So here comes my round by round ranking and some notes:
Notes:
-So many right handed Defenders tis year.
-Many power-forward and great two-way forwards this season, rather few highly skilled guys.
-The Q really sucks this year
-The 2nd round is incredible close. There are lots of guys that could go from early 2nd to the mid/late third. So expect some big fallers and some big reaches. Especially the number of defenders in this group is crazy.
Round by round ranking:
1 Round (18th overall):
1A: Julius Honka
1B: Roland McKeown
2: Ivan Barbashev
3:Alex Tuch
All of them can go before our pick or could still be there. Honka has the higher upside than McKeown, but McKeown is the more complete defender and would be the better fit next to Hedman.
Barbashev is the prototype of a SY/Cooper forward and I expect him to be high on the list. I just like his the mix he brings. He has great upside as well. Tuch is different, he is a powerforward but has not the offensive upside. However he is still interesting for us. Tuch is not a SY player IMO and is not as good as Erne anyways. He is the most likely to be gone by our pick as well.
If neither of them is available (which is highly unlikely) we either find a real faller in our hands (from the top10) or should trade down to the late 20s.
Only way I see us trading up is if Hayden Fleury falls out of the top10, but considering he is only one of two defenders in there I highly doubt it.
1st Round (Rangers pick/ trade down):
1: Jack Glover
2: Nick Schmaltz
3: Jack Dougherty
4: Connor Bleakley
I love Glover and he might be a reach, but I think he has a great chance to break out big time and make many teams look foolish not to pick him. Schmaltz is a smaller super skilled forward, but he has great defensive abilities and could become a major two-way forward. Jack Dougherty is the saver defender compared to GLover, but I believe GLover has the higher ceiling (if both hit it). Connor Bleakley can do it all. Is a leader and does everything a forward can possibly do on the ice. But his ceiling is not super high. DOn't expect more than a 2nd/3rd liner from him. But he is still the guy everybody needs on their team to win Cups.
2nd round (both picks):
1: Brayden Point (F)
2: Travis Sanheim (D)
3: Adam Ollas-Mattsson (D)
4: Joshua Jacobs (D)
-Shane Eiserman (F)
-Aaron Hayden (D)
-Justin Kirkland (F)
-Warren Foegele (F)
Brayden Point is the guy to go for me. I absolutly love him and believe he can become the next Johnson for us (at least what he brings to the ice). I pray that we take him. After that the 2nd round is loaded with defenders, especially defensive defenders. Out of all I (and some great scouts as well) believe Sanheim is the guy that has the highest ceiling and has shown the abilities to push his offesnive game to a new level.
Eiserman would be a great LW powerforward, Foegele is this years Jankowski, which is still a good 2nd round pick and Kirkland is a project power forward with a sky high potential (for a power forward), but also with a hell lot of work to do.
3rd Round:
1: Vladislav Kamenev (F)
2: Ryan Rehill (D)
3: Noah Rod (F)
Honestly I love all three and am really high on them. Obviously I would love to have two or three 3rd rounders to get them all, but I doubt that happens, so for now I just hope we get at least one of them.
Kamenev is a russian shutdown forward (yeah thats as rare as it gets) and if he can learn to produce more, he would become an amazing two-way guy that everybody will be jealous about. Rehill is 6'3 Gudas, however he is only 18 so he could easily become a better overall defender than Gudas is. Noh Rod seems to have a lot Callahan in him.
All three are not exactly steals in the third and could easily slip to the 4th (god I hope one does), but I love them and hope we draft one. But if a great defender out of the 2nd slips down to our third, I wouldn't say no either.
4th Round:
Either one of the guys above or those guys:
1: Eetu Sopanen (D)
- Gavin Bayreuther (D)
- William Lagesson (D)
- Karson Kuhlman (F)
- Brendan Lemieux (F)
- Daniel Audette (F)
- Juho Lammikko (F)
Very different players here, Sopanen is by far the best player out of those guys, but he has major injury concerns. If he would be injury free he would at least go in the 2nd round maybe even higher.
Everything from agitator (Lemieux) over undersized skilled guy (Audette) to two-way defender (Lagesson) and offensive defender (Bayreuther).
5th-7th Round:
- Alexei Sleptsov (D)
- Reid Duke (F)
- Dmitri Yudin (D)
- Igo Shesterkin (G)
- Brandon Montour (D)
- Matt Murphy (D)
- August Gunnarsson (F)
- Edgars Kulda (F)
- Elvis Merzlikins (G)
Very different players here, however don't expect any of them with us, they seem all like decent fits and interesing project picks, but there are just sooo many potential guys for the later 90 picks and even more that could get drafted or maybe not.
Anyways I am happy about any guy we draft that were on my lists.
Also keep in mind I never saw any of the players live and have only used cost free reports. And I have done almost no research on Swedish forwards as every one of them seems to play the same kind of game and I really wasn't able to see differences between them. But Murray and SY don't draft Sweds anyway.
I hope you guys got some interesting reads about the guys and were able to read everything (rereading my posts today I really made some god awful mistakes...).
