Prospect Info: The 2018 Draft Thread

[Joey Moss]

If we end up drafting Zadina and Benson and Yams work out. .. we could have a potentially very dangerous top 6 in a few years

Benson - McDavid - Puljujarvi
Zadina - Draisaitl - Yamamoto

We have said this for the last 10 years..

 

[mouz135]

If we end up drafting Zadina and Benson and Yams work out. .. we could have a potentially very dangerous top 6 in a few years

Benson - McDavid - Puljujarvi
Zadina - Draisaitl - Yamamoto

Fool me once, something something something..

I'm not falling for that trick again. Same song, different dance

 

[McDrai]

If we end up drafting Zadina and Benson and Yams work out. .. we could have a potentially very dangerous top 6 in a few years

Benson - McDavid - Puljujarvi
Zadina - Draisaitl - Yamamoto

Most of those players will be off the team in a few years .

 

[CycloneSweep]

We have said this for the last 10 years..

My comment was partially tongue in cheek lol

 

[Hynh]

Sportnet's January list

Button's January list

Players in both top 10s

Dahlin (#1 in both)
Boqvist (Button 2, SN 5)
Tkachuk (Button 3, SN 4)
Svechnikov (Button 4, SN 2)
Zadina (Button 5, SN 3)
Wilde (Button 8, SN 9)
Wahlstrom (Button 9, SN 8)
Bouchard (#10 in both)

 

[oilers'72]

Sportnet's January list

Button's January list

Players in both top 10s

Dahlin (#1 in both)
Boqvist (Button 2, SN 5)
Tkachuk (Button 3, SN 4)
Svechnikov (Button 4, SN 2)
Zadina (Button 5, SN 3)
Wilde (Button 8, SN 9)
Wahlstrom (Button 9, SN 8)
Bouchard (#10 in both)

ISS Top Ten for January:

1	Dahlin, Rasmus	LD	4/13/2000	L	6.02	181	Vastra Frolunda	SweE	1
2	Tkachuk, Brady	C	9/16/1999	L	6.03.25*	196	Boston University	H. E	3
3	Svechnikov, Andrei	RW/C	3/26/2000	L	6.02*	186	Barrie	OHL	2
4	Zadina, Filip	RW	11/27/1999	L	6.00*	196	Halifax	QMJHL	4
5	Wahlstrom, Oliver	C	6/13/2000	R	6.00.75*	205	USA U18	NTDP	6
6	Bouchard, Evan	RD	10/20/1999	R	6.01.75*	193	London	OHL	13
7	Hughes, Quinn	LD	10/14/1999	L	5.09.5*	170	U. of Michigan	Big Ten	5
8	Boqvist, Adam	LD	8/15/2000	R	5.11	170	Brynas IF Jr.	SweJE	8
9	Kupari, Rasmus	C	3/15/2000	R	6.01.25	183	Karpat Oulu	FinE	10
10	Smith, Ty	LD	3/24/2000	L	5.10.25*	176	Spokane	WHL	11

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

ISS Hockey Releases ISS Top 31 for January, Rankings of the Top Prospects for 2018 NHL Draft - ISS Hockey

 

[Joey Moss]

Boqvist at 8 is interesting. Admittedly I don't know much about guys like Wahlstrom, Bouchard, or Hughes but Boqvist seems like a top 5 prospect.

 

[McDNicks17]

Barrett Hayton continues to impress me.

Young 17 year old center getting regular top 6 minutes on the best team in the CHL(the Greyhounds are 35-3-3 this season).

Good size(6'1'' 190lbs), good skater(probably his biggest knock as he isn't a great skater), great hockey sense, really advanced defensively and a crazy good release.

I think he'll be an early 1st rounder and will probably explode like Morgan Frost did next season.

 

[walktheboulavard]

A chance at Dahlin or one shot scorer in Zadina; it was inevitable this teams deficiencies would ultimately rear its ugly head, with one of those 2 we might be able to address a area of significant weakness.

 

[McIce Whole]

Landing Dahlin would be insane, don’t think that’s happening though. After Dahlin, I want us taking a forward, we need the help up front. Would personally pass on Boqvist in favour of Tkachuk, Sveshnikov, Zadina or Wahlstrom

 

[oilers'72]

I can't figure out how to do any changes on this, so shift the person's/organization's name one column to the right

ISS Hockey Jan. 10th	Jeff Marek SportsNet Jan. 10th	The Draft Analyst Jan. 9th	Cam Robinson Dobber Prospects Jan. 9th
1	Rasmus Dahlin	Rasmus Dahlin	Andrei Svechnikov	Rasmus Dahlin
2	Brady Tkachuk	Andrei Svechnikov	Rasmus Dahlin	Filip Zadina
3	Andrei Svechnikov	Filip Zadina	Filip Zadina	Andrei Svechnikov
4	Filip Zadina	Brady Tkachuk	Joe Veleno	Quinn Hughes
5	Oliver Wahlstrom	Adam Boqvist	Ty Smith	Adam Boqvist
6	Evan Bouchard	Noah Dobson	Adam Boqvist	Brady Tkachuk
7	Quinn Hughes	Rasmus Kupari	Joel Farabee	Ty Smith
8	Adam Boqvist	Oliver Wahlstrom	Brady Tkachuk	Oliver Wahlstrom
9	Rasmus Kupari	Bode Wilde	Jesperi Kotkaniemi	Evan Bouchard
10	Ty Smith	Evan Bouchard	Quinn Hughes	Noah Dobson

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Craig Button TSN Jan. 8th	Draft Geek Jan. 7th
1	Rasmus Dahlin	Rasmus Dahlin
2	Adam Boqvist	Filip Zadina
3	Brady Tkachuk	Brady Tkachuk
4	Andrei Svechnikov	Andrei Svechnikov
5	Filip Zadina	Adam Boqvist
6	Barrett Hayton	Quinn Hughes
7	Quinn Hughes	Rasmus Kupari
8	Bode Wilde	Oliver Wahlstrom
9	Oliver Wahlstrom	Ryan McLeod
10	Evan Bouchard	Evan Bouchard

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

2018 NHL Draft Rankings

 

[Staghorn]

Wingers that can score and solid DMen with offensive skill... Don't screw this pick up! Or worse trade it away. Another cost controlled asset is perfect.

 

[Oilers in NS]

If we end up drafting Zadina and Benson and Yams work out. .. we could have a potentially very dangerous top 6 in a few years

Benson - McDavid - Puljujarvi
Zadina - Draisaitl - Yamamoto

So another rebuild?

 

[CupofOil]

Wingers that can score and solid DMen with offensive skill... Don't screw this pick up! Or worse trade it away. Another cost controlled asset is perfect.

Don't know why so many seem to think that the Oilers need scoring winger prospects. That's literally the only strength of their pipeline, scoring wingers and there's a lot of them if you want to include Maxsimov and Safin also.

Centers and puck moving Dmen is a barren wasteland in the Oilers system. I'd be really disappointed if the Oilers don't pick an offensive Dman with their 1st pick. This is their only chance to get a potential #1.

Speak of, can somebody with knowledge of this draft give me a rundown of the top offensive Dmen in this draft outside of Dahlin, strengths weaknesses etc. I see the names, I just don't know anything about them.

 

[Zaddy]

Landing Dahlin would be insane, don’t think that’s happening though. After Dahlin, I want us taking a forward, we need the help up front. Would personally pass on Boqvist in favour of Tkachuk, Sveshnikov, Zadina or Wahlstrom

Passing on Boqvist if he's available would be a huge mistake IMO. He's literally everything the Oilers have been missing for the past ... I don't know how many years. He carries some risk with him, but I'd be more than willing to take that risk for the skills he possesses. Only guy I'd take over him aside from Dahlin is Svechnikov and even then it'd be a tough decision to make. Both have tremendous upside.

 

[Zaddy]

Drool.

 

[OnTheBrink]

Drool.

Only thing that scares me with him is he relies on his wrister (which is very good) to score most of his goals, NHL players and goalies are going to be much more effective at shutting that down then any competition he has faced her. If he could develop a big slap shot to go along with it would really help his game. Think he has the vision, puck skills and skating to be a good top 4 OFD anyway, but if he could develop a big slap shot (and fill out of course) he has top pair potential.

 

[McDNicks17]

That Dahlin kid is alright.

 

[Hynh]

By my count the Oilers have drafted in the first round 47 times. Just 3 times they're taken a right handed defender. Compare that to twice taking a goalie.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Boqvist looks like a Tyson Barrie type. We could certainly use him but outside of Dahlin are there any defensemen that project to be 40 point #1 defensemen?

 

[McDNicks17]

Boqvist looks like a Tyson Barrie type. We could certainly use him but outside of Dahlin are there any defensemen that project to be 40 point #1 defensemen?

Tough to say.

I think Dahlin is the only slam dunk #1.

After him there's lots of offensive guys(Boqvist, Hughes, Merkley) who could become #1Ds if they develop a plus defensive game in the NHL and lots of two-way guys(Bouchard, Dobson, Smith, Woo) who would need to take a step forward as I don't think they quite have the "it" factor to potentially be #1Ds yet.

 

[Stud Muffin]

I think I'd Take all of Dahlin,Svechnikov,Zadina and Tkachuk over Boqvist

 

[Cerebral]

While drafting for need is sometimes silly, it makes sense when our core players are so young and locked up with the team somewhat long-term. I think it's clear we need one of two things:

1. A defenceman with offensive potential
2. A winger that can put the puck in the net

There are three elite options at winger - Zadina, Svechnikov, and Tkachuk. Any of the three would be attractive options to add to Puljujarvi and hopefully Yamamoto, but the elite offensive talent of Zadina and Svechnikov sure looks mouth-watering. After those three, most of the top-ranked forwards are centremen outside of Wahlstrom who could slide to the wing.

There are two elite defencemen available in Dahlin and Boqvist. Fortunately, there are a plethora of other top-ranked offensive defencemen who could be available if we don't slide down to the bottom 5 (which I suspect will be a long-shot).

Defenceman:
1. Quinn Hughes - 12 points in 18 games as a freshman at Michigan; left-shooting
2. Noah Dobson - 40 points in 43 games in the QMJHL; right-shooting and bigger
3. Bode Wilde - 6 points in 9 games in the USHL; left-shooting, bigger, and a huge shot
4. Ty Smith - 42 points in 43 games in the WHL; left-shooting, creative offensively
5. Evan Bouchard - 50 points in 42 games in the OHL; right-shooting, bigger

Any of those three would look great in the pipeline. I'm a little biased towards Ty Smith, because I watched him play at the Mac's tournament here in Calgary, but all five can put up some points and add some creativity to the blueline.

Long story short, while missing the playoffs totally sucks, at least there are some viable options that address needs assuming we draft in the top 12 or so.

 

[Zaddy]

I think I'd Take all of Dahlin,Svechnikov,Zadina and Tkachuk over Boqvist

Why? Three left-handed forwards. I mean, Zadina and Svechnikov are very alluring but I don't really see what any of them would bring to the Oilers that they don't already have or have had. Tkachuk is probably a Lucic type/level player or slightly better, Zadina an Eberle type/level player and Svechnikov a Hall type/level player. These guys don't add any new dimension to the Oilers.

A skilled offensive RHD like Boqvist on the other hand does change the dynamic of the team, and I would argue the Oilers are at that point now where they're not rebuilding anymore which means they have their core in place already and have to look for guys to complement it, especially when they are drafting high like they most likely will be this year.

Boqvist could be the missing piece, I don't think any of the forwards will be that. Maybe Svechnikov since he's a pretty good goal-scorer, but as a few people already have noted in this thread, the Oilers strength in the pipeline is actually on the wings with Puljujärvi, Yamamoto, Benson, Maksimov, Safin.

 

[belair]

Why? Three left-handed forwards. I mean, Zadina and Svechnikov are very alluring but I don't really see what any of them would bring to the Oilers that they don't already have or have had. Tkachuk is probably a Lucic type/level player or slightly better, Zadina an Eberle type/level player and Svechnikov a Hall type/level player. These guys don't add any new dimension to the Oilers.

A skilled offensive RHD like Boqvist on the other hand does change the dynamic of the team, and I would argue the Oilers are at that point now where they're not rebuilding anymore which means they have their core in place already and have to look for guys to complement it, especially when they are drafting high like they most likely will be this year.

Boqvist could be the missing piece, I don't think any of the forwards will be that. Maybe Svechnikov since he's a pretty good goal-scorer, but as a few people already have noted in this thread, the Oilers strength in the pipeline is actually on the wings with Puljujärvi, Yamamoto, Benson, Maksimov, Safin.

I like Bouchard's game, although I haven't seen much of the Swedes. Bouchard adds the physical element.