How Good is this NHL Draft?

[Elias Pettersson]

Every year where my team is picking high is a good draft. Every year where my team has no first round pick or is picking low is a bad draft.

 

[stator]

I'm thinking it's not necessarily Dahlin they're tanking for.

Montreal is more due to ineptitude
Chicago finally regressed as some of their stars just started their decline - plus losing Crawford....
The Rangers were surprising, though it's a little late in the year to decide to tank. Theyve got a lot of teams to fall to in order to have a reasonable shot. All they are going to do is improve their draft position with a slim chance of getting #1. They were able to recognize that their core was about to get stale, unlike lots of other teams (cough cough Vancouver)

Montreal with the 6th most cap space in the NHL is probably not ineptitude. It's pretty easy to go out and spend money on top free agents.

This is one of the wealthy teams in the NHL in terms of annual revenue, and club worth.

 

[Hatter of the Beach]

I think it is a pretty bad one, last year was a much deeper one.

Nowhere near the amount of top end potential thought. Patrick more than likely doesn't go top 5 if the two drafts merged, and Hischier goes third at the highest. This draft is well above average from my understanding, it's just we had two three monster drafts in the past 5 years beforehand too

 

[ProspectsFanatic]

Nowhere near the amount of top end potential thought. Patrick more than likely doesn't go top 5 if the two drafts merged, and Hischier goes third at the highest. This draft is well above average from my understanding, it's just we had two three monster drafts in the past 5 years beforehand too

Yes the top end is better this year, has everyone knew at the time last year lacked top-end talent, Hischier/Patrick would go 3rd/4th in this draft imo, but like I said last year was a much deeper one which makes it a better one overall. You don't judge an entire draft on the top5.

 

[SML2]

Probably the same as every draft. Depends on where you pick, but more importantly who your scouts are. Do you have guys who love to do the job or a bunch of retired players who need to keep an income stream and do their job via YouTube? I will say this though. As bad of a copycat league as this is, I never dreamed the hockey world would be falling over itself for 5'10" sub 180lb. Defensemen. Just goes to show the game evolves the way it wants to. No real way of predicting it too far out.

 

[Steve Kournianos]

There is no set way to judge the strength of a draft class during their draft year. It's all a matter of opinion and there is no right or wrong answer until the strength of a draft ultimately is determined years down the road. However, there are barometers you can use beyond standard stat watching.

In no particular order, I rate a draft by:

1) How many first-year eligibles are among the best players in their U20 league.
2) How many first-year eligibles play in elite Euro leagues.
3) How many first-year eligibles play at the U20 WJC
4) How many first-year eligibles are top-line/pairing players on their respective teams.
5) How many first-year eligibles have displayed star potential against quality competition.

Based on the above, I think this is the strongest draft class since 2015 but will not surpass it, nor will it surpass 2003. The main reason is an incredibly thin pool of Canadian draft prospects. We could go 10-12 picks before a Canadian kid is drafted, especially if scouts aren't high on Veleno, and Bouchard's skating and compete level are questioned. Personally I think both Smith and Veleno are Top-10 talents but this may be a Euro/U.S. heavy draft for first-year eligibles

 

[DramaticGloveSave]

I think this is one of the strongest defensemen drafts in a long, long time. Dahlin is a once in a generation D prospect, while Hughes and Boqvist are super high end as well. Then you have guys like Ty Smith, Noah Dobson, and Bouchard. That top 6 is insane, I don't think I've ever seen a draft that deep at the top with D.

Then you have 4 elite wing prospects in Svechnikov, Zadine, Tkachuk, and Wahlstrom.

Bad year to need a center though