Our second edition of Draft Day Steals and Fails focuses on the 2011 NHL Draft. Make sure to check back often for the latest edition.
Was the 2011 NHL draft so deep that there was a good reason Nikita Kucherov was selected in the later portion of the second round? This is a player who's (so far) scored 781 points in 675 career games.
The eventual two-time Stanley Cup Champion, four-time All-Star, Hart Trophy Winner, Art Ross Winner and Ted Lindsay Winner was selected 58th overall by the Lightning. Kucherov was closer to the third round than the first round. How and why did that happen?
NHL All-Time Points Per Game Leaders Among Second-Round Draft Picks (min. 500 GP):
— Chris Krenn (@Chris_Krenn) January 23, 2023
1. Nikita Kucherov – 1.12 P/GP (264-418—682, 607 GP)
2. Bryan Trottier – 1.11 P/GP (524-901—1,425, 1,279 GP)
3. Bobby Clarke – 1.06 P/GP (358-852—1,210, 1,144 GP) pic.twitter.com/rLvOrOAcxK
His Production Wasn’t Fully Respected
The reason for that late selection was due to some below-average production, right? Boy was that not the case. In his draft year, the young Russian forward scored 58 points in 41 games in the Russian MHL (their version of the AHL).
Somehow scouts around the league and the staff at the NHL’s Central Scouting still felt that Kucherov was only the 17th-best European skater that year.
Which, I have to tell you, isn’t the case. He was better than just about every European skater rated ahead of him.
There’s a handy stat used by those of us who scout the various leagues outside the NHL, it’s called NHLe. The stat was developed by Gabe Desjardin to estimate how much a player can score in his first NHL season when entering the league from a feeder league (junior, Europe, NCAA, etc). NHLe is also a great way to normalize scoring rates across those different leagues to differentiate between players.
When we compare Kucherov’s NHLe to the European forwards drafted before him you see that he should have been drafted well before the end of the second round.
| Player | League | Pick | GP | Pts | NHLe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mika Zibanejad | SHL | 6 | 26 | 9 | 16.07 |
| Joel Armia | Liiga | 16 | 48 | 29 | 21.85 |
| Dmitrij Jaskin | Czech | 41 | 33 | 10 | 14.49 |
| Victor Rask | Allsvenskan | 42 | 37 | 11 | 8.56 |
| Markus Granlund | Liiga-U20 | 45 | 40 | 52 | 8.85 |
| Johan Sundstrom | SHL | 50 | 41 | 1 | 1.13 |
| Alexander Ruuttu | Liiga-U20 | 51 | 41 | 31 | 5.15 |
| Miikka Salomaki | Liiga | 52 | 40 | 10 | 9.04 |
| William Karlsson | J20 Super Elite | 53 | 38 | 54 | 10.6 |
| Nikita Kucherov | MHL | 58 | 41 | 58 | 16.56 |
Only Joel Armia has a better NHLe than Kucherov. It’s obvious his production at the MHL level wasn’t well-respected by most scouting departments. But that alone can’t explain why he was selected so late.
The Russia Factor
I don’t know if you knew this, but Kucherov was playing in Russia before the draft. That was the reason NHL GMs decided to wait before drafting him.
Only nine Russian players were drafted in 2011. That includes Russian-born players already playing in North America like Vladislav Namestnikov (London Knights - OHL), Alexander Kokhlachev (Windsor Spitfires - OHL) and Andrey Pedan (Guelph Storm - OHL).
There was a “Russian Factor” stopping NHL GMs from selecting guys like Kucherov. Former Coyotes GM Don Maloney sums up this best when chatting with The Hockey News back in 2012:
"Part of the problem is you never get them to buy in," said Phoenix Coyotes GM Don Maloney. "There's always that little option that when you face some adversity, it's easier just to say 'nyet' and go in the other direction (to the KHL) instead of making it work. You have that out. I think I can speak to probably every manager i n the game saying there's some hesitation there."
Russian players had to go out of their way to convince NHL scouts and GMs that they wanted to be in the NHL because of this generalization. Of course, there was some truth to what Maloney said but it was hardly a one-size-fits-all narrative.
Tampa’s management did not share Maloney’s feelings toward Russian players. Of the nine Russians selected in 2011, the Bolts drafted three of them Vladislav Namestnikov in the first round, Nikita Nestorov in the fifth round. And of course, Kucherov in the second.
Did the Lightning know something the other teams didn’t? No. They simply believed these players when they told them how serious they were about playing in the NHL:
While some teams were worried about Russian players staying in the KHL, Kucherov eased any Lightning fears at the NHL draft combine. He showed up in a sport coat and tie, telling Murray and Co. he was determined to play in the NHL. The Lightning took Kucherov in the second round of the 2011 NHL draft.
Tampa was right for not buying fully into the Russian Factor. That kind of bias served them very well. Namestnikov has carved out a solid career as a bottom-6 NHLer with 657 games played to date, Nesterov was a serviceable bottom-pair defenseman who played 170 NHL games before returning home and we all know what Kucherov became.
Meanwhile, Phoenix GM Don Maloney ended up with a draft class that has only played 661 NHL games, combined. Looks like that Russian bias served him well, didn’t it?
