A Thank You Letter to True North
For those reading, allow me to introduce myself.
I have been a fan of the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets since 2005. I’ve watched exciting players such as Kovalchuk and Hossa, and had the experience of watching a franchise build from the ground up.
When I first began watching after that ’05 lockout, it was fascinating how our prospect pool only had 5 or 6 years of development, and our most mature prospects were just 23 years of age. It was a scapegoat, an acceptable reason for the lack of prospects that were developing with any sort of promise.
A common theme began to unfold.
Don Waddell, the long-time GM of the Thrashers for every year but their last, was full of ineptitude and rash decisions. After the 2005 lockout, the NHL glorified a fast paced, high scoring game. Waddell’s response? Sign Bobby Holik for 4 years, whose speed in NHL ’05 was no more than 52. The following season Marc Savard departed fresh off of a 97 point campaign playing alongside Kovalchuk. Anyone else remember that the 36 year old Steve Rucchin was his replacement? How was Rucchin going to keep pace with a speedy Russian star who started every breakout 5 feet outside his own defensive zone?
It’s a culmination of poor decisions and a complete misunderstanding of how hockey organizations are built and maintained successfully.
Unfortunately, the draft was no more successful than any attempts in free agency.
For the table below, we’ll define “success” as any drafted player that plays more than 400 NHL games in his career. Unfortunately, Patrik Stefan played in 455 career matches so we’ll have to bite the bullet and call him a “success” for the sake of this table. The point is to show how many players drafted outside the first round actually made an impact with the NHL club.
Excluding Chiarot and Postma, who were largely developed by the Jets, the Thrashers managed to develop from within their own system 3 NHL caliber players over 10 years of drafting outside of the first round.
This was a franchise that failed to keep its superstars. This was a franchise that failed to make trades garnering any real value, and a franchise that missed the mark completely when it comes to drafting young men and developing them into professionals.
Worst of all, this was a franchise that never had a real captain, willing to pay almost anything to keep a subpar leader in Ilya Kovalchuk as the Alpha Dog and face of the franchise.
In 2011, however, my experience as a hockey fan changed forever. In a deal that seemed to materialize in months, the Thrashers were sold to True North Sports Entertainment for $160 million, including $60 million in relocation fees.
Luckily for me, and for Winnipeg, True North has done the polar opposite of their predecessors.
From the very beginning, the Winnipeg Jets have been a class act. They have chosen a General Manager in Kevin Chevyldayoff who has compounded an incredible amount of franchise caliber players and a financial scenario that carries zero bad contracts. Chevyldayoff has been adamant about developing his players, and has used strong leaders such as Andrew Ladd, Blake Wheeler, and Dustin Byfuglien to not just perform for the ice hockey team, but to teach the younger players how to be professionals as well.
True North Sports Entertainment and the management team they’ve assembled have created and are fostering a culture of winning; drafting the skill sets and quality of men that can take advantage of their resources given the work ethic and hunger they provide.
I have no idea what my hockey fan experience would be like currently if they had not purchased and relocated the Atlanta Thrashers. I wasn’t jumping ship on the Thrash. To be fair, Rick Dudley had made some franchise defining trades during his year with the team so the grass was certainly looking greener, but the job Winnipeg has done has been nothing short of magnificent.
Here is an incredibly large list of excellent moves Chevyldayoff has made in just 5 years:
- Drafting star Mark Scheifele in 2011
- Drafting Adam Lowry in 2011
- Drafting potential star Jacob Trouba in 2012
- Drafting potential star Connor Hellebuyck in 2012
- Drafting Scott Kosmachuk in 2012
- Drafting Josh Morrissey in 2013
- Drafting Nic Petan in 2013
- Drafting Eric Comrie in 2013
- Drafting Andrew Copp in 2013
- Trading for Michael Frolik in 2013
- Signing Michael Hutchinson in 2013
- Signing franchise leader and media gem Paul Maurice to a 3 year contract
- Drafting future star Nik Ehlers in 2013
- Drafting Chase De Leo in 2014
- Signing Mathieu Perreault to a 3 year contract
- Trading Evander Kane, Zach Bogosian, and Jason Kasdorf for Tyler Myers, Brendan Lemieux, Drew Stafford, Joel Armia, and a 1st round pick (forward Jack Roslovic)
- Drafting potential star Kyle Connor in 2015
- Drafting Jack Roslovic in 2015
- Not overpaying to keep Michael Frolik and let him walk
- Re-signing Drew Stafford to a 2 year extension
- Re-signing Dustin Byfuglien to a 5 year extension
- Not overpaying to keep Captain Andrew Ladd
- Trading Andrew Ladd for Marko Dano and a 1st round pick (defenseman Logan Stanley)
- Signing Brandon Tanev out of college
- Drafting future star Patrik Laine in 2016
- Drafting Logan Stanley in 2016
- Re-signing Mathieu Perreault to a 4 year extension
- Re-signing franchise pillar Mark Scheifele to an 8 year extension
A very nice list.
Now, what if we comprised a 24 and under lineup of Chevyldayoff-only additions? It’d look like this:
Simply outstanding. Consecutive years of pulling out talent from past the first round is how franchises truly blossom into Cup contenders, and it’s hard to say we won’t at least be pushing toward that level in the coming years. The depth we have within our system is going to allow our prospects to get to that “Detroit level” where they are absolutely ready to be NHL players when they get the call.
Three years in a row with Bogosian, Kane, and Burmistrov, the Thrashers played with 18 year olds in their lineup. And those 3 consecutive years were clear demonstrations of the ineptitude of the franchise: a complete mismanagement of what was supposed to be the next core of great Thrashers.
First round picks are nice of course. A base of Scheif, Trouba, Morrissey, Ehlers, Connor, and Laine is a wonderful starting point in the draft. It’s capitalizing on these picks that has allowed the franchise to boast one of the best young cores in the whole of the NHL. But all of those names in the list that aren’t first round picks are just as important, and in some ways, more telling. Many teams hit success in those first 30 picks of the draft. The ability to consistently fish out players in the latter rounds is a testament to all of the hard work the scouting network puts in, and to the values that they’re drafting for.
It doesn’t stop there though.
Developing these young men into NHL caliber players is just as crucial.
Molding an 18 year old teenager into a 22 year old professional hockey player takes deliberation, it takes resources, and it takes a united staff with a vision that propels them from a junior star, to an AHL scholar, to an NHL regular.
Every Stanley Cup since 2009 has been built on surrounding a core group (generally of first round picks or big trades) with competent options developed within the organization. To further this claim, here’s a list of the post-first round draft successes of the last 8 Stanley Cup winners:
Funny, the length of each list is almost perfectly coordinated with the amount of Stanley Cups each team has won over the last 8 years.
The reward of making post-first round picks count is enormous. It gives you cheap, NHL options to offset the cost of veteran players, and just as importantly, gives you assets to propel your team’s push for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
The Jets are so overflowing with NHL-projecting prospects that we have the salary cap era’s two best luxuries: cheap, capable bottom-six depth, and enough internal competition to ensure our AHL prospects are never rushed.
Claiming a team will win the Stanley Cup in today’s salary capped NHL parity is at best, a fool’s game. But as far as I can tell, with the core pieces the Jets have in place and the tremendous depth marinating with the Moose, the Jets look a remarkable threat over the next few years – particularly while Ehlers, Morrissey, Connor, and Laine are still on their entry level contracts.
The Jets have drafted, they’ve developed, and they look poised for incredible long term success.
So, to True North, Kevin Chevyldayoff and his management team, and to Paul Maurice and his assistants:
Thank you.
The precision and caliber this franchise has operated with since day 1 has been nothing short of world class.
I can’t wait to see what’s next.
