Unlucky Number 15: Why NHL Teams Struggle to Pick at 15th Overall
The Red Wings will pick 15th in the 2024 NHL Draft, but other teams have historically struggled to pick contributing players at that position
Mandatory Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports - Unlucky Number 15: Why NHL Teams Struggle to Pick at 15th OverallThe Edmonton Oilers thought they had a gem.
With the 15th pick in the 2002 NHL Draft, the Oilers took a risk on Jesse Niinimaki, a point-per-game Finnish forward who scored a point-per-game in his country’s junior league. He was ranked 50th in all of Europe by NHL Central Scouting, and 84th by The Hockey News’ annual prospect list. But Oilers management thought his long-term upside made him a diamond in the rough in a draft where they weren't too keen on the usefulness of other picks.
The thing about draft busts is that it takes time for them to truly tank, and that’s the case for Niinimaki. He played a middling draft-plus-one season in the Liiga with 17 points in 41 games, then lost most of his next season to a shoulder injury. He signed an NHL contract the next year and came over to Canada, where he scored one goal for the Edmonton Road Runners. Coaches and media questioned his work ethic.
“We knew he had a long development curve ahead of him,” Edmonton assistant GM Scott Howson said at the time. “He's gotten by on skill and talent for a long time, and that's just not going to take him to the next level.”
"The opportunity is there but the player has to grab it,” added Road Runners coach Geoff Ward. “He has to take the time to do the extra things that are going to help him become a pro," Ward said. It's still a work in progress."
Progress never happened. That lone AHL goal is all the Oilers have to show for swinging on Niinimaki. It’s a precautionary tale in draft risks that no one has seemed to learn from, and a shining example of the risk of Pick No. 15. It might be the unluckiest pick in the NHL Draft, with a number of draft busts and career Euro leaguers picked at the position. Since 2000, the 15th overall draft pick has averaged the sixth-least NHL games of the top 32 picks — trailed only by the 27th, 29th, 30th, 31st and 32nd picks. Just 12 of the 20 players picked 15th from 2000 to 2019 have played more than 200 NHL games.
The 15th pick is dangerous territory, but there have certainly been good players picked there. Erik Karlsson and J.T. Miller were valuable pickups among the best of their first rounds. Cole Caufield has been great for Montreal since going 15th in 2019. Detroit found its captain and franchise player, Dylan Larkin, there in 2014. It also hopes it found a future starting goaltender there, too, picking Sebastian Cossa 15th in 2021. But draft busts like Niinimaki are far more common at 15 than they mathematically should be.
Why?
A variety of factors make 15th tricky territory. On the one hand, a lot of the draft’s consensus talent is gone by then. The top prospects, the elite talent — they’ve been gobbled up long before number 15 is on the clock. At this point in the draft, the floor is wide open for teams to decide who they want to pick, and scouting departments have the freedom to follow their gut a lot more than at other positions. This isn’t true in every draft, but teams have taken a big swing in a number of drafts. The Oilers did so with Niinimaki, as well as Alex Plante on a leap of faith in 2007. Plante was expected to be a mid-round pick by most analysts, but the Oilers grabbed the big blueliner early.
"We just liked the potential,” Oilers head scout Kevin Prendergast said after the draft. “He's 6-foot-4, 215 pounds. We feel he's probably gonna be 230, 235 when he's ready to play in the NHL, but his hockey sense is great.”
Plante only played 10 NHL games. Injuries his next year threw off his development, as did disputes with the Calgary Hitmen WHL team he played with. Then when he went pro, Plante couldn’t catch a break from the injury bug, including concussion problems. This effectively tanked his career, and he never became the big, physical blueliner Edmonton wanted. His injury problems couldn’t have been predicted at the time of his drafting, but the Oilers also could have picked someone whose draft profile leaned more on skill and stats than size and sandpaper.
Maybe there was some bad luck afoot here, too. The Oilers acquired that pick in a trade that sent captain Ryan Smyth to the Islanders for this pick, as well as fellow No. 15 picks Robert Nilsson (2003) and Ryan O’Marra (2005). O’Marra played 33 NHL games. Nilsson played the fifth-least games of all first-rounders that year in a 2003 draft where 17 players — 13 of them first rounders — eclipsed 1,000 games. He did, however, play on a line with a young Auston Matthews in the Swiss League during Matthews’ draft year. However, Nilsson never lived up to his draft selection. Even in historically good drafts, the 15th pick often doesn’t pan out. In a 2015 draft that could one day rival ‘03 for the best ever, the Bruins picked Zachary Senyshyn 15th with the last of their three consecutive picks in 2015. The projected mid-second rounder has played the least games (16) of all first round picks that year. For whatever reason, No. 15 is practically cursed.
Another element to this risky nature is the way some teams picking here take a flier on overseas talents who might not come over to North America. In the case of Sabres draft pick Artem Kryukov back in 2000, the Russian forward never left the KHL, né Superleague. Some of these players do cross the Atlantic, like Igor Knyazev of the Carolina Hurricanes. The defenseman signed his ELC immediately, playing the first year back in Russia and the last two in the AHL. He never played an NHL game, and by 2004 the Canes gave up on him, trading him in a package to Arizona for depth defenseman Danny Markov. Knyazev finished out his career in the KHL. The pick scared Carolina away from drafting another Russian until 2018, when they picked forward Andrei Svechnikov second overall. The KHL also diminished the returns for Alexander Radulov, who the Nashville Predators picked 15th in 2004. After a couple good seasons in Music City, Radulov packed it up to go home and play in his homeland. Besides a cameo in a 2012 playoff run, Radulov stayed overseas until he signed with Montreal in 2016 as a free agent. As a player, he was fine, but that came long after Nashville got any use out of him.
So if prayer picks and foreign fliers don’t work at 15, what does? Taking into consideration a player’s desire to actually come to the NHL, it seems as if players with a really good single skill tend to do well at 15th. In the case of Caufield, his shot and by nature goal-scoring ability made him a pick that has turned out well with some development.
“If you’re going to do one thing, you’d better do it really well,” said an anonymous scout in the 2019 THN Draft Preview. “And he scores and he just scores and scores. His one-timer is outstanding. He is a true scorer. He can score in a number of ways, but his one-timer is elite.”
And that elite one-timer has translated to the NHL level, along with his goal-scoring elsewhere on the ice. Caufield is second in his draft class in goals scored at 81, only trailing former NTDP linemate Jack Hughes who went first overall. Likewise, Larkin’s burning speed was among the best in his 2015 draft class, but the playmaking and pace that drew from that speed needed work. If a team can trust its development staff to do some real polishing, that can help bring other skills to a satisfactory level that allows an elite skill to shine.
The best 15th overall pick in the past 25 years is Erik Karlsson, whose 1,002 games and 817 points lead all 15th overall picks in that span. Ottawa traded up to draft him there, wanting his offensive upside after a thrilling draft year in Sweden. His smaller size and iffy defensive decision-making kept him from being a top pick, but the Senators picked him for that scoring ability and figured they could make him better all around with time. Two years later when Karlsson came over to North America, he took a couple years to warm up before taking the league by storm as one of the best offensive defensemen and power play quarterbacks in recent history.
Karlsson — and Detroit’s Larkin — prove that teams can find a valuable player at No. 15. Of the 20 players picked 15th from 2000 to 2019, nine are active NHLers. Four of them played roles for teams who made the playoffs. The late Rodion Amirov, who died last summer after a battle with brain cancer, was picked 15th in 2020. There's no telling what he could have done as a prospect were his life not tragically cut short. The players picked 15th from 2021 to 2023, including the Red Wings' Cossa, could prove to be valuable picks in the future. The 15th overall pick isn't always a failure, but it's just more likely to be one than it should be. It's a statistical oddity, alongside the 10th and 8th overall picks which also lag behind other later picks in terms of the number of NHL games the players picked there average. On the flipside, the 14th overall pick is often a bargain, averaging the eighth most games and only trailing the top seven picks. If only 15 could get a taste of that draft success so close in proximity.
Finding success at number 15 requires teams to avoid the pitfalls of drafting a risky prospect, as well as ensuring that the chosen player actually wants to play in North America. It also helps when teams pick a player with a high-end skill they can lean on, even if there are overall issues with the player’s game. There are hardly, if ever, perfect draft picks, especially halfway through the first round. But, living with a player’s imperfections can help a team get the most out of the 15th pick.
This year, the Red Wings will pick 15th overall for the third time in the past 11 drafts. So far, it seems as though they’ve avoided the curse of unlucky number 15 with Larkin and Cossa, but 15 has tripped up so many other teams. Detroit should hope it doesn’t pen the next chapter in this pick’s up-and-down history.