Calculating the Value of the Dustin Penner Picks

by Jonathan Willis on Apr 27, 2008 4:02 PM MDT

A post the other day over at Copper Blue Dreams got me thinking again about the Dustin Penner RFA signing. What was the value of the three draft picks given up to sign him? The blogosphere has always been divided over the Penner signing, and I personally have been extremely ambivalent (although I’m very critical of the Vanek signing). In order to help clarify the exact value of these picks in my mind, I’ve gone through the 2001-2004 NHL Entry Drafts (note: 2001 was K-Lowe’s first year with his people in charge, and anything more recent than 2004 is still to recent to adequately determine players drafted) to calculate what kind of players the Oilers might have gotten with these picks. To keep things simple, I’ve also kept the value of the pick at 12th overall, rather than raising it to reflect the drop in performance that not having Penner for 82 games would have made. I have also adjusted for compensatory picks, which is why the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round picks aren’t always exactly 30 picks apart (I just kept using the position of the team that picked 12th overall)

2001 NHL Entry Draft: 12th overall – Dan Hamhuis, 42nd overall - Thomas Slovak, 75th overall – Denis Platonov

2002 NHL Entry Draft: 12th overall – Steve Eminger, 42nd overall – Marius Holtet, 77th overall - Patrick Wellar

2003 NHL Entry Draft: 12th overall – Hugh Jessiman, 43rd overall – Josh Hennessy, 75th overall – Kenny Roche

2004 NHL Entry Draft: 12th overall – A.J. Thelen, 42nd overall – Roman Voloshenko, 78th overall – Peter Olvecky

Let’s try it again, using the methodology that Copper Blue Dreams does, docking points for Penner’s 4 game winning goals (averaging it out to the 8th overall pick). Here’s what we get:

2001 NHL Entry Draft: 8th overall – Pascal Leclaire, 38th – Tim Jackman, 72nd – Brandon Nolan

2002 NHL Entry Draft: 8th overall – Pierre-Marc Bouchard, 38th – Josh Harding, 72nd – Mike Erickson

2003 NHL Entry Draft: 8th overall – Braydon Coburn, 38th – Kamil Kreps, 77th – Tyler Redenbach

2004 NHL Entry Draft: 8th overall – Alexandre Picard, 38th – Justin Peters, 73rd – Zdenek Bahensky

Okay, I think I’m sold now. Obviously, there are better, more indepth ways to do this breakdown, but from this data I’m fairly satisfied that signing Penner was a good decision hockey-wise.

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Comments

I also like the deal, it would have been much different however if it would have been a top 5 pick. But, at really 10 and above you have a project on your hands

by Jon G on Apr 27, 2008 5:25 PM MDT reply actions

Hmmm ... Leclaire, Bouchard and Coburn are all players. That said, trying to guess where the Oil would have finished without Penner is along the same lines as crediting the Ryan Smyth trade for the Sam Gagner pick; it's an alternate Universe, and it's hard to get there from here.

As it stands, Ducks got our #12 and we got their #20-24 (still to be determined. Interestingly, the position depends on the outcome of every second round series; every underdog that wins in this round will move Oilers draft position up by one, as they will have to beat a division champion to move on. Oilers draft ahead of all division winners and all conference finalists, so the more different teams on those lists, the better.)

But let's say it's the worst-case scenario at #24. So what could be better than a repeat of the deep draft of 2003:

1 Marc-Andre Fleury
2 Eric Staal
3 Nathan Horton
4 Nikolai Zherdev
5 Thomas Vanek
6 Milan Michalek
7 Ryan Suter
8 Braydon Coburn
9 Dion Phaneuf
10 Andrei Kostitsyn
11 Jeff Carter
12 Hugh Jessiman
13 Dustin Brown
14 Brent Seabrook
15 Robert Nilsson
16 Steve Bernier
17 Zach Parise
18 Eric Fehr
19 Ryan Getzlaf
20 Brent Burns
21 Mark Stuart
22 Marc-Antoine Pouliot
23 Ryan Kesler
24 Mike Richards

What a draft that was. But it was still possible to make a blunder, as the Rangers did with "Huge Specimen". It would be beautiful to see Anaheim pick a dud, wouldn't it?

by Bruce on Apr 27, 2008 10:29 PM MDT reply actions

One important thing a lot of the analysis of the Penner signing misses is the opportunity value of the 4.25 million dollars we're spending on him and the spot that he is likely to take because of it. Penner is likely to play LW with Hemsky for large portions of his contract, likely to take first unit PP time and likely to eat up a lot of EV time.

How does Penner compare to other first line LW? Some of the first line LW that made less than Penner in the WC are Kunitz, Morrow, Zetterberg, Frolov, Erat and Daniel Sedin. Those that made more are Tanguay, Havlat, Nash, Smyth and Gaborik. Is Penner better than any of these guys? I don't really think the Penner situation is more desirable than any of the above except Smyth and Kunitz and maybe Havlat, although at least his deal was short term, and when he plays, he makes a real positive difference. I think looking at other first line LW in the WC, the Penner move is a bad one.

Does tying up 4.25 million in Penner preclude us signing another LW to a similar contract? Probably, but if not, how do we get the value we've invested in Penner? He would need to be able to murder soft opposition. Maybe he can do this, but it doesn't seem like that's the route the Oilers are taking.

More than the picks, I think it's the money component that really hurts the Oilers. 4.25 million to play big minutes with Hemsky and amass 50 point seasons is terrible. When the value of the picks are included it just makes it that much worse.

by Scott on Apr 29, 2008 4:46 PM MDT reply actions

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