There’s a bit of mystery that goes into the NHL draft every year. That’s what makes it so fun. General managers don’t know who is going to slide, which of their colleagues is going to come calling for picks, who might end up in their organization when it all settles.

This past June, Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving was certain of one thing heading into the draft: His team wasn’t going to be taking a goalie. Certainly not with one of their top picks, desperately needed since they had only five draft picks because of the Dougie Hamilton trade.

At this point, the Flames had strong organizational depth in goal. They had Jon Gillies on the way. In 2014, the Flames drafted Mason McDonald in the second round. They signed Medicine Hat’s Nick Schneider after he was passed over in the 2015 entry draft. Drafting a goalie was not only unnecessary, at some point you run out of places to have them play in the organization.

“It was going to take an act of Congress for us to take a goalie,” Treliving said during a Tuesday phone conversation.

Then Tyler Parsons began to slip. The Michigan native was coming off a big season for the London Knights, where he posted a .921 save percentage. The Flames scouts loved him. Still do.

Calgary was eight or nine picks away from drafting when the Flames' draft table started to stir. The possibility of landing Parsons becomes a possibility, at least to scouting director Tod Button and area scout Terry Doran, a major advocate for Parsons.

Treliving still wasn’t having it. He ignored the talk. He had no interest in another goalie project. At pick No. 48, the Flyers selected Everett Silvertips goalie Carter Hart and the Flames' table is really buzzing now.

Goalies are no longer taken at the top of the draft, in the stratosphere of Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid, but in the second round, there is often a run of goalies. One assistant GM compared it to your fantasy football draft. Gronk goes in Round 1. But the run on the position doesn’t really start until the next tier of tight ends starts going.

In this case, the Flames were concerned the NHL's version of the tight end run was about to begin with Hart. Treliving still wasn’t convinced but when Hart went, he realized how set on Parsons his scouts were.

“You’re getting closer and I’m like, ‘Are you serious?’” Treliving said.

The response?

“Dead serious. This is the guy.”

The Flames had two picks in this range, and Treliving made one last attempt to take a skater at No. 54. They were picking at No. 56 anyways. The goalie would probably still be around.

“There would have been a fist fight. … Terry Doran, in Sarnia, he was, like, visibly upset. There were veins popping,” Treliving said. “I would have bet you a lot of things with that pick we were not taking a goalie. There we are, taking a f---ing goalie.”

With the No. 54 overall pick in the 2016 draft, the Calgary Flames selected Tyler Parsons. In the first days of 2017, Parsons led Team USA to gold in the World Juniors, coming up big in the shootout against Canada, and looking every bit as good as Doran and Button thought he’d be.

That Parsons fell as low as he did says a lot about teams' attitudes in taking goalies in the drafts these days. There’s been a not-so-gradual decline in when the first goalies are taken in the draft since the days of Marc-Andre Fleury and Rick DiPietro getting grabbed with the No. 1 overall pick:

Now, there’s the occasional outlier in the first round, but the second round has become the place to grab the most talented goalies in the draft. If it keeps continuing, it’ll become the third or fourth.

“That has become the trend,” said a Western Conference director of scouting. “The probability of a player playing and being good is higher with a forward or defenseman.”

In today’s NHL, you need young players on the roster immediately. Teams need their speed in a game getting faster every year. They need their entry-level contracts to keep costs down, mindful of the salary cap.

Teams are more comfortable than ever playing a 19-year-old forward or defenseman. The idea of playing a teenage goalie still remains out of the question.

“A lot of these young guys have skill, but there’s such a large mental aspect of it, too,” said one Western Conference goalie evaluator. “I don’t think you have it at a young age. It’s a lot of pressure every night for a guy to go in there and have to be a guy that gives your team a chance to win.”

His conclusion? He wouldn’t draft a goalie. At all. He’d grab one after you’ve had years to evaluate them.

“I would just find my goalie when he gets older,” he said. “How many Carey Prices' are there out there?”

That attitude is reflected in how teams approach the draft. From 2000 to 2004, the average spot the first goalie was selected in the NHL draft was No. 4 overall. In the past five drafts, the first goalie was selected on average with the No. 32 overall pick. That’s a major drop.

There are a slew of legitimate reasons. Goalies are hard to evaluate. They can take years to develop. By the time they’re ready to help your team, they may be nearing the point they can leave via free agency.

The average age right now of the 30 starting NHL goalies is 29.7. On average, the starting goalie for each team is on his second team, with a guy like Brian Elliott on his fourth.

If you average out where each NHL starting goalie was drafted, you get Round 3.7, a late third-rounder. You can get your goalies anywhere in the draft.

The first goalie taken in recent drafts include Zach Fucale, Magnus Hellberg, Mikko Koskinen, Chet Pickard and Joel Gistedt -- not necessarily household names yet.

One veteran GM for years told his staff not to take a goalie in the first round.

His reasoning?

“His point was you’ll never be around to see them,” said a Western Conference exec. “Look at the goalies in the league playing, a lot of them are drafted elsewhere. That’s the scary thing.”

If a GM takes a goalie, there’s a good chance he’s taking him for the next GM in that city, or for some other GM when the goalie leaves the organization.

So yeah, hard pass.

Unless you think you’re getting value. Teams still need high-end goalies to win. As much as goalies move around, the best ones are usually on the team that drafted them -- Price, Henrik Lundqvist, Braden Holtby, Corey Crawford, Jonathan Quick, Matt Murray, Pekka Rinne.

So at some point, as teams wait on goalies, it becomes a market inefficiency.

“If everyone says we’re not taking them until later, what’s the best asset, and do you take it a little earlier than you would because nobody is taking them anymore?” Treliving said. “There’s a lot of reasons not to take them high but then we started thinking about how it’s like the saying, ‘It’s so busy nobody goes there anymore.'"

Multiple draft evaluators said there’s a real shot that a goalie gets taken in the first round this year for just the third time since Jack Campbell went No. 11 overall in 2010.

Boston University freshman Jake Oettinger has developed a growing fan base among talent evaluators. Plus, the top of the draft isn’t stacked like previous years.

“It’s such a bad draft year,” said one executive.

So there’s a chance. Even if teams may not feel good about it, and the GM goes along with it kicking and screaming.

“How do you know Jake Oettinger isn’t going to be Chet Pickard?” said one exec. “I would rather take a good [skater], you can always trade him later.”