2020 OHL Draft Analysis

The 2020 OHL Draft took place yesterday with 15 rounds and 300 prospects spread out among the 20 OHL clubs. While our scouts have evaluated and ranked each player taken in the draft, the true “winners” and “losers” won’t be known for another two years once these prospect matriculate into the league. NZ breaks down the draft results highlighting the US influence and the last 5 years of draft history and how it compares to this draft. We focus on the top 100 picks because those are the players the OHL clubs view as the top prospects in the draft and have the highest chance of making it to the OHL and having an impact in the league.

Part I:  The US Influence on the 2020 OHL Draft

In the past 4 drafts the OHL has shown a reluctance to drafting players out of the US in the early rounds. The past two drafts haven’t seen a US player go in the first round and the two earliest picks in last years draft were second rounders who are currently playing for NTDP and have yet to sign an OHL contract. In 2017 there were two Americans drafted in the first round; Jack Hughes who never signed and Nicholas Robertson; however, both of these players were playing in Ontario in their OHL Draft year. In 2016 there were two Americans taken but yet again one of those players, Tyler Weiss, played in Ontario in his draft year.  Therefore, instead of focusing on place of birth, we focused our analysis on where prospects played in their minor midget year (U15).

Table #1:  First Round OHL Draft Selections out of the US in their Draft Year (2010-2020)

The 2020 draft had a significant US influence with a record high 6 players drafted out of the US; Max Namestnikov, Gavin Hayes, Ryan Abraham and Spencer Sova coming out of Midget AAA in Michigan; David Goyette playing U15 midget out of Connecticut and Adam Fantilli played prep school hockey in New Hampshire. From 2010 to 2015 this wouldn’t have been seen as a major difference as 16 players were drafted out of the states during that 6 year period for an average of just under 3 each year. However, from 2016-2019 in the most recent four years of draft data there have been just 3 prospects who played in the US during their draft year for an average under 1 per year. While this years draft was unpresented in how many first round picks were coming out of the US system, there are several factors that could have led to this.

First, the NCAA implemented a rule change this past year to slow down “early recruiting.” How this impacts CHL draft picks is that the CHL teams are not bound by the same rules and can contact players, recruit players and build relationships while the NCAA programs cannot. The players cannot verbally commit, they cannot go on official visits to the schools and the amount of communication with the programs they are interested in is limited.  It is hard to deny that impact given the OHL seeing a record high jump in CHL first round picks since the rule change went into effect.

Secondly, this is the third year of U15 hockey in the US; before that there was just U14, U16 and U18. The first year U15 was available it was weak overall and seemed more like a money maker or more ways to get players into AAA level hockey. However, last year in its second year there was a noticeable improvement and top ‘03s were playing U15 instead of playing up at U16. This past season in Michigan and other areas there was a mandate that 2004’s could not play U16 unless grandfathered into it like Cutter Gauthier and Zach Filak.  Now with the best prospects in Central US playing U15 the system now mirrors what the OMHA, MHAO and GTHL where they play age specific hockey. Prior to this, US prospects were playing U16 and despite their talent could be overshadowed by older prospects who were in their second year in midget AAA.  Like the NCAA recruiting changes; it would be hard to deny the impact U15 has had especially seeing how 4 of the 6 prospects drafted in the first round came out of Michigan U15 Midget hockey.

Lastly, the US-based teams (Saginaw, Flint and Erie) have done a better job recruiting US talent as have the border teams (Niagara, Sarnia and Windsor). Partially this is due to their success the past few years in the league but also a result of US players having success in the OHL. The leading goal scorer in the league is Nicholas Robertson who is American; the 5^th leading point getting in the league is Arthur Kaliyev who is American. Not only that but rookies are able to come in and make an immediate impact like T-Bone Davis Codd with Saginaw this year and Antonio Stranges with London the year before. Lastly the CHL is poised for another strong NHL Draft year where 9 of the top 10 picks from North America are projected to be out of the CHL.  

It is too early to tell if this year is an outlier or if there is a trend with more players out of the US being drafted but it was a record high this season. What is particularly interesting is that each of the six prospects is a bit different; Max Namestnikov is a Russian born prospect who played in the US the past two seasons before being drafted; Spencer Sova was born in Ontario but grew up playing in Michigan, Ryan Abraham and Gavin Hayes are both US born prospects who grew up playing AAA in Michigan and both Adam Fantilli and David Goyette were born and raised in Ontario but made the move this season to New England to play at boarding schools. Overall, it was a historic draft in that perspective.

Part II: Top 100 OHL Draft Pick Analysis of League Origination

Everyone who has ever watched minor midget in Ontario knows that the GTHL is the dominate league in Ontario; in fact it is probably the deepest talent pool of U15 hockey players in the world. However, other leagues are catching up not only from the US but within Ontario. Below is a breakdown of the past 5 years of draft data and what league the players were drafted out of.

Table #2  League Breakdown of OHL Draft Picks by Round from 2016-2020

Looking at the year-by-year breakdown it is evident that two major differences occurred this year as opposed to the past 4 drafts before it. First, OMHA had 3 more picks than the GTHL; this it’s best performance as the average in the 4 years before 26.2 OMHA selections to 36.5 GTHL for a difference of 10 more picks typically for GTHL prospects.

Not only was the OMHA having a strong draft but so did US prospects as mentioned above; they had 17 players drafted in the first 100 picks whereas prior years average just over 12.

Another interesting find was the success of the HEO Midget AAA league in Ottawa. This league started 3 years ago with the focus having their best U15 prospect play U18 Midget AAA and in its first year they had 1 first rounder; last year they had 4 first rounders and this year they had 3 first rounders and 2 second rounders.

While the year by year breakdown is interesting, we put all the drafts together to get a sense of the past 5-year trend.

Table #3 Aggregate Data of OHL Draft 2016-2020

By Percentage

The 2020 OHL Draft the GTHL only represented 27% of the top 100 picks which is an 8% drop from the average; the OMHA had a 30% representation which is a 3% improvement from the average and the prospects in the US had 17% of the top 100 picks which was also a 3% improvement.

What league the players come out of for the draft is really just one part of the analysis. The more important question is how the players from the various leagues perform once they are in the OHL both as rookies and throughout their career. We’ll be doing follow up analysis on that in the coming weeks but this is a good indicator of how OHL clubs view the various leagues in the past 5 drafts which are the most relevant. While the GTHL is obviously the leader; all these leagues have a noticeable presense and OMHA this past year actually led the way through the first 100 selections.

Part III: Historical Position Breakdown

This 2020 OHL Draft saw 12 centers go in the first round so we wanted to look at the past 5 years of draft data to see if this was a common trend or if it was an outlier.

Table #4  Top 100 OHL Draft Pick 2016-2020 by Position

Table #4 shows that the run on centers in the first round is actual quite typical in the OHL as the past 5 year average is 11 which is over half the number of players picked (20). The first round in general played out within the historical averages for first round picks with 4 wingers taken, 4 defenseman and 0 goaltenders. What is interesting is in hockey most would assume goaltending is the most important position on a team yet only 1 goalie has been taken in the first round the past 5 OHL Drafts.

Outside of the first round things being to even out across position groups and we see a spike in defenseman taken in rounds 2-5 and in this is seen in 2020 where only 4 defenders were taken in the first round but ended up with 36 of the first 100 picks being the leading position taken in the top 100 picks.

While the year to year data looks pretty consistent across each draft there is a slight pattern that when a position is under-drafted in the first 100 picks it is over-drafted two years later. For example; the average number of centers taken in the top 100 picks over the past 5 years is just over 34. So in 2016 there was only 27 taken; 7 under the historical average. However if you look at two years later in 2018 there were 41 centers taken in the first 5 rounds or 7 more than the average. We see the same thing with defense in 2018 there was only 28 defenders taken in the first 100 picks which is typically 33. So two years later in 2020 there were 36 defenseman taken which is 3 more than the average and 8 more than were taken in 2017.

Lastly, we wanted to take a look at the evidence behind a common hockey expression that right shot defenseman are unicorns given their rarity. We broke down wingers and defenseman taken in the top 100 picks from 2016-2020  and found that there are 56 left wings taken and 57 right wings taken which is almost exactly the same. Defense however was different which showed there is some evidence behind the long assumption that right shot defenseman are rare because of the 166 defenseman taken in the top 5 rounds from 2016 to 2020;  96 (57%) are left shot and 70 (43%) are right shot.

5 Takeaways for OHL Teams/Players/Agents

1. There was a record high amount of players taken in the first round of the OHL Draft this year who played in the US this season.  – This could have an impact on OHL teams scouting efforts in the US going forward.
2. Changes in the NCAA rules and the emergence of U15 hockey in the US appear to have had a direct impact on the rise of US players in the 2020 OHL Draft.
3. The GTHL represents 44% of rounds 1-2 in the OHL Draft over the past 5 years but other leagues like OMHA and US-based leagues are trending upwards. – This could have an impact on OHL teams spending more focus outside the GTHL going forward as a culmination of the other leagues actually represent the majority of the draft.
4. Centers are at a premium in the OHL Draft, especially in the first round of the Draft representing over half the selections over the past 5 years. – This could have an impact on how OHL clubs view prospects and what position prospects play seeing the desire among them to take centers in the early rounds.
5. Right shot defenseman taken within the first 100 picks are a rarity – This could impact where right shot defenders go in the draft because there is a premium on that position group given that there are fewer right shot available then left shot.