Columbus Blue Jackets: How Has Jarmo Done at the NHL Draft?

With the NHL Draft less than two weeks away, I decided that now would be a good time to look at how Blue Jacket GM Jarmo Kekalainen has fared in nine years of drafting with this organization. A well-noted talent evaluator, Jarmo has assembled a solid scouting staff here, one that I’m pretty quick to defend when they take heat.

But for the purpose of the article, we’ll break it down by the numbers. I broke this up into two different categories of evaluation; on the first hand, we have the 2013 through 2017 drafts broken down. Then, we’ll take a quick look at the 2018-22 drafts separately.

The reason for this? Once I started diving into the draft around 2018, it becomes difficult to classify NHL players from prospects or busts. For example, Nils Lundkvist doesn’t meet the metric I was trying to use to determine NHL players (100 games) … but, I think it’s safe to call him an NHL player. He’s just taken more time to get there, so it’s more common sense than pure numbers, when it comes to recent drafts.

For the first five years, I used a metric of 200 NHL games played, and factored in goaltenders on a case by case basis. Even as far back as 2013, you can find legitimate NHL goalies who have not played 200 games yet in their career (Cal Petersen is one example). My data probably isn’t perfect (I’m no mathematician), but it gives us enough of a baseline of percentages to get an honest outcome each year.

2013-2017 NHL Drafts by the numbers:

First round picks through these five years of the draft were really valuable. Teams hit at a percentage of 74.8%, which means that three out of every four picks made in the first round became at least regular NHL players (113 in total). The Jackets fared well below average here – making 7 picks through these 5 years, and only landing 4 NHL players (57%). Now, part of that metric is skewed by Jarmo’s first draft in 2013; where the team had three first round picks, but only netted one NHL player. This was before he was able to bring on his own scouting staff, so it’s hard to really hold this entirely against him.

The hits: Alexandre Wennberg (2013), Sonny Milano (2014), Zach Werenski (2015), Pierre-Luc Dubois. The misses: Kerby Rychel (2013), Marko Dano (2013), Gabriel Carlsson (2015).

First round grade: C. He hit on some really high picks, and had some clear misses later in the first round. The 2013 draft is especially painful here – picks made after some clear misses include Anthony Mantha, Shea Theodore, and JT Compher.

Teams with strong scouting will often find players after the first round. Really, if you’re picking after the first 15 spots in the first round; you have to nail some picks in later rounds to have successful drafts. The fact here is, the Jackets have done a really nice job after the first round – the numbers prove that.

Second round picks ran at a success rate of 35.2% during these 7 years (53 NHL players). This is where Jarmo’s drafting starts standing out: the Jackets hit at a 50% rate (3/6) during this span. While they haven’t found a superstar like Sebastian Aho, they have improved big time over the last few years, and are adding NHL players to the roster with picks in this range. I included Kevin Stenlund as a win because he spent most of his season in Winnipeg this year – but will admit that this is a fringe win.

The hits: Kevin Stenlund (2015), Andrew Peeke (2016), Alexandre Texier (2017). The misses: Dillon Heatherington (2013), Ryan Collins (2014), Paul Bittner (2015).

Second Round Grade: C. Peeke and Texier have become depth players, which is lovely. But two of the next five picks after Peeke were Jordan Kyrou and Alex Debrincat. So, there is that.

Third round picks have been another success story for the Jackets, especially when compared to the rest of the league. During this timeframe I could count only 22 NHL players picked in the third round, across the entire NHL (14.6%). Three of those – and maybe a fourth – were picked by the Blue Jackets, who hit on at least 50% of their picks over that time. Though again we have to note, the 2013 draft is an outlier here – Jarmo did not have his preferred staff yet. So, only partial credit here.

The hits: Oliver Bjorkstrand (2013), Elvis Merzlikins (2014), Keegan Kolesar (2015). Bonus: Daniil Tarasov. The misses: Vitaly Abramov (2016), Blake Siebenaler (2014).

Third round grade: A. Why an A, when there are only two guys on this list who became Blue Jackets? Well, Bjorkstrand is one of the best third round picks in the history of the franchise. But even if you discount him, they came away with two NHL goalies in this round. And, even though Keegan Kolesar and Vitaly Abramov didn’t play here, both were traded for key assets after the fact.

NHL teams have found 25 NHL players in the fourth round, slightly more on average than the third round (16.6%). The Jackets held only three fourth rounders over this time, but they found an NHL player with one of them – which puts them at a 33.3% success rate.

The hit: Emil Bemstrom (2017). The misses: Julian Pelletier (2014), Nick Moutrey (2013).

Grade: C. Bemstrom may be a 4A player, but with only three picks in this range, that’s a win. The one that really hurts here is 2014, when Devon Toews was picked one slot behind Julian Pelletier.

The Blue Jackets went all in for the 2019 playoff run, which resulted in having only two picks heading into the 2019 NHL Draft. Jarmo acquired a third pick on draft day, but the team would make its fewest number of picks in franchise history – helping to thin out the prospect pool for the next couple of years.

The good news is, the Jackets seem to have found at least one NHL player in these three picks. Dmitri Voronkov (4th round, #114) recently signed with the team and will come over this fall. He’s been really good in Russia, and looks like he’ll be competing for a spot in the team’s bottom six. The other two picks in this draft were Eric Hjorth (4th round, #104), and Tyler Angle (7th round, #212). Hjorth wasn’t qualified by the team and looks to be an obvious miss, while Angle is still in the “wait and see” category – but his time may be running short here also.

The 2020 Draft will always be remembered for the audible gasps you could hear when Jarmo Kekalainen picked Yegor Chinakhov with the #21 overall pick. In the end, this seems like it might work out – before being injured, Yegor looked like he was well on his way to a solid season this year.

Even better for the Jackets: all of the other four picks in this draft seem to be progressing. Samuel Knazko (3rd round, #78), Mikael Pyyhtia (4th round, #114) have each played NHL games; while Ole Bjorgvik-Holm (5th round, #145) and Samuel Johannesson (6th round, #176) are still developing. With only five picks in the draft, the early returns here are really, really good.

Keeping it brief with the team’s most recent two drafts: the Jackets already have three NHL players from 16 picks made (if you include David Jiricek, and I do) – and you could make the case that they have at least six more with legitimate shots at cracking the league. That’s insane, when you think about it.

But even if we ignore these last two drafts, which look really strong, and go with the numbers from the first 5 years drafting here: the Jackets have drafted and developed NHL players with 36.1% of their picks over that span. Comparing this to the total from the entire NHL, they’re slightly ahead (248 out of 755 picks = 32.8%).

This number seems like it’s only going to improve for the Jackets as well. There’s a chance that 4 of 7 picks made in 2018 could be NHL players. At least 1 of 3 in 2019, maybe 3 of 5 in 2020 … you get the point.

One thing I’ll always stand behind Jarmo and his staff on, is their scouting ability. They have really good evaluators of talent here, and though there have been some obvious whiffs here and there, they generally do a nice job finding NHL talent in the draft – especially in the later rounds. This is a trait that could lead to this team being strong for many years to come, if they can just get back on a winning track.