A brief history of successful Calgary Flames draft picks

Photo credit:Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

1 year ago

Pals, on Monday night Calgary Flames forward Andrew Mangiapane played in his 200th National Hockey League game. In doing so, Mangiapane hit a threshold that prospect wonks have set to determine whether a draft pick is “successful” or not. (It’s admittedly an arbitrary bar to clear, but it’s basically 2.5 full NHL seasons and seems like a decent enough measure.)

Mangiapane became the 125th player to play 200 games for the Flames franchise and just the 52nd homegrown draft pick to play that much for the club. We decided to take a quick look at the other 51 of them, sorted by the general manager who drafted them.

Cliff Fletcher

1972: Jacques Richard
1973: Eric Vail, Ken Houston, Tom Lysiak
1974: Guy Chouinard, Pat Ribble
1975: Willi Plett, Richard Mulhern
1976: Kent Nilsson, Dave Shand
1978: Brad Marsh
1979: Jim Peplinski, Tim Hunter, Paul Reinhart
1980: Håkan Loob, Steve Konroyd, Kevin LaVallee
1981: Al MacInnis, Mike Vernon
1983: Sergei Makarov, Dan Quinn
1984: Gary Suter, Gary Roberts, Paul Ranheim
1985: Joe Nieuwendyk
1987: Theoren Fleury
1989: Robert Reichel
1990: Paul Kruse

Under Fletcher, the Flames were among the first NHL teams to really dive into scouting Europe and American colleges. So in addition to these picks, they made a lot of hay with college signings – hi there, Joel Otto.

That drafting prowess was crucial in building the expansion Atlanta club into the Calgary powerhouse it became. Prior to the relocation, they produced NHL regulars from every single draft (and multiple regulars more often than not). Admittedly, that prowess tailed off in the mid-80s, though.

Doug Risebrough

1991: Sandy McCarthy
1992: Cory Stillman
1993: German Titov
1994: Chris Clark
1995: Denis Gauthier, Clarke Wilm

Risebrough’s drafting was a lot leaner than Fletcher’s, and his tenure began a long stretch of whiffing on first round picks more often than not. Six regulars over five drafts isn’t ideal. Another trend was Flames draftees becoming regulars elsewhere, as eight additional Risebrough draft selections became 200+ NHL gamers on other teams.

Al Coates

1996: Derek Morris, Toni Lydman

Coates helmed the Flames for several drafts. His drafting produced just two regulars. The 1997 draft was particularly rough, combining for just 81 NHL games.

Craig Button

2001: David Moss, Chuck Kobasew
2002: Matthew Lombardi, Eric Nystrom

Button wasn’t GM for too long, but his drafting was extremely solid all things considered. The 2000 draft was a bit odd – Button became GM just before the draft but wasn’t involved in prep, and then three selections became NHL regulars away from Calgary.

Darryl Sutter

2003: Dion Phaneuf
2007: Mikael Backlund
2008: TJ Brodie, Lance Bouma
2010: Micheal Ferland

Sutter was guilty of shipping out high picks to bolster the NHL roster, so he didn’t have a lot of kicks at the can in the early rounds. That said, his staff didn’t hit on a lot of first round picks – Matt Pelech, Leland Irving and Greg Nemisz remain lowlights – but they did find some good players in the late rounds.

Jay Feaster

2011: Johnny Gaudreau
2012: Mark Jankowski
2013: Sean Monahan

Feaster ran three drafts and found three NHL regulars for the Flames. The 2011 draft was a great one, though, as all five selections played NHL games and two non-Gaudreau players broke the 200 game barrier.

Brad Treliving

2014: Sam Bennett
2015: Rasmus Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane
2016: Matthew Tkachuk

In addition to these four, Oliver Kylington and Dillon Dube are closing in on 200 games and Juuso Välimäki is a little bit behind them as well. Like Sutter, Treliving has shipped out a lot of high picks. Unlike Sutter, Treliving has fairly consistent found value in the late rounds and managed to back-fill the farm system without expending additional assets.

Which Flames general manager do you think has used the draft most effectively? Let us know in the comments!

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