How good is the S66 draft? [1/2]

[Victor 10,553]

Wow, what a surprise, Victor putting a historical spin on a draft theme week. Well, perspective is always important and few things are better at giving that than looking at the past. Even before doing that, I am reasonably confident that on paper the S66 draft will be the best in the VHL's history, at least in quantity of VHL players. However, let's have a look at some of the famously good drafts throughout the years, with a brief summary of S66 for the sake of comparison to start us off.

 

Season 66

So how good is this draft? Someone else can and probably has done all the tallying but 11 players are already going straight to the VHL in S66, which will likely triple at least when we look back in eight seasons' time. Some of the top players, like Helmsley and Mars will probably become stars, although that is a guessing game with the sim, but guys like Kirbsson and Freeman and Aaltonen are also very strongly poised to take the league by storm. What we don't know is how many players will end up becoming Hall of Famers, but we can safely assume a fair few will given the strength in depth.

 

Season 18

This is the draft that is still held as the gold standard in the VHL. Not the result of any great recruitment push (that wasn't really a concept back then) but instead a perfectly timed recreate wave, essentially the first 24 picks all had some time spent in the VHL, as did 29^th overall (fifth round) pick Robin Big Snake, which was pretty much unheard of by this point, and indeed for many years after. Just as importantly, this draft combined quality with quantity, with a very strong five Hall of Famers and quite a few others on the cusp of induction, including as far down as third-rounders Joey Clarence and Mathias Chouinard.

 

Possibly the best indicator of S18's quality is the impact it had on teams. Pretty much every contender afterwards had to have a S18 player to stand a chance, be it Shaw, Kanou, or Saeijs. Toronto and Davos would both go on very impressive 7-season playoff streaks (still joint-third all-time), largely as a result of building their cores around this draft. We won't know for a while if S66 will be as influential as S18, but it will certainly be given a run for its money on quantity at the very least.

 

Is any other post-S18 draft in contention?

Not really. There have been drafts with superb first rounds, but which dwindled soon after – prime examples of these are S27, S45, and S53 (probably the best draft in the Project Player Two era). S33 was a solid draft about two rounds deep (20 players) without too many superstars, but the highlight of the original expansion era was S40, the draft that was the jolt that kept the VHL going for another decade. However, despite some late steals, the quality here also disappeared by the third round.

 

Of course, some of the main competition for S66 comes from its immediate predecessors as since S62 drafts have been increasing in depth every season. It's already pretty much accepted that S66 is the best of this generation (although I reckon it could be tight with S64 when the dust settles). That means there is one comparison left...

 

Season 1

Can any draft be better than the one that started it all of? Well, it's hard to beat 56 players jumping straight to the VHL to the eight original franchises, but as can be expected without any time to assess beforehand (the draft was held on July 28, 2007 – five days after the VHL opened to public), a lot of these players had no lasting impact in the league. When removing players and members who did not stick around, the number decreases to just over 20, so perhaps S18 is indeed the draft to compare with and maybe S66 is already the best draft there ever was. We'll see if this crop of players can prove it in the long run.

[Nykonax 1,550]

dahlberg immediately makes the S64 the best of all time

[Smarch 2,949]

Robin big snake mention lol

[solas 1,946]

S18 does seem unbeatable, especially with those 5 Hall of Famers.  I remember when S27 was supposed to be the big one lol

I've never seen a VHL draft with nearly this many people though - almost 100 with at least 1 TPE applied.

[Beaviss 4,949]

1 hour ago, solas said:

S18 does seem unbeatable, especially with those 5 Hall of Famers.  I remember when S27 was supposed to be the big one lol

I've never seen a VHL draft with nearly this many people though - almost 100 with at least 1 TPE applied.

 

Hopefully we can get that around the same numbers next draft.

[TheFlash 317]

How did you find info about Season 1s draft? I was around in the very very early years and would love to try and find some trace of that.

[Victor 10,553]

4 hours ago, TheFlash said:

How did you find info about Season 1s draft? I was around in the very very early years and would love to try and find some trace of that.

https://vhlforum.com/topic/118-s1-vhl-dispersal-draft/

 

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

On 4/6/2019 at 11:38 AM, Victor said:

Wow, what a surprise, Victor putting a historical spin on a draft theme week. Well, perspective is always important and few things are better at giving that than looking at the past. Even before doing that, I am reasonably confident that on paper the S66 draft will be the best in the VHL's history, at least in quantity of VHL players. However, let's have a look at some of the famously good drafts throughout the years, with a brief summary of S66 for the sake of comparison to start us off.

 

Season 66

So how good is this draft? Someone else can and probably has done all the tallying but 11 players are already going straight to the VHL in S66, which will likely triple at least when we look back in eight seasons' time. Some of the top players, like Helmsley and Mars will probably become stars, although that is a guessing game with the sim, but guys like Kirbsson and Freeman and Aaltonen are also very strongly poised to take the league by storm. What we don't know is how many players will end up becoming Hall of Famers, but we can safely assume a fair few will given the strength in depth.

 

Season 18

This is the draft that is still held as the gold standard in the VHL. Not the result of any great recruitment push (that wasn't really a concept back then) but instead a perfectly timed recreate wave, essentially the first 24 picks all had some time spent in the VHL, as did 29^th overall (fifth round) pick Robin Big Snake, which was pretty much unheard of by this point, and indeed for many years after. Just as importantly, this draft combined quality with quantity, with a very strong five Hall of Famers and quite a few others on the cusp of induction, including as far down as third-rounders Joey Clarence and Mathias Chouinard.

 

Possibly the best indicator of S18's quality is the impact it had on teams. Pretty much every contender afterwards had to have a S18 player to stand a chance, be it Shaw, Kanou, or Saeijs. Toronto and Davos would both go on very impressive 7-season playoff streaks (still joint-third all-time), largely as a result of building their cores around this draft. We won't know for a while if S66 will be as influential as S18, but it will certainly be given a run for its money on quantity at the very least.

 

Is any other post-S18 draft in contention?

Not really. There have been drafts with superb first rounds, but which dwindled soon after – prime examples of these are S27, S45, and S53 (probably the best draft in the Project Player Two era). S33 was a solid draft about two rounds deep (20 players) without too many superstars, but the highlight of the original expansion era was S40, the draft that was the jolt that kept the VHL going for another decade. However, despite some late steals, the quality here also disappeared by the third round.

 

Of course, some of the main competition for S66 comes from its immediate predecessors as since S62 drafts have been increasing in depth every season. It's already pretty much accepted that S66 is the best of this generation (although I reckon it could be tight with S64 when the dust settles). That means there is one comparison left...

 

Season 1

Can any draft be better than the one that started it all of? Well, it's hard to beat 56 players jumping straight to the VHL to the eight original franchises, but as can be expected without any time to assess beforehand (the draft was held on July 28, 2007 – five days after the VHL opened to public), a lot of these players had no lasting impact in the league. When removing players and members who did not stick around, the number decreases to just over 20, so perhaps S18 is indeed the draft to compare with and maybe S66 is already the best draft there ever was. We'll see if this crop of players can prove it in the long run.

why do you hate me

[Victor 10,553]

4 hours ago, TheLastOlympian07 said:

why do you hate me

You're not top five in TPE lol.

[Renomitsu 930]

Review - Gonna need you to rewrite this one. It's unbelievable how you think S66 isn't the best overall draft class of all time. /s

 

Joking aside - well-written, well-formatted, and the content is excellent. I don't know a lot about the seasons between my former two players, and I love seeing historical comparisons to current events. I actually went back to look at historical VHL drafts after reading this a few weeks ago.