In September 2014, I did a fun exercise where I reviewed the New York Rangers’ draft history post-deadline and saw if Gordie Clark out-drafted a potato that drafts based on set rules with no logical thinking. After all, a potato isn’t a sentient being, so how can it think? Maybe? I, for one, welcome our new potato overlords.

The concept was something I stumbled upon at Canucks Army as they vented about Vancouver’s rough draft history at that point. That concept was piggy-backed from Pension Plan Puppets, so I’m doing the same again. There isn’t much else to do right now anyway.

Anywho, as mentioned above, the potato is a non-sentient starch product that, while good with butter and salt (some prefer sour cream, ugh you people disgust me), it is incapable of progressive thinking. There are set rules for said potato. It doesn’t have access to any analytics, scouts, never watches games. So it’s basically a blogger that looks at counting stats only from Canada, living in his mommy potato’s basement.  But it does follow six basic rules (I had to add a seventh last time I did this):

    1. All players selected will be from the Canadian Hockey League.
    2. Goalies are voodoo, they will not be selected at any time.
    3. Defensemen are voodoo, they will not be selected at any time.
    4. The selection will be the player still on the draft board that scored the most points in their 17 year old CHL season that was legitimately taken between New York’s selection and New York’s subsequent selection.
    5. No other information other than the total number of points a player had in his 17-year old season (his first year of draft eligibility) is considered. This information was freely available at the time each draft was held. Draft rankings don’t matter.
    6. Ties are broken on the basis of points per game.
    7. There were some rare cases where I had to make the selection process (#4) inclusive of the next pick made by Gordie.

Why are goalies and defense voodoo? Simple: They are very hard to predict future success. No one is saying you shouldn’t draft goalies or defensemen, but look at how forward predictability compares to goalie predictability. Basically you know what you’re getting in the early rounds with skaters, but not so much with goalies. You can grab an elite goalie in the late rounds (Henrik Lundqvist) just as easily as grabbing a bust in the first round (Al Montoya).

When I did this in 2014, I analyzed 15 drafts from 2000 through 2014 and came up with these forward lines:

  • Hemsky-Giroux-Eberle
  • Palat-ROR-Pominville
  • Parenteau-Dubinsky-Gallagher
  • Marchand-Perreault-Perron

Keeping in mind this is 2014 and not 2020, that’s a lethal offense. We are going to continue this exercise starting with the 2010 draft and going through to the 2019 draft using the same rules.

2010 NHL Draft

The Rangers pretty much whiffed in 2010, but luckily they pulled out Jesper Fast in this draft. Since the potato doesn’t really recognize Sweden is a country, which is a major problem since Swedish hockey players are basically perfect, it didn’t even bother looking at Fast. But the potato manages to grab Brendan Gallagher one round before Fast went, so let’s call that one a wash? Plus he got 218 games out of Jordan Weal. Looks like 2010 goes to the potato.

2011 NHL Draft

The potato doesn’t realize the US exists in 2011, passing on JT Miller and his 300 NHL points and counting. But he does manage to get Ondrej Palat with his final pick, making up for that. The 2011 draft wasn’t anything special, so let’s call this a wash. Palat and Miller have very similar totals.

2012 NHL Draft

The potato doesn’t like defensemen or the US, so it goes with all new picks. This results in passing on Brady Skjei, which comes back to bite the potato in the end of the potato that you sometimes cut off before you cook because it sometimes has a root growing there. Charles Hudon is an ok consolation prize as a fourth line winger. But this one goes to Gordie.

2013 NHL Draft

Gordie nailed this draft without any picks in the first 60, grabbing Pavel Buchnevich, Anthony Duclair, and Ryan Graves. Only one remains with the club now, but all three are sticking in the NHL for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately for the potato, he doesn’t like Russians or defensemen, so he passes on Buchnevich and Graves for players that never made it to the NHL. 2013 goes to Gordie.

2014 NHL Draft 

Oh boy. 2014 was one of Gordie’s worst with the Rangers, but luckily the potato had the sense to grab Brayden Point as the franchise 1C at the end of the second round. However the Rangers had some picks in close range to each other, and there was no one on the board at picks 118 and picks 140 that met the criteria. The potato just threw up its arms (roots?) and said screw it and passed on these picks. Didn’t matter, it already had Point.

2015 NHL Draft

This is another rough draft for Gordie. That Ryan Gropp pick was bad when it was made, and looks worse now since the potato grabbed the guy he should have taken in Daniel Sprong. However they were both silly passing on Anthony Cirelli in the third round. The potato struck again in the 5th round, landing Conor Garland who looks to have a promising NHL career ahead of him. Both Sprong and Garland swing this draft to the potato.

2016 NHL Draft

The 2016 draft is beginning to enter the “too soon to tell” group, and for Gordie his entire draft hinges on Tarmo Reunanen. Tyler Wall could turn out to be solid, but goalies are tough to gauge. As for the potato, he doesn’t like Finland as a country, so he went for 28 games of Noah Gregor instead. This is a wash as Reunanen looks promising and Gregor just broke into the NHL this year.

2017 NHL Draft

The beginning of the rebuild begins for Gordie with Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil. This is definitely in the too soon to tell group, but it’s still fun to speculate. Gordie also grabbed Morgan Barron, who looks promising but hasn’t turned pro yet. But Gordie did draft overagers Brandon Crawley, Dominik Lakatos, and Patrik Virta here, which hurt his overall 2017 results. The potato got Nick Suzuki at 7th overall because it doesn’t recognize anything as a country outside of Canada. Its other first rounder Aleksi Heponiemi put up 118 points in his age-17 season, which is crazy. This honestly looks like a wash right now, but definitely too early to tell.

2018 NHL Draft

The potato really hates anything that isn’t Canada because it’s a good Canadian potato, so it basically ignores Clark. Bold strategy, considering this draft produced the top three prospects that aren’t in the NHL right now for Clark, plus promising youngster Lauri Pajuniemi. The potato went bold with Ty Dellandrea at 9th overall, but then blew up in the microwave at the 22nd pick (no forwards from the CHL were taken between 22 and 28, when the Rangers picked next). The potato’s son took over at this point, closing out the first round with Serron Noel. Akil Thomas was a win over Olof Lindbom in the second round, and the rest is just way too early to tell, but Potato Jr. whiffed on a redraft. Never redraft. But he made up for it by drafting someone named Blade. Based on what I’ve researchd, Kravtsov/Miller/Lundkvist/Pajuniemi >>>> Dellandrea/Noel/Thomas. This goes to Gordie.

2019 NHL Draft

Oh boy this is fun. Kaapo Kakko is from a country that Potato Jr, who kept its father’s odd viewpoints about Scandinavian countries, doesn’t recognize. The Church of Kakko doesn’t exist for the Rangers in Potato Jr’s reign. Beyond Kakko, this draft is widely viewed as one of Gordie’s best, if not his best draft ever.

The potato, looking at just CHL age-17 points, goes with Staten Island native Arthur Kaliyev with the second overall pick. Yes, Kaliyev outscored everyone in the first round in the CHL that year, including Dylan Cozens and Kirby Dach. I don’t make the rules, the potato does. The rest of the draft looks very underwhelming compared to Gordie’s. Giving Gordie the win here.

It’s tough to really gauge who wins out in the long term here since we one-third of the drafts analyzed here are in the too soon to tell category. The potato had massive wins in 2014 and 2015 with a lesser win in 2010 and a draw in 2011. Gordie won out big in 2019 (so far) and 2013 with a smaller win in 2018 (so far).

From the looks of it, Gordie changed his drafting strategy significantly when the rebuild started. He started going for high talent/ceiling instead of high floor. This is very evident in his 2018 and 2019 drafts, which look very promising thus far.

The potato, which dominated the 2000-2010 drafts, is starting to see its accuracy slip. I guess this potato got left out on the counter too long.

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