In my last post, I looked at the value of a 2nd Round Pick both as a tool to use in the draft and on the trade market. In this post, we’ll look at 3rd Round Picks from the same perspective.
The Draft
As we did with 2nd Round Picks, let’s start with the probability that a 3rd round pick becomes a regular NHLer or star by the Hockey Prospecting definition. Byron Bader puts the odds that a 3rd round draft pick becomes a regular NHLer (200 career GP) at only 21.6% and the odds of a star (0.7 career ppg for F / 0.45 career ppg for D) at only 1.6%.
Also as we did with the 2nd round picks, lets look at the 2016 draft for some additional insight. These players are now 25, in their prime, and will give us a sense of their peak impact.
As we saw with the 2nd round picks, the 2016 third round picks fall reasonably close to the broader Hockey Prospecting odds. There are 8 players that have seen enough NHL action to have a projection for the 23/24 season and only 4 of them are projected above replacement level. There is one gem in the group, with Adam Fox having firmly cemented himself as one of the top defensemen in the league.
If a team elects to use their third round pick themselves, the possibility they will find a and add a game-breaking talent is remote. Most likely, the player selected will never see substantial NHL action and, if they do, they are most likely to fill a spot in the bottom half of the lineup.
The Trade Market
Instead of making a selection with their pick, the other option every team has is to trade it for some other asset. The easiest trade for us to assess is a one-for-one trade where a pick is swapped for a single NHL roster player. Since the beginning of the 2022 offseason, there have been seven such trades with 3rd round picks.
The thing that stands out here is that the acquired players are almost exclusively trade deadline rentals or expired deals. It looks likely that a 3rd round pick can net a middle of the lineup player with almost no term or team control remaining. Reilly Smith is the big exception, with two years left on his deal. With some added context around Vegas’ cap situation when they jettisoned Smith, we can see the difference though. That deal in particular was more than simply a pick for player trade, as Vegas was intent on finding cap space as well.
Trade Value Summary
If we put our findings here together with the 2nd round pick finding from the last post, here’s what we know:
| Pick | Draft Value | Trade Value |
| 2nd Round | 30% NHLer / 3.4% Star Most likely – middle of the lineup at peak impact | 3rd Line F / 3rd Pair D with 1+ years of term or team control remaining |
| 3rd Round | 21.5% NHLer / 1.6% Star Most likely – bottom half of the lineup at peak impact | 3rd Line F / 3rd Pair D with <1 year of team or team control remaining |
