There are a number of draft value charts that have been developed based on both player performances from each draft pick and on trade value from trades over the history of the draft.

The most agreed upon most accurate says that 4OA has a value of 783 (out of 1000). 13OA is worth 481, 26OA is worth 297 and 66OA is worth 177, which add up to a value of 955. So based on this, the 4OA pick is worth quite a bit less than 13OA, 26OA and 66OA.

https://myslu.stlawu.edu/~msch/sports/Schuckers_NHL_Draft.pdf

For an example, here are the 10 4OA, 13OA, 26OA picks from 2010-2020

Year 4th OA 13th OA 26th OA 66th OA
2010 Ryan Johansen Brandon Gormley Evgeny Kuznetsov Radko Gudas
2011 Adam Larsson Sven Bartschi Phillip Danault TJ Tynan
2012 Griffin Reinhart Radek Faksa Brendan Gaunce Jimmy Vesey
2013 Seth Jones Josh Morrissey Shea Theodore Brett Pesce
2014 Sam Bennett Jakub Vrana Nikita Scherbak Nikita Tryamkin
2015 Mitch Marner Jakub Zboril Noah Juulsen Guillaume Brisbois
2016 Jesse Puljujärvi Jake Bean Tage Thompson Adam Fox
2017 Cale Makar Nick Suzuki Jake Oettinger Max Gildon
2018 Brady Tkachuk Ty Dellandrea Jacob Bernard-Docker Cam Hillis
2019 Bowen Byram Spencer Knight Jakob Pelletier Albin Grewe
2020 Lucas Raymond Seth Jarvis Jake Neighbours Kasper Simontaival

Looking at these if 4OA was traded for 13OA+26OA+66OA, IMO there are two lop-sided trade in favor of 4OA (2015 and 2018), but three lop-sided trades in favor of 13OA+26OA+66OA (2010, 2013 and 2016). The rest are fair-ish deals, and keep in mind that later draft picks develop later typically, so the more recent drafts will be biased towards 4OA. Even in 2017 when Makar was taken 4OA, the trade isnt that bad with Suzuki and Oettinger going back the other way.

Very interesting analysis. I know that 4OA picks don’t always pan out, but I would not have expected this. I’d argue that 2012 is also lopsided in favour of 13+26+66, because although none of them are stars, Faksa, Gaunce and Vesey have all had much better NHL careers than Reinhart.

Still, I feel like most teams might be inclined to dismiss this by saying that those teams drafted badly and we wouldn’t make the same mistake. Even if they agree that odds are in favour of getting more value from the three later picks, I think they’d be reluctant to give up a chance at a Cale Makar or Mitch Marner for three rolls of the dice, even more so if you’re talking about making the trade after the first three picks are already in and somebody like Shane Wright is still available. (Were you thinking that Montreal should go after the 4th overall pick before you knew it was going to be Wright?) I can see this happening only if the team holding the 4OA pick thinks the top end of the draft is weak that year.