the following year’s draft. At five, Toronto drafted Luke Schenn. At seven, Nashville drafted Colin Wilson.
Luke Schenn has become a journey man defensive defenseman, written off multiple times by being the 7th defenseman on a roster or demoted to the AHL. Yet, despite limited scoring ability, Schenn has still managed to play over 900 games in an NHL sweater for six different teams, including the Vancouver Canucks twice.
Colin Wilson had solid NHL career, managing 632 NHL games and 286 points. He retired after the 2019-2020 season.
The Islanders used the ninth-overall pick to draft Josh Bailey. Bailey has been a career Islanders player, logging over 1,000 NHL games (1,047 games played, 182 goals, 394 assists) and was named an NHL All-Star in 2018. Although Bailey’s offensive production does not jump off the page, he has been a consistent scorer and five-time alternate captain for the Islanders, a steady leader who continues to make an impact in New York.
Rakell & Gibson
How about two all-stars for the price of none? That is the magic trick that Anaheim Ducks pulled off at the 2011 NHL draft. Anaheim traded down from pick number 22 in exchange for 30 and 39, and were able to use those picks to add two All-Star players in Rickard Rakell and John Gibson, while Toronto used pick 22 on Tyler Biggs.
This move was about as unsuccessful as you can get for Toronto. At the time of the draft, Biggs was considered a late-first-round prospect (the weighted average pre-draft rankings had Biggs at about 28, while the Hockey Prophets draft ranking showed him at 39th overall). Toronto traded up to draft Biggs at 22, and unfortunately that move never worked out. The 6’2, 200-pound right winger never played an NHL game, instead playing the bulk of his career at the AHL (119 games, 17 points) and ECHL level (136 games, 87 points) before retiring.
As for Anaheim’s side of the deal, Rakell (pre-draft weighted average of 39, Hockey Prophets rank 34) played 10 seasons in Anaheim with multiple thirty goal seasons, an all-star appearance and helped his team to the playoffs six consecutive years running from 2013 through 2018. In 2022, as the Ducks organization decided it was time to rebuild the aging roster, Rakell was traded to the Penguins for three players and a second-round draft pick. The value the Ducks received in Rakell alone make this move a win, and that does not even include the value John Gibson has provided the franchise.
John Gibson (drafted with the acquired 39th-overall pick) has become the backbone of the Anaheim franchise and has been their starting goaltender since the 2015-2016 season (when he replaced future all-star Freddy Andersen). Gibson has played 417 games for the Ducks, posting a .913 saves percentage and earning three selections to the NHL All-Star game. He also won a Jennings trophy in 2016 with the league’s lowest goals against average.
Mantha & Bertuzzi
The last of the trade-down wins occurred in 2013, when Detroit traded down from the 18 spot to add picks 20 and 58. Despite the relative recency of this trade, the results are obvious enough to be added to this short list of trade victories.
After using two draft picks to move to eighteenth overall, San Jose selected Swiss defenseman Mirco Mueller (ranked 24th by Hockey Prophets, with similar rankings by the major outlets). Mueller—a talented skater not known for offensive prowess—would play six NHL seasons and 185 games with just 28 points, but never developed into an impact player. Mueller left North America after the 2019-2020 season and currently plays in his Swiss homeland for HC Lugano.
On the other side of the trade, Detroit used pick number 20 to draft Anthony Mantha and number 58 on Tyler Bertuzzi. Mantha (9th overall on Hockey Prophets list and average 19th on external lists) played for the Red Wings for six seasons before being traded to Washington for Jakub Vrana and a first- and second-round pick (picks that ultimately ended up in goaltender Sebastian Cossa and forward Dmitri Buchelnikov). Mantha scored 97 goals for Detroit and has added another 22 goals in 105 games for the Capitals.
Unexpectedly, Tyler Bertuzzi (ranked just 142nd by Hockey Prophets and 126th by publications) arguably has become the most impactful player in this trade to date, with multiple 20-goal seasons (including 30 goals in 2021-2022) and an All-Star appearance on his resume. His 201 points in 301 games for Detroit makes him one of the team’s perennial scoring leaders. Overall, between Bertuzzi’s overall effectiveness, Mantha’s scoring and the pieces he brought in when traded, this trade obviously favors Detroit by a wide margin.
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