Marner Watch

Yanetti is in the average range which I can't fully hold him accountable for as he has been overruled by GMs in the past, but being overruled has both helped and hurt him. This draft, however, was extremely vanilla, as though he was going for lower ceiling safe picks, and he had full control over it. Our 1st round pick was not bad, but it was a reach and there were better options available (still I like the pick). I like our 3rd and 5th round picks, and I'll give him credit for taking a gamble with our 120th overall but for a team that needs size I do not see it addressed in even the slightest.

Still time will tell.

Los Angeles Kings​

ROUNDOVERALLNAMEPOSCOUNTRYHTWTTEAM
131Henry BrzustewiczDUSA6-2203London (OHL)
259Vojtech CiharLWCZE6-1180Karlovy Vary (Czechia)
388Kristian EppersonLWUSA6-0180Saginaw (OHL)
4120Caeden HerringtonDUSA6-2204Lincoln (USHL)
4125Jimmy LombardiCCAN6-0175Flint (OHL)
5152Petteri RimpinenGFIN6-0176K-Espoo (Finland)
6184Jan ChovanCSVK6-3190Tappara Jr. (Finland Jr.)
7196Brendan McMorrowCUSA6-0173Waterloo (USHL)
7216William SharpeDCAN6-0195Kelowna (WHL)


If you use 200 games as the metric, then Kuprai was a successful 1st round pick and Kaliyev was a good 2nd round pick... that bar is simply too low. The true test of a GM (or in this case Yanetti) is how many high impact players he drafted, or steals in the late rounds.

Since 2014 the Kings have drafted 7 high impact players (average), 2 of which have been late round steals (above average). But then when you look at the level of impact, versus other organizations, I'd rate the Kings slightly below average. End result, the Kings have been pretty average when it comes to drafting.

In the below article, the Kings are rated 17th out of all teams when it comes to drafting (article is form 2024)


17. Los Angeles Kings
Skaters drafted:
60 | Percentage who played 200 games: 21.67% (13 players)
Notable hits: Tyler Toffoli, Tanner Pearson, Adrian Kempe, Erik Cernak, Mikey Anderson
Toffoli and Pearson contributed to the 2014 Stanley Cup win and Kempe and Anderson are key pieces on the current roster, but the Kings have been forced to turn to free agency and trades to plug a lot of holes when draft picks didn’t pan out.
Appreciate you citing the thinking here. I’ll add that there are now a couple more players who’ve played 200+ games if the article updated today, and Spence and Laf are virtually assured to hit 200 games this year barring injuries. If extending to 2007, that adds 9 players who hit that mark. Voynov hit 190, but contributed to two Cups before he was rightfully 86’ed.

Kings definitely hit their drafting lulls in the later days of Dean. They’ve have four drafts since 2014 without a first round pick at all.

7 high impact players since 2014 being just average sounds surprising. Means roughly a third of the league has drafted more than that. Source? Not doubting your reporting, I’d just love to see the teams and the players.

I’m already too long winded on this but the word i keep coming back to is relative. For what picks have been available to the Kings, I see success. For what picks have been available to the Ducks and Blue Jackets and Sabres, why have they struggled so long? I know development and drafting are different, but are we sure they’re drafting the “right” players?
 
Appreciate you citing the thinking here. I’ll add that there are now a couple more players who’ve played 200+ games if the article updated today, and Spence and Laf are virtually assured to hit 200 games this year barring injuries. If extending to 2007, that adds 9 players who hit that mark. Voynov hit 190, but contributed to two Cups before he was rightfully 86’ed.

Kings definitely hit their drafting lulls in the later days of Dean. They’ve have four drafts since 2014 without a first round pick at all.

7 high impact players since 2014 being just average sounds surprising. Means roughly a third of the league has drafted more than that. Source? Not doubting your reporting, I’d just love to see the teams and the players.

I’m already too long winded on this but the word i keep coming back to is relative. For what picks have been available to the Kings, I see success. For what picks have been available to the Ducks and Blue Jackets and Sabres, why have they struggled so long? I know development and drafting are different, but are we sure they’re drafting the “right” players?
I couldn't find a source regarding 7 high impact players being in the average range. What I did was a take random 90.10.10 sample of the teams (15 teams since it was a manual expedition and not super serious) in the league and manually counted/reviewed the draft players for each. They were all relatively in the same vicinity of one another so then it came down to number of total draft picks during that period. A team like Pittsburgh really stood out in regards to how many draft picks they had traded away, success of team during that period, and ability to draft impact players though they were on a the slightly lower scale when it came to total high impact players. I'm sure if you looked at the total league it would be slightly different as I only used a 90% confidence calculation, but the only standout noted for the Kings was ability to draft quality players in the later rounds (6th round +).

I agree with your callout using Voynov as an example, which is a bit of where I was going with my comment on the 200 game mark being used as a success metric. You could have a high impact player who left the league to go to the KHL, retired early due to injury, left the league due to legal problems, etc, which this metric does not account for. It's a good indicator, but really shouldn't be considered a success metric in itself (it also does not include tiering of how impactful the given player was during those 200+ games).
 
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