WarriorofTime
Registered User
- Jul 3, 2010
- 29,340
- 17,624
The Sweden 06s being no good is hardly surprising. That's been known for some time now. They didn't call up a single 06 for last year's U18s, and the group they brought to the Gretzky-Hlinka thing got worked by a USA B Team with zero experience together (compared to the Swedes who would have had some 20 games together the prior season).The people he spoke with seemed very low on the American players and everyone other than the Canadians, so either it's a terrible crop for every country other than Canada or as I suggested elsewhere he's lost his touch (after not really being active in hockey for a few years now) in accurately predicting the draft order. 18 Canadians seems like a lot. It doesn't seem to be a strong crop for any of the CHL leagues.
Number of Canadians last 6 drafts:
2023: 12
2022: 9
2021: 18
2020: 19
2019: 13
2018: 10
It's not unprecedented for 18, but it would need to be a very strong year. Some of these guys he has in the late first like Basha, Howe, Parascak, Beaudoin, Sennecke, Ritchie, Luchanko are bubble firsts. That they would all be ranked in the first again makes me think he's probably lost some of his contacts and doesn't have the best grasp. Probably easier for someone like him that he would keep his CHL contacts that would pump up the players in their region than his contacts in other leagues and countries, along with the senior scouts for teams that I'm not buying this is what their lists look like.
Whether they are too low on USNDTP kids right now is tough to say. Eiserman is still rated high and Hagens is the best player of the crop but a late birthday. All the WHL kids are just a product of the academies taking these kids in and making them professionals at like age 13. Certainly possible that some of the OHL kids are getting overrated and more of a default in the meatier parts of this ranking... especially if he's polling scouts located nearby, while more USHL kids and Europeans outside the obvious haven't been scouted that closely yet. The QMJHL kids continue to get no love from the scouts - Number 35, 52, 58, 74, and HM.