You might not be aware of this, but the Columbus Blue Jackets don’t have a reputation as the best drafting team in the National Hockey League.
Well, knock me over with a feather…
No, it’s true. You want to know how to be bad at sports? It doesn’t matter the sport. Just draft poorly.
It’s why the Browns don’t win games. It’s why even teams like the New York Yankees and Detroit Red Wings can’t outrun time. You draft poorly, you’re gonna feel it in the standings at some point.
Of course, just about every Blue Jackets fan knows the history. Without belaboring the point, the list of first-round picks is littered with busts like Brule, Filatov and Picard (oh Picard, we hardly knew ye).
It goes deeper than that, too, as the rounds after the first weren’t much better. Do you even remember Kiel McLeod, Kyle Wharton, Will Weber and Kevin Lynch? All CBJ second-round picks who didn’t play an NHL game.
All right, enough of that. The Blue Jackets are playoff-bound this season and have been one of the biggest stories in the NHL, going from a sure-fire lottery team in the eyes of the hockey intelligetsia to one of the best teams in hockey. Across the league, it has begged a simple question: How have they done it?
It's simple. The old fashioned way – through the draft.
Twelve of the team’s major contributors this season were picked by Blue Jackets brass, making Columbus the only organization they’ve ever known. Like most good teams (and organizations) that last, this one is built from within. (This also might be a reason you didn’t see the front office wheelin’ and dealin’ at the trade deadline.)
| Year | round | pick | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zach werenski | 2015 | 1 | 8 |
| markus nutivaara | 2015 | 7 | 189 |
| alex wennberg | 2013 | 1 | 14 |
| oliver bjorkstrand | 2013 | 3 | 89 |
| ryan murray | 2012 | 1 | 2 |
| joonas korpisalo | 2012 | 3 | 62 |
| josh anderson | 2012 | 4 | 95 |
| boone jenner | 2011 | 2 | 37 |
| lukas sedlak | 2011 | 6 | 158 |
| david savard | 2009 | 4 | 94 |
| matt calvert | 2008 | 5 | 127 |
| cam atkinson | 2008 | 6 | 157 |
So what stands out? Start from the top. Three of those picks were first-rounders in Werenski, Wennberg and Murray. As stated earlier, a good way to have a bad team is to miss on first-round draft picks. The Jackets are now turning in a solid hit rate, with Werenski (2015), Wennberg (2013) and Murray (2012) coming in the past few years (and 2014 choice Sonny Milano is still unable to legally drink while putting up solid numbers in Cleveland).
Even some of the first-round picks that aren’t contributing on this specific squad have proved useful. 2010 first-round pick Ryan Johansen netted Seth Jones straight up, while ’13 choice Marko Dano was part of the Brandon Saad deal. The only real wasted first-round pick over the last seven years has been Kerby Rychel, one of three choices in 2013 with Wennberg and Dano, and even he was swapped for Scott Harrington.
Alexandre Picard they are not.
(This is also one of the overlooked portions of successful drafting. It's imperative to draft good players for two reasons – first, it's nice to have good players on your team, obviously. But good players can be and often are traded for other good players.)
Looking at the other end, it’s also striking how much value the Blue Jackets have gotten out of the bottom rungs of the draft with Calvert, Atkinson, Savard, Sedlak, Anderson and Nutivaara all fourth-round picks or later.
The hit rate on such picks is low across the NHL, but successful organizations are able to find those value picks in later rounds. This is especially true for an organization like Columbus, which hasn’t been a traditionally attractive location for free agents – NHL and undrafted collegians alike – to land.
For every talented 5-foot-7 forward taken in the sixth round like Atkinson who eventually makes it, there are bunches that don’t. The Blue Jackets have been lucky in some regards that so many lower-round picks contribute – the later rounds really are a crapshoot – but credit must also go where credit is due in an organization that has started to maximize its opportunities.
Sure, the captain became a Blue Jacket in a trade – for 2003 sixth-round pick Marc Methot, we’ll point out – as did the all-world goalie. But the proof is in the pudding – over the last few seasons, Columbus has built a contender from within. And when contenders are built from within, they have a chance to stand the test of time.
