Late Draft Picks

[Byrath]

I'm curious if anyone knows whether it is possible to get good players out of the third round or later. 3 stars or better types? I'm playing historical if that makes a difference.

[reverist]

Originally Posted by Byrath

I'm curious if anyone knows whether it is possible to get good players out of the third round or later. 3 stars or better types? I'm playing historical if that makes a difference.

It does. If you're playing fictional, it just generates fictional players. Same if custom or standard games and you pass a certain point. It is my understanding on historical, however, that it only includes those who made the NHL. As a result, if you start with a full draft, it will dwindle until, after 3-4 seasons, you will have very few players to draft at all (since the pool will not be full, it will pull from others who may have been drafted at a later time or in other circumstances, like Steve Rucchin will show as available a year or two before he was taken).

Unless this has been rectified, the best move on historical would be to limit your draft to 2-3 rounds, so no more than ~60 or so guys are getting drafted in a given year. Even that may not do it, just mitigate the problem a bit.

[belial1134]

Originally Posted by Byrath

I'm curious if anyone knows whether it is possible to get good players out of the third round or later. 3 stars or better types? I'm playing historical if that makes a difference.

This is something I've noticed in FHM9 that I think has been improved since 8 and 7...


In 7 and 8, I would usually trade away all my draft picks except for my 1st and 2nd round, sometimes I'd keep my 3rd. Very seldom did anyone drafted in the 4th round or later make any significant contributions.


Not too surprising because by the later rounds in the draft, it was just 2 star (and less) potential. In FHM9, I'm still seeing some 3 star players, maybe even a few 3.5 stars) in round 7 Do keep in mind that is my scouts telling me they are 3 or 3.5 star potential, not necessarily going to be 100% accurate.


If anything, it makes the draft more interesting and keeps me from unloading a bunch of late round picks as they are more useful.



Now, I'm only in my 3rd season so I'll get a better idea down the road (especially when I get to where it is all fictional players) to see if any late round picks became stars.


I'm playing standard NHL so I can't speak of historical but as another user posted, there will be some very lean draft classes - in FHM 8, there were times there were not enough players for 2 complete rounds. I do know they have added more players to the database for historical but I would second the recommendation of keeping your draft to 3 rounds or so and don't bother trying to trade for picks after that as there may not be any players left.

[tomkmb]

I've found in my standard NHL games that often you cannot discount players from the later rounds who appear like they may be nothing, because they can still 'pop' or play up better than their ratings later on in their careers.

I've taken guys who were 0.5 stars current and only 2.5 pot and they've ended up being a 3 star current guy after 3 years or so, so a valuable NHL contributor on the bottom 6 lines for me. I'd say that you may not see anyone that jumps straight off the page but try to take a look for people who may have one particularly over developed skill set like an all offensive or all defensive skilled player, that way it will be less pressure for them to develop half of their skills when they're sitting in your minors. They will always either be depth or trade bait too, so it's not worthless. We all want Connor Bedard but you're not going to find him outside of the top picks so just prepare your expectations and think a bit further down the road with the late round guys!

[Yattaboi]

Heavy on finding late talent. My last pick of one of my drafts is arguably one of my best success and he just had 18 points in the playoffs also. Keep in mind he has a hidden thing call variant so his potential has been the highest at 3 stars.

[redtiger7]

Just remember that a person's potential rating isn't set in stone. I grabbed a 2.5 star potential Alexi Yashin in a draft and he ended up becoming a 4 star player. High star players can end up becominga bust too. It all depends on how you use and develop them.

[QUOTE=reverist;4952073 It is my understanding on historical, however, that it only includes those who made the NHL. [/QUOTE]

Nope. That's changed. I just grabbed 2 guys in my last draft that were drafted in real life, yet never made it to the big leagues.

[reverist]

Originally Posted by redtiger7

Just remember that a person's potential rating isn't set in stone. I grabbed a 2.5 star potential Alexi Yashin in a draft and he ended up becoming a 4 star player. High star players can end up becominga bust too. It all depends on how you use and develop them.



Nope. That's changed. I just grabbed 2 guys in my last draft that were drafted in real life, yet never made it to the big leagues.

That's great news! Thanks for the update, glad that info I had is outdated.