The quality of a draft is constantly changing, as the players’ value, or their “Point Shares (PS)” number changes when they play. The result of a draft isn’t really finalized until all the players have retired. On the other end of the spectrum, players can’t earn PS until they’re playing in the NHL. Evaluate these too soon, and it’ll be a very top-heavy draft as those players generally get to the NHL the fastest. For this reason, I waited until the end of the ’21-’22 season to put together the results of the 2017 draft. Here’s what we got so far.

A reminder of the methodology for this is here: “How This Works.”

First, here’s the 2017 first round:

1	New Jersey Devils	Nico Hischier
2	Philadelphia Flyers	Nolan Patrick
3	Dallas Stars	Miro Heiskanen
4	Colorado Avalanche	Cale Makar
5	Vancouver Canucks	Elias Pettersson
6	Vegas Golden Knights	Cody Glass
7	New York Rangers	Lias Andersson
8	Buffalo Sabres	Casey Mittelstadt
9	Detroit Red Wings	Michael Rasmussen
10	Florida Panthers	Owen Tippett
11	Los Angeles Kings	Gabriel Vilardi
12	Carolina Hurricanes	Martin Necas
13	Vegas Golden Knights	Nick Suzuki
14	Tampa Bay Lightning	Callan Foote
15	Vegas Golden Knights	Erik Brannstrom
16	Calgary Flames	Juuso Valimaki
17	Toronto Maple Leafs	Timothy Liljegren
18	Boston Bruins	Urho Vaakanainen
19	San Jose Sharks	Joshua Norris
20	St. Louis Blues	Robert Thomas
21	New York Rangers	Filip Chytil
22	Edmonton Oilers	Kailer Yamamoto
23	Arizona Coyotes	Pierre-Olivier Joseph
24	Winnipeg Jets	Kristian Vesalainen
25	Montreal Canadiens	Ryan Poehling
26	Dallas Stars	Jake Oettinger
27	Philadelphia Flyers	Morgan Frost
28	Ottawa Senators	Shane Bowers
29	Chicago Blackhawks	Henri Jokiharju
30	Nashville Predators	Eeli Tolvanen
31	St. Louis Blues	Klim Kostin

Next, here are the top 31 players, based on their NHL “Point Shares”:

Draft Position	Draft Team	Player	Point Share
4	Colorado Avalanche	Cale Makar	30.2
3	Dallas Stars	Miro Heiskanen	25.5
5	Vancouver Canucks	Elias Pettersson	25.4
1	New Jersey Devils	Nico Hischier	19.8
39	Dallas Stars	Jason Robertson	15.7
20	St. Louis Blues	Robert Thomas	14.9
26	Dallas Stars	Jake Oettinger	12.7
12	Carolina Hurricanes	Martin Necas	12.1
13	Vegas Golden Knights	Nick Suzuki	11.3
19	San Jose Sharks	Joshua Norris	10.3
111	Boston Bruins	Jeremy Swayman	9.5
121	Ottawa Senators	Drake Batherson	9
22	Edmonton Oilers	Kailer Yamamoto	8.7
34	Vegas Golden Knights	Nicolas Hague	8.6
29	Chicago Blackhawks	Henri Jokiharju	8.2
49	San Jose Sharks	Mario Ferraro	7.7
21	New York Rangers	Filip Chytil	6.7
50	Anaheim Ducks	Maxime Comtois	6.2
103	Los Angeles Kings	Michael Anderson	6.2
8	Buffalo Sabres	Casey Mittelstadt	5.5
2	Philadelphia Flyers	Nolan Patrick	4.1
99	Buffalo Sabres	Jacob Bryson	4.1
17	Toronto Maple Leafs	Timothy Liljegren	4
45	Columbus Blue Jackets	Alexandre Texier	4
15	Vegas Golden Knights	Erik Brannstrom	3.8
30	Nashville Predators	Eeli Tolvanen	3.7
14	Tampa Bay Lightning	Callan Foote	3.6
47	Ottawa Senators	Alex Formenton	3.5
11	Los Angeles Kings	Gabriel Vilardi	3.4
117	Columbus Blue Jackets	Emil Bemstrom	3.1
9	Detroit Red Wings	Michael Rasmussen	2.8

Next, we look at which teams had the best draft. As explained in the methodology, for the table below, a team wants fewer points. If the team drafted the best player available in their draft position, that earns a 0. If the best player is not taken, the team gets points added for the difference in PS between the player taken and the best player available. So fewer points are better.

Team	Total PS	# Picks
Washington Capitals	11.2	4
San Jose Sharks	17.4	6
New York Islanders	19.5	5
Dallas Stars	20.1	7
Pittsburgh Penguins	22.3	6
Ottawa Senators	22.8	4
Columbus Blue Jackets	23.1	7
Calgary Flames	23.4	5
Anaheim Ducks	25.7	5
Boston Bruins	26.2	6
St. Louis Blues	28.7	6
Minnesota Wild	30.3	6
New York Rangers	30.7	7
Tampa Bay Lightning	32.1	6
Nashville Predators	32.9	6
Edmonton Oilers	35	7
Toronto Maple Leafs	35.2	7
Florida Panthers	35.5	5
Colorado Avalanche	37.4	7
Los Angeles Kings	47.7	7
Winnipeg Jets	48.2	8
Buffalo Sabres	48.8	6
Vancouver Canucks	48.9	8
Carolina Hurricanes	50	8
Montreal Canadiens	53.5	7
Chicago Blackhawks	55.2	9
New Jersey Devils	57.3	11
Arizona Coyotes	67.7	9
Vegas Golden Knights	72.6	12
Detroit Red Wings	79.5	11
Philadelphia Flyers	87.2	9

A team can get a better score in the table above, simply by having fewer picks. To adjust for that, here’s the average points per draft pick.

Team	Average PS	# Picks
Washington Capitals	2.80	4
Dallas Stars	2.87	7
San Jose Sharks	2.90	6
Columbus Blue Jackets	3.30	7
Pittsburgh Penguins	3.72	6
New York Islanders	3.90	5
Boston Bruins	4.37	6
New York Rangers	4.39	7
Calgary Flames	4.68	5
St. Louis Blues	4.78	6
Edmonton Oilers	5.00	7
Toronto Maple Leafs	5.03	7
Minnesota Wild	5.05	6
Anaheim Ducks	5.14	5
New Jersey Devils	5.21	11
Colorado Avalanche	5.34	7
Tampa Bay Lightning	5.35	6
Nashville Predators	5.48	6
Ottawa Senators	5.70	4
Winnipeg Jets	6.03	8
Vegas Golden Knights	6.05	12
Vancouver Canucks	6.11	8
Chicago Blackhawks	6.13	9
Carolina Hurricanes	6.25	8
Los Angeles Kings	6.81	7
Florida Panthers	7.10	5
Detroit Red Wings	7.23	11
Arizona Coyotes	7.52	9
Montreal Canadiens	7.64	7
Buffalo Sabres	8.13	6
Philadelphia Flyers	9.69	9

The numbers are a little misleading and we need to look into details. Both tables indicate the Capitals had the best draft, when actually, they’ve had zero players make it to the NHL. That is in part due to the fact that they only had four picks and their first pick was 120th overall. The remainder of their picks were 151, 182 and 213. Not many teams will hit on those.

Dallas on the other hand, had an outstanding draft. They drafted three of the top seven players getting the second-best player, Miro Heiskenen at 3 (25.5 PS), the fifth best player, Jason Robertson at 39 (15.7 PS) and the seventh best player, Jake Oettinger at 27 (12.7 PS). The Sharks grabbed 10th best Josh Norris at 19 and he’s at 10.3 PS and 16th best Mario Ferraro at 49 and 7.7 PS.

The Don Sweeney haters will be disappointed to see the Bruins had the 7th best draft, which was on the strength of the current 11th best player, Jeremy Swayman taken at 111, and his 9.5 PS. First rounder, Urho Vaakanainen was the 43rd best player in the draft so far, with his 1.3 PS score.

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