Grading the 2004 Draft and Trades

Since this age group would have just finished their overage season, lets see how the Tigers did. (Year 2004) - stats are all regular season totals. This is the draft that happened during the Tigers first Memorial Cup run.

Draft

1st 19 Jordie Deagle----260 GP 61PTS 267PIM
2nd 39 Matt Sokol-------102GP 19PTS 75PIM
3rd 59 Riley Laforge----(Went NCAA route)
4th 79 Matt Schneider---0 GP
5th 81 Mark Isherwood--268GP 128PTS 353PIM
5th 99 Ryan Holfeld-----122GP 64WINS 39 Losses 6 SO
6th 119 Bretton Cameron-179GP 120PTS 261PM
7th 139 Dan Conacher----0 GP
8th 159 Sean Manery-----No records found
10th 199 Mat Olson------0 GP
11th 219 Shayne Brown---149GP 19 PTS 191PM

Draft Summary + Trades

Out of their 11 selections 6 players had over 100 games in the whl.
The Tigers managed 3 very key players, in Mark Isherwood, Bretton Cameron, and Ryan Holfeld. The first 4 rounds had little impact however trades from those players may still produce a good result. Note* Ryan Holfeld was considered the 2nd best Goalie prospects by some and 1 mock draft had him going in the first round.

Shayne Brown was developing into a decent stay at home D man but was traded to Everett. The player that was supposed to come back(Tyler Kiefer) never ended up reporting and the Tigers were compensated with a 4th round selection in this years draft.(Goalie Anthony Hamill was the pick). So i guess you wont be able to fully evaluate that trade for another 6 years.

Jordie Deagle never really found his niche with the Tigers and was traded away for Tyler Gron, since Gron didn't report the Tigers, they received a 3rd round pick, they used the pick to select Boston Leier in 2008. Leier was a very late cut as a 16 year old last season, and has a shot at making the team this coming season.

Matt Sokol didn't really fit into the Tigers plans and they traded him away to Portland for a 5th round pick. The Tigers selected Benjamin Gallacher who never saw any whl action. (Played Junior A)

To stay competitive you want at least 3 quality players every year. The Tigers managed 5, and one fringe player. The extras with trades from that draft that are still paying dividends for a few years to come. With just winning the league and having the second last selection in each round I'd give the Tigers an B+/A-. They found talent in the later shallower rounds that played big impacts, but their 2nd,3rd,4th round selections dropped them from an A grade.

Other Interesting Notes
In 2006 when the Tigers traded Blaine Nuefeld to Saskatoon, they received a conditional 2007 6th round pick. That picked turned out to be Emerson Etem.....Can you say BIG WIN for the Tigers on that One.

Trevor Glass
Some people were pissed that the Tigers traded him away. I felt it was a good decision. That year the Tigers lost in their shortest playoff run since Willie Took the helm in just 5 games to Kootenay. Trevor Glass ended up winning the Memorial Cup with the Spokane Chiefs, and played 57 games + 10 playoff games the following year with spokane.

The Tigers return in the deal was a 3rd round pick in 2008(Todd Fiddler), 2nd round pick in 2010(Brennan Hunker). Unfortunately Spokane had a very good year and the pick was near the bottom of the round.

Todd Fiddler was a late 16 year old cut last season, Brennan Hunker is only 15.


WHL Draft Summary
Not gonna do numbers but will post some of my thoughts about the 2004 draft.


The 2004 first round was extremely deep. Almost all players were very key players in the whl, the last pick of the first round was Luke Schen.

The second round by my count there were 9 players who did not play in the whl. That's almost a 50% drop off after the first round. However the picks that did make it most of them had significant roles on their whl teams.

The third round was about 70% as effective of the 2nd round. By my count there were 7 players who played average roles on their respective teams.

I would consider the 4th round slightly better than the third round, about the same number of players made it to the whl however the quality of the players on average were slightly higher than those picked in the third round.

The 6-7th round and later the talent really dropped off. There were about 1-2 very key players picked and the rest of the players didn't make much of an impact.


2004 seemed like a Top heavy draft and an above average year for finding diamonds in the rough, but overall perhaps it was a slightly shallower than average
(Alex Rodgers, Colin Long, Jared Spurgeon, Braden Holtby were taken in the 9th round or later)