2010-11 review: what happened? (macro)

Published 12:13 pm Wednesday, April 6, 2011

In the previous installment I discussed the specifics from this season I thought contributed to Everett’s disappointing season. Now I want to discuss the long-term trends that have been building to put the Tips in this position. Specifically, I want to talk about the bantam draft.

Let’s be fr

ank. Since 2004 the Tips have not drafted particularly well. In the five drafts from 2004 (1989s) to 2008 (1993s) Everett produced only about 10 players who went on to become regulars for the team.

However, these struggles in the draft have gone largely unnoticed for what I believe are three reasons:

1) Everett’s first draft, in 2003, was so astoundingly good — that draft produced Peter Mueller, Zach Hamill, Leland Irving, Taylor Ellington, Brady Calla, Jonathan Harty and Graham Potuer — that it bought the Tips scouting staff a lot of leeway.

2) Everett has never missed in the first round. The Tips have always found quality with their first-round picks, sometimes spectacularly so (Kyle Beach 10th overall in 2005, Kent Simpson 22nd overall in 2007 and Ryan Murray ninth overall in 2008 come to mind). Because those first rounders have done so well, there’s never been that first-round flop to serve as the starting point for a discussion scrutinizing Everett’s drafting.

3) Everett had a nice stretch where the Tips unearthed undrafted players who went on to become stars. The most-prominent of these would be Shane Harper, Tyler Maxwell and Byron Froese, who are and were major offensive producers. They helped fill the gaps left by missing in the draft.

The problem for the Tips is that beyond the first round little has worked out. As good as the first round has been for Everett, the second round as been nearly as bad, with Mueller still the only impact player the Tips have found in the second. Everett has also been unable to find any steals late in the draft. Drafting 14-year-olds is an inexact science because you don’t really know how those kids are going to develop physically and mentally. Therefore, there are always players taken in the later rounds who become stars. But that hasn’t happened for the Tips.

Let’s look at Everett’s rival across the border, Vancouver. Over the years the Giants haven’t really had any more success than Everett in the early rounds of the draft. However, Vancouver always seems to find someone in the late rounds who goes on to be a big-time player — Jonathon Blum in the seventh round in 2004, Craig Cunningham in the seventh round in 2005, Brendan Gallagher in the ninth round in 2007. These are first-team Western Conference all-star type of players.

From 2004-08 who’s the player who’s had the biggest impact for Everett (at least to this point) who was drafted after the first round? Zack Dailey, who was a third rounder in 2004 and topped out at 43 points as a 19-year-old in 2008-09. By far the biggest impact player the Tips drafted in the late rounds during that stretch is goaltender James Reid, who dropped off Everett’s protected list little more than a year after being picked in the 10th round in 2005. Of course, he was later picked up by Spokane and this year is the Western Conference’s nominee for Goaltender of the Year. Those late-round surprises just haven’t happened for Everett.

This is the season drafting issues finally caught up to the Tips. The 2005-08 drafts should have composed the core of this year’s team. But by the end of the season Everett’s roster contained just seven players from those four drafts, five of whom were role players. And unlike in recent seasons, the Tips weren’t able to compensate through listed players. That’s one of the reasons why 2010-11 didn’t go as planned.

Everett seems to have done better in the 2009 draft. Nick Walters and Jari Erricson showed promise as 16-year-old rookies, and four others have already been signed to educational contracts. And if the Tips are able to eventually land Seth Jones, that could be a good draft. It’s still way too early to evaluate the 2010 draft, when the Tips didn’t even pick in the first round. But suffice it to say that the Tips need to draft better in order to get back to contending year-in and year-out.

Next: 2011-12 preview: what’s next? (macro)