Editor's Note: daoust is back with his draft database and a handful of observations on the top ten players taken in each draft class. With some obvious caveats.

I’ll be frank: I don’t know anything about pre-draft player analysis. Nothing. I don’t watch any sub-NHL level hockey other than the occasional Marlies or World Junior Championship, and even then, I’m not really paying that much attention. I could tell you who the Leafs should or will draft this year, but I'd just be making it up.

What I can offer to the pre-draft chatter though is the slicing and dicing of draft results (with the benefit of hindsight and actual NHL results) via this Draft Database I created. It's an excel spreadsheet that includes draft results going back to 1994, with player career statistics updated as of the end of this season as well as a bunch of supplemental analysis. If you have any interest in draft history or results, consider saving the file and keeping it handy. You never know when you’re going to get into a debate about 8th overall picks being a ‘sure thing’ (they’re not) or whether or not drafting a goalie early on is a good idea (not usually).

The first two years I posted this (here and here) I took some potshots at the reigning Stanley Cup Champions. This year I thought I’d be less confrontational and instead look at the top 10 players from every draft year and see where they were drafted . Sordid details after the jump….

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I think at least 75% of us would agree that percentages have their place – scores on an exam, alcohol content, what kind of milk am I drinking?, etc.   But 30-40% of the time, percentages are inadequate in really painting a full picture.  As long as I’ve watched hockey, it’s been the standard that NHL special teams are evaluated and ranked based on their efficiency - what % of the time do they score when on the powerplay, and what percentage of the time do they stop the opposition from scoring when killing a penalty.  While this is clearly an effective means of evaluating how well each unit functions when given the chance, I’ve recently started to find these measures lacking for a few reasons:

• There is no consideration given to the number of times a team is on the powerplay or shorthanded, which varies dramatically from team to team.
• There is no consideration given to the number of shorthanded goals for or against.
• There is no meaningful tie-in or evaluation of the overall impact of special teams on a team’s success or failure – ie how many goals did a team’s special teams gain or cost them

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Is this a little bit cheesy?  Re-posting an old fan post of mine?   Too busy / lazy for new material, so I put out a ‘best of’ collection instead?   Maybe.  Ok probably.  In any event, I revisited this post from two years ago last night in the GDT and I thought I’d re-post it since it contains info that some of the newer folks around here might find interesting.   And by interesting I mean “will help you shut up your mouthbreathing co-worker that loves the Flames”.

http://www.pensionplanpuppets.com/2009/4/5/823851/perspective-or-your-team-sucks-too

So that this post isn’t completely a repeat of my previous work, after the jump I’ve updated the playoff records of Canadian teams to see how the Leafs rank as we ‘enjoy’ our 6th playoff-free season.

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Editor's Note: Daoust has put together a great fanpost looking at the moves Burke's made to bring in young players and draft picks.

A couple of years ago I decided to compile a list of all Leaf trades going back to the Pat Quinn regime.   JFJ had just been fired, Grandpa Cliff was in charge (sort of), and people were worried the old guy was up to his old ‘Draft Shmaft’ ways again.  

I realized over the holidays that it’s been a while since I’ve updated the database, and definitely not since Brian Burke took over.   Given the trade winds blowing, not to mention the recent Fabian Brunstromm blockbuster, this seemed like as good a time as any to update the list and take a look at exactly what Burke’s been up to from a trade perspective since he got here - with, as is always the way with me, a particular interest in draft picks moved.    (Note I’ve only looked at Burke’s trade history in this post, if you’re interested in the full history, you can check it out here and here.)

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Dowbiggin's article today was infuriating on a few levels, but this in particular made me mental:

That might be a problem as "blogger" has come to be synonymous for bending the rules on sourcing or taking liberties with research.

I won't rush to the defence of the many high-quality bloggers that post here or on their own sites -  the quality of your work is obvious.  And to be fair, there are a lot of blogs out there that are bush-league, lazy with research,  and not particularly well-written.

What's really infuriating though is the implication that the main stream media are in any way more accountable, or more vigilante in their research, than many bloggers.  As far as I can tell, many journalists don't do any research, period.    Do you know what prompted me to start keeping my own record of Leaf trades (my first post here way back when), or my own database of draft statistics?   I was FED UP with reading things in the paper or online that I knew were UNTRUE, or worse, having these mistruths repeated back to me in a hockey argument by someone who had read the same old tired line over and over again they just assumed it was true.   That's probably what's impressed me most about the PPP community - there is a remarkable committment to intelligent hockey research based on facts, regardless of whether it paints the Leafs in a positive or negative light.   Keep it up, everyone.  Please.

Anyway, the article today reminded me of an e-mail I sent to Mark Zwolinksi at the Star a few years ago, which I dug out of my mailbox and present here after the jump.  Not surprisingly, Markie didn't reply. 

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Editor's Note: Daoust has returned with one of the greatest draft tools you will ever lay your eyes upon.

That’s right, the Daoust Draft Database and Analysis Machine is back, updated with this year’s stats and with some new bells and whistles. I had hoped to do a bit more of an overhaul than I did here, but life didn’t afford me as much free time to work on it as I would have liked. (And Hockey-Reference changed the format of their draft stats - eliminating player position - so I spent way more time than I wanted to just mapping the updated data over to the format I already had in place). But enough of my yakking... on to some mildly insightful and inflammatory observations, and this year’s draft database... if you’re a draft / data nerd like me, I think you’ll like it.

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Editor's Note: After months of teasing us with hints about his magical spreadsheet daoust is ready to unveil the greatest draft analysis tool ever developed.

I’ve made passing mention of it a few times, but here it is, finally… the Daoust 94-09 Draft Database and Analysis Machine. I actually pulled this together in February or March of this year, then sat on it in hopes of updating this with 08/09 stats before posting it. Unfortunately hockeyreference.com isn't cooperating, so 07/08 stats will have to do for now. It'll be updated as soon as the data's available.

I've picked out a few interesting observations and trends to discuss here, but this post isn’t really the main event. It’s the spreadsheet hosted here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/113472332/7a01746b/Draft_History_94-Present_v3.html

It’s a bit on the nerdy side, with lots of ability for custom analysis, but if that’s not your bag, at the very least having a list of draftees in excel that you can sort and filter can be handy. Sample conversation:

"Who’s the best player of the last 15 years drafted 47th overall?",

/opens spreadsheet

"Kristian Huselius, obviously".

"How about the best defenceman drafted in the 8th round"

"Kaberle"

"7th round?"

"Kubina"

Etc. Hours and hours of entertainment for everyone!

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Editor's Note: With the playoffs starting in just over a week we Leaf fans are bound to catch our usual proportion of flak for the Leafs' absence (ie disproportionate). Daoust, however, has some powerful rejoinders to fire back at the sloping forward crowd.

Anyone else remember when April meant gearing up for an almost guaranteed trip to the 2nd round?  Heading to a packed pub to watch the game?  Listening to the car horns honking outside after a big win?  God damn I miss those days.

Unfortunately, since the lockout, April now means gearing up for off-season speculation and, if you're like me, listening to fans of other Canadian teams talk shit about the Leafs.  Poor, insecure, ill-informed bastards.

Last year the "Leafs missing the playoffs" chatter was seemingly at an all-time high, so I decided to pull together some stats for me and my fellow Leaf fans to have at hand when friends/co-workers opened their big stupid mouths.   I've taken the bulk of those, updated them to reflect this year's stats, and present them below.

This shouldn't be interpreted as me being a leafs 'apologist'.  I'm aware of the current state of the team (as well as the awesome healing powers of Luke Schenn and Brian Burke). But above all else, I like my hockey conversations to include liberal helpings of facts - ie if you're gonna talk shit, have a clue what the fuck you're talking about.  Enjoy.

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Editor's note: I promoted this to the front page for being a good look at something that's sort of always been associated with the Leafs; selling out no matter what. - Chemmy

From the Toronto Star:

Pehaps becuase dismal games like this haven't been all that unusual at the ACC this season, the big screens above centre ice flashed something that long-time observers of the club didn't recall having seen in previous seasons.  It was a promotional ad touting the benefits of renewing Leafs season tickets, the key incentive of speedy re-upping being an invitation to a 'meet and greet' with Brian Burke, the general manager.  The face time with Burke, apparently, was the latest in the line of sweeteners meant to entice a faithful that, once upon a time, didn't need enticement.

I know I’m risking banning for linking to an article from the Star, but I found it very interesting that they were making a pitch last night for season’s ticket holders to renew their tickets.   That is unprecedented in recent Leaf history.

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Deadline day officially blows.   Screw you and your salary cap Bettman.

With all the 'excitement' out of the way, it's probably a good time to take another look at what picks have been moved in the post-JFJ era and how we're looking for the 09 draft.

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Editor's Note: My favourite line is "What mask?"

OK - It is officially "Mats Sundin weekend" around here.

Someone mentioned the Sundin commercials in another thread so I thought I'd post a few of them here. Unfortunately, the Campbell's Soup one ("Mats your mommy's calling") is not around but the Nike commercials are on YouTube.  The French Canadian goalie driving the cab is priceless.

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PPP just posted the title in another thread, and he's right.    This is a great article from a Toronto magazine in mid-2004 talking about Mats' often-strained relationship with Toronto fans.   It's a little bit sad, actually.

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By request... a collection of Leaf free agent signings since the Quinn era.  Yay.

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Editor's Note: The best commenter named after Dapper Dan Daoust has put together an amazing look at the Leafs' trade history since 1999 with a special emphasis on the draft picks moved. Part one is available here.

Part 1 established that yes, Leafs GMs have in fact moved a fair number of picks via trades over the years.   Part 2 will look at what kind of picks they were, who was picked with them, and how Cliff Fletcher managed to have the standard "You must bring back Yanic Perreault" clause removed from his interim-GM contract.

UPDATE:  I attempted to update this post, reflecting the 4 or 5 trades that I missed in my initial one, but the additional transactions have proven too much for the sbnation platform to handle, and I'm too lazy to try to figure it out.  If you're interested in the truth, you can download the full file here:'

http://www.4shared.com/file/81197713/faae6d67/Toronto_Trade_History_99-present_v2.html

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As promised in my last post,  I’ve gone back and compiled a hopefully complete record of all Leaf trades going back to the Pat Quinn era, summarizing the picks and players moved by each of the GMs.  So join me for a fun/ interesting/ painful walk down memory lane!   A word of warning though– the factual and fancy chart content of this post is very high.  Proceed with caution. 

Despite my best efforts, I’m sure there’s a trade or 2 that I’ve missed somewhere.  If you can think of any, please let me know and I’ll update this.  Special thanks to Bitter Leaf Fan who had previously compiled a list of Quinn and JFJ transactions, which saved me a few of hours of info-gathering at least. And to Hockey-reference.com and hockeydb.com.   How did people remember stuff before the internet?   Oh, that's right, they didn't.  They just made it up.

And I'm not trying to be dramatic with a 2-part series here.  There seems to be a maximum words/charts per post, which I clearly hit.

UPDATE:  I attempted to update this post, reflecting the 4 or 5 trades that I missed in my initial one, but the additional transactions have proven too much for the sbnation platform to handle, and I'm too lazy to try to figure it out.  If you're interested in the truth, you can download the full file here:

http://www.4shared.com/file/81197713/faae6d67/Toronto_Trade_History_99-present_v2.html

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Editor's Note: Dauost takes a look at the draft picks that have been moved by Cliff Fletcher and Brian Burke in the upcoming entry drafts. It even has a nice chart.

There's been a lot of talk lately about all those sweet, sweet draft picks the Leafs can't seem to stop trading away.  It's like there's a sickness that afflicts all Leafs GMs and there's no known cure.  In reading blogs and forums though, it's pretty clear no one really seems to know what's been gained or lost in the post-JFJ era, so I thought I'd take a stab at sorting it out myself.   Is this a throwback to the long ago days of trading away multiple picks for aging vets like Owen Nolan, Brian Leetch, and Vesa Toskala (ok, that wasn't so long ago)?   Or was old Cliffy more prudent than he's getting credit for?   I wonder...

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