How much the Probabilities of Reaching the NHL vary?
Only the cream of the crop brings guarantees
NHL Draft is tomorrow and we already published our 2023 model but one thing we wanted to dig deeper on is the probabilities of reaching the NHL.
It is part of any Draft model, looking at historical precedents, it estimates, based on your age, position, the league you are playing in and how good you are, your chances of becoming an NHLer.
This year, we switched our model to include every eligible players on their draft year, and not only players that got drafted, as a reference. So, going between 2008 and 2019, it means using 917 OHL forwards as comparison instead of the 117 that got drafted.
What jumped to us was how good you have to be to pretend becoming an NHL player.
It sounds logical, but the drop between the very best players and the good ones is quite something.
Like among forwards in the top three Canadian junior leagues. Five players ranked at the 100th percentile on points over the 917 OHL forwards: Connor McDavid, John Tavares, Taylor Hall, Nail Yakupov, Matthew Tkachuk. 100% of them made the NHL.
Heigh other players ranked at the 99th percentile: Steven Stamkos, Alex Debrincat, Andrei Svechnikov, Josh Bailey, Tyler Seguin, Mitch Marner, Sean Monahan and Dylan Strome. They all made the NHL.
But out of the 10 players ranked at the 98th percentile, only seven made the NHL. Shame on you Eric O’Dell, Kerby Rychel and Joey Hishon.
And if it’s not necessary linear, it only goes down from there. As you can clearly see here among the three CHL leagues. In the WHL, even Hunter Shinkaruk ranked at the 100th percentile did not make the NHL.
As for defensemen, being an historical performer in the WHL or, worse, in the QMJHL, is by no means a ticket to the big show. Among the top 25 scoring defensemen in the Q on their draft year, only 7 made the NHL....
The situation is even worse when we are looking at second tiers leagues, like the BCHL and AJHL. Not being a top3 or top5 historical performer in those leagues basically means you have no hope at all.
The situation is different when prospects are already playing in professional leagues. The very fact they are playing against men is a serious sign of their potential. (note: there’s not even enough players to be a 100th percentile in the KHL). Among the 22 NCAA forwards, 13 of the top 14 players all made the NHL (shame on you Vinny Scarsella). But it drops a lot after that.
What does it mean for the upcoming Draft? Well, that, once again, we should not confuse “upside” with “potential”. Beyond the top prospects, not everyone will have a career, even less be an impactful player. Looking at the probabilities we just showed, it is better to be cautious when projecting a 18 years old in the big league.
Purely looking at the adjusted probability of making the NHL (which can account for how unprecedented you are in your league, Bedard style), only five players are at 100% according to the Draft model: Bedard, Fantilli, Michkov, Carlsson and… Aydar Suniev who might be over adjusted compared to the BCHL.
And after 20 names, we are below 60% of probabilities. Obviously a good numbers of those 50/50 guys will beat the odds, but another large portion of them will never make it.
50/50, right?