I'm very new to Broad Street Hockey, but not new to the Flyers. I've been cheering them on since the Lindros era began. I remember getting NHL 95 for my Sega Genesis and marveling at how good the Big E was. Anyhow, I read an article by Geoff Detweiler sometime in late January about the success (or lack there of) that the Flyers have had in drafting prospects since 2004. 

The main point being made in this article is that the Flyers have been abysmal at picking outside of the first round. Their four first round picks from 2004 to 2008 (Downie. Giroux, Sbisa and van Riemsdyk) have played 514 games in the NHL (as of Halloween according to Detweiler). Meanwhile the 35 picks made in rounds two to seven have played a total of 118 NHL games. I didn't check or update those numbers but the 514 games at least seemed like a reasonable total for those four first rounders. A quick look on TSN.ca tells me that all four have played nearly full-time for their respective clubs this year so the total has risen to around 700 as of right now. 

In the comments section of the original article someone said they would like to see a comparison to another team. I thought it was a good idea so I did some research and quite a bit of addition and subtraction. I thought who better to compare the Flyers to than the Red Wings, who seemingly draft high quality players out of thin air (i.e. Datsyuk 6th Round/Zetterberg 7th Round). I assumed if the Flyers draft record would look bad against any team's it would be the Wings. 

I'm not all that comfortable using HTML so I really can't post my results in a nice zebra formatted table as Geoff did so I will do what I can. I looked up how to do it.. didn't really understand it. So here are my results in a crappier format.

3 First Rounders  NHL - 30 GP (1 G - 0 A - 1 Pt) AHL - 318 GP (20 G - 86 A - 106 Pts)

42 After First Round NHL - 765 GP (152 G - 150 A - 302 Pts) AHL - 1701 GP (291 G - 426 A - 717 Pts)

As it turns out the Red Wings have only drafted three players in the first round since 2004 (Jakub Kindl, Thomas McCollum, and Brendan Smith). McCollum being a goaltender throws the stats off even further for the skaters. As of late January these three have combined for 21 games played in the NHL and they're all Kindl's (he's up to 30 as of today so I threw those in). He has a grand total of one goal. They have played a bit more in the AHL as they've combined for 318 games played and 106 total points.

A lot can be said of those 2nd to 7th Rounders playing 765 games in the NHL for the Wings. However, take into consideration that Johan Franzen has accounted for 363 of those, Darren Helm 144, Shawn Mattias 118, and Justin Abdelkader 92 and and it becomes much less extraordinary. Subtracting those four players from the equation leaves only 48 NHL games for the other 39 picks. Subtract even more you say!? Those 48 games are split between Mattias Ritola, Jan Mursak, and Tomas Tatar. So 32 of Detroit's total 39 picks after the first round have never played an NHL game.

The bottom line is Detroit's draft picks 2004-09 have suited up for 795 NHL games. 103 more games than the Flyers picks. That's a lot of games, but by comparison I don't think the Flyers have done a terrible job drafting. In all, 7 of 39 draft picks for the Flyers have appeared in the NHL, while 8 of 45 draft picks have appeared for the Wings. That's 17.9% and 17.7% respectively. Seems like a relatively similar rate of success to me.

The original article by Geoff can be found here if you would like to take a look at the Flyers picks.

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2011/1/20/1946005/data-dump-flyers-draft-picks-2004-2008

Hope you enjoy stats as much as I do,

Keenan.

Edit: thanks to Geoff I was able to figure this out. Here's the raw Red Wings data.