Given that we are in the midst of draft season, we are going to turn our attention to some more specific draft data and subject you all to a bit of my own drafting philosophy. The focus for this week will be those end of draft swings – but more on that in a minute.

Essentially every draft pick we make is a lottery ticket. Each year players underperform, over perform, get injured, break out, miss time you name it. With our first few picks in the draft, we target players who have the highest chance to produce at the highest level. That doesn't mean each pick will reach those heights, but they are the ones generally we think have the highest chance of doing so. As we move down the draft board the chance those players reach various heights also diminishes. That doesn't mean your sixth-round pick won't outperform your second-round pick, just the odds of it happening are smaller. By the time we make it to the end of the draft we have a choice to make. Do we start picking those players who have the best shot at doing something mediocre (and therefore not disappointing us) or a smaller chance of doing something bigger. I cannot speak to all leagues, but in general I am very much in favor of the latter.

A few hits at the end of the draft or in free agency can make your season, while those mediocre guys most certainly won't. Maybe you won't finish in last place, but for most that isn't the target. The philosophy here is that the bottom of your roster is full of players you want to be able to drop to grab the breakout player in the beginning of the season, so fill those slots with boom-or-bust players that you can part ways with quickly if they are looking like a bust.

Today we are going to spend some time at the end of the draft list and identify some folks who it would be worth adding in your last few picks as they have a shot at something good, but who you can probably drop fairly quickly if the deployment or opportunity doesn't stick.

For the purposes of the article today we are grabbing the average draft positions (ADPs) from Fantrax. This is site wide, so the settings will have varied depending on the league structure, but it certainly a good place to start. We are going to focus on the end of drafts assuming the top 190 or so players are already taken (assuming a standard league is 12 teams with 16 players). To analyze players, we will be looking at their Frozen Tool Player Profile as well as their recent linemates using the Last Game Lines tools.

To start we are going to highlight a few players who fall at the end here but still have ended up drafted in more than 40 percent of leagues.

A couple of notes about this table – %D is the percentage of leagues that the person was drafted in. ADP is the average draft position of this player assuming they were drafted and the ADP rank is where their ADP ranks compared to other players. As is clear in this table it does not necessarily exactly match their ADP, though generally correlates.

Jared McCann is an interesting choice. It is not entirely clear from the preseason lines exactly what coach Dave Hakstol is going to do for a top line or power-play. He currently has them running what could be two even units. The increased offensive production that Andre Burakovsky, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Matty Beniers should bring could be a boon for McCann if he can see his way onto a top unit power-play. If he starts on a second unit, or the units are very evenly split to start the season, he could be one to drop to find the next hot player.

Very similar notes hold for Phil Kessel and Reilly Smith. Both are currently running on the top line and top power-play with Jack Eichel. If this keeps for any period of time it is an opportunity to give both of them a shot and see what happens. A wild card here is that Mark Stone was missing from action during the initial preseason game. If he bumps one of them off the top power-play and top line it is likely safe to drop that person.

David Krejci has been that solid but not spectacular producer for most of his career. He doesn't fill categories exceptionally well either. He makes this list though as he seems to be on the de facto top scoring like with Taylor Hall and David Pastrnak. As long as Brad Marchand is out that former top line looks much less formidable so there is an opportunity for Krejci's line to take on more of the scoring duties. Similarly, the Bruins may rely a bit more on Jake DeBrusk and finding a role on that top power-play would be excellent for his value.

Now we move on to players drafted is less than 40 percent of leagues

The Seattle players here (Shane Wright, Jaden Schwartz, Yanni Gourde, and Justin Schultz) are here for much the same reason as McCann. In preseason they seem to be running multiple maybe top units depending on the game with all of these players on them. There clearly isn't space for all of them on a true top unit, but until we get a bit more info here take a no risky flyer and then drop them for someone on a hot streak.

Pavel Zacha is here for much the same reasons as DeBrusk and Krejci. With Marchand out, he is getting an increase in ice time with Patrice Bergeron and DeBrusk. It is a bigger role and with better players than he is used to so it might be worth taking a chance to see if he gets hot to start the season.

Philip Tomasino, William Eklund, and Kaapo Kakko are here for a very specific reason – their first week schedule. Well and the fact that they have been hyped prospects who haven't broken out yet. Nashville and San Jose are the only teams that play four times over the first weekly matchup (assuming you are using Yahoo's schedule) plus there is a big gap after their first two games when no one else is playing. That gives the manager of any Nashville and San Jose player two extra games of scoring potential, plus the ability to drop the player if they aren't panning out and add someone for a regular schedule the following week. Kaapo Kakko doesn't have quite as nice of a schedule though does play three times and has an off day on Saturday when almost every other team plays. That means you don't have to bench a player to get his games. For all three of these players what you are really getting is a chance for deployment to shake out a bit and see if they are looking poised for a breakout at essentially no cost.

That is all for this week. Do your part to support organizations working to make hockey for everyone.

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