Thanks, bud.
I'd like to read more on each of these. What sites do you suggest?
Also, why can't we get a definite position attributed to certain Russian players? How can it be with so many media sources that we don't know if your 28th ranked Iskhakov is a center or not? For instance, in this tweet, forward Shaffigullin is referred to as a "LW" by Steve Kournianos:
Isn't Kournianos someone we can trust?
Second, at what point do you stop going for a BPA? Would you go full out targeting centers in the 2nd round as there you're ranking a ton of them there.
Third, within your rankings' depth, we own the 35th, 38th, 56th and 59th overall picks.
Noticing that from your suggested player no. 29 (maybe even from player no. 28 if we can get confirmation on the player's position) up to and including player no. 44, there are 10 centers that you rank as potential targets. And again, when we see your rankings from player no. 54 up to and including player no. 62, you've got 7 centers ranked in that bracket. Overall, 15 out of the 31 players you rank for the 2nd round, are centers. What's the best strategy when so many are ranked or expected to go within this round?
Finally, which players are your dark horses -- your high reward types? Your personal favorites?
Thanks in advance, always enjoy your input.
There's a lot of information on the players if you simply google their name and "hfboards", most will have their own prospect forum pages and people will post Youtube clips, Twitter commentary. There's the main scouting services such as Red Line Report (used to have articles in USA Today but they haven't been around this year), ISS (size lovers), NHL CSS, but mainly what I do if I want more information is google that player and 'scouting report', you will get some fluff articles from their teams pages, wanna-be scout sites, but some legit scout sites, I almost always have 3-5 viewings of a prospect before I really read those reports so if it's a site I haven't been to before, I can tell if they are an idiot. For example, if someone questions Kupari's skating, I know their scouting report is garbage because I've seen him enough to know that he's one of the best skaters in the draft.
As far as Russians positions are concerned, the Russians will play in multiple leagues.. there's the junior league MHL, there's the VHL, there's the KHL, and then of course there are nation tournaments. So Iskhakov plays in some of those events as a C and others he plays as a W, so some services or sites will just list them lazily as a F. I wouldn't get too hung up on the label of a player's position since for most junior leagues, the best players are C's, it's more about evaluating their skill set. So if we use Iskhakov as a comparison.. Skill wise, he's absolutely a C, but he's very, very small and in today's NHL, there's not too many sub 5'11 C's, so chances are, he's going to play W at the next level. If you're evaluating a player for whether or not they are a C, you're going to want to see someone who has good skating, will play all 200 ft of the ice, controls the puck well, passes the puck to players in good positions, gains the zone with authority, things like that.
I don't ever stop going for BPA. I pretty much rank players in terms of what I believe their ultimate upside to be, but I will take off points in my rankings for things like size because it still matters to a degree. If I went on pure offensive skills, Ruslan Iskhakov may actually be one of the top players in the draft, but he's just soooo tiny, you have to penalize him for that, then you add in the Russian factor and he's going to drop lower than his overall talent level will indicate. A lot of players I list as C's, like I said in the earlier paragraph, will never line up at C when they graduate from juniors. So I just take the most talented forwards or defense as I rank them and go from there.
There's really no strategy, you make your list according to who you like the best, who you feel projects the best at the next level and who has the most skills to work with. I don't believe in selecting the Pezzeta's in the world. I can find them as junior/NCAA free agents, I can pick them up for cheap at the trade deadline and I can sign them off free agency. Most of the time, a talented junior player who had offensive upside, if they don't pan out, have the size, skating and smarts to translate into a bottom line player anyways. I've never seen a complete piece of shit suddenly learn how to score or read offensive situations with high IQ, the players who are steals are usually under-exposed, they hit a growth spurt, find their man strength, gain their confidence after a year or two in the league, or are buried on good teams and don't get enough time to show what they have.
My personal favorites in the draft outside of the top two (Dahlin, Svech)
Adam Boqvist
Oliver Wahlstrom
Akil Thomas
Ty Smith
Filip Hallander
Jacob Olofsson
Rasmus Sandin
Alexander Alexeyev
Nils Lundkvist
Bulat Shafigullin (Darkhorse)
Ruslan Iskhakov (darkhorse)
Jonatan Berggren
Ty Dellandrea
Blake McLaughlin
Cameron Hillis
Ivan Morozov
Danila Zhuravlyov
Semyon Der-Arguchintsev
Jacob Ragnarsson
Jan Jenik
Axel Andersson
Niklas Nordgren
Matej Pekar
Alexander Steeves
Pavel Gogolev
Vladislav Yeryomenko
Yegor Sharangovich
Jesper Myrenberg
Chase Wouters
Brendan Budy
Angus Crookshank
Bogdan Zhilyakov
Karel Plasek
Alexander Romanov
Carl Wassenius
Samuel Ersson
Jack Lagerstrom
Chase Hartje
There's a few more but I haven't solidified the entire back half of my list yet, so more work for me to do.