Draftin Europe 2024 Top 10

[Draftin Europe]

We released a few days ago our pre-season rankings as part of the 2023 Summer Blue Dispatch.

Sticking to the 2024 draft in this thread, here is the top of our list ahead of the Hlinka.

You can check out the Top 10 here: 2024 Draft – pre-Hlinka Top 20 – Draftin Europe

As usual, it's a EU-based list, which means the top 20 included in the publication roughly covers the first two rounds, whereas those in the Top 10 enters the season as 1st round candidates for us.

For different reasons, none of the players in the above top 5 will be there at the Hlinka, but there will be 3 or 4 attending from our top 10, and we have covered a lot of the players that will be there for Czechia, Finland and Sweden.

Feel free to ask questions about the rankings, or any clarification

Click to read more...

 

[dr1234]

Awesome list! As someone who hasn’t seen much of either, what sets Surin apart from Chernyshov?

Anyone who just barely made the cut?

 

[Erikfromfin]

As always liked the dispatch. Couple rankings stood out was almost blown to my arse seeing Mitja Jokinen that high. Lightweight if not featherweight defender but with good skating and played solid U18 but that was surprising. I also see issues in Hemming game but by pure talent he should be top 10 Finns. Also started well scoring 2 nice goals vs Finland U19. I also like Heikki Ruohonen could have been mentioned.

Offtopic regards 2025 draft was surprised how low Orpana was. His skating isn't fast and only played U16SM but I think his highly skilled center with strong twoway game. Id rather build team around him than teammate Joki or Mensonen etc. You guys don't like Aaron Paju? also Aapo Vanninen could have been mentioned and theres also defender Victor Björkenheim that I like.

 

[Draftin Europe]

Awesome list! As someone who hasn’t seen much of either, what sets Surin apart from Chernyshov?

Thanks, glad you like it!
I’d say the difference in having Surin ahead was the way they’ve been trending through the past season.
Surin was a talented player going into his first MHL season and kept growing during the year, with the best viewings coming in the playoffs.

Chernyshov is 8 months older and had his breakthrough in the first part of 2022 after a quite sudden growth spurt that changed the dynamics of his game, it was pretty impressive to see. This season we haven’t noticed much progress from where he left at the end of 2021/22, when he raised high expectations. I guess it didn’t help that he missed the playoffs.
Still a quality prospect, in the same tier as Surin at the moment, curious to see who will deserve a higher ranking come draft time.

Anyone who just barely made the cut?

i.e.? just inside the top 20?

 

[Draftin Europe]

As always liked the dispatch.

Already read it all?

Couple rankings stood out was almost blown to my arse seeing Mitja Jokinen that high. Lightweight if not featherweight defender but with good skating and played solid U18 but that was surprising. I also see issues in Hemming game but by pure talent he should be top 10 Finns. Also started well scoring 2 nice goals vs Finland U19. I also like Heikki Ruohonen could have been mentioned.

With Jokinen the idea is that he won't be featherweighted forever. I think the way he was able to compete with his current frame was really encouraging.
Hemming, right now he is obviously ahead of most 06 Finns we have ranked, but the main reason seems to be that he is already a powerful player unlike most of his peers.
He has decent puck skills and a big shot that allows him to put up big numbers against weak competition, but how much is there beyond that? and not sure how much room for growth is there and how he'll adapt against stronger players.
Ruohonen did catch my eye a few times, I can agree he is probably in the same tier of other players we mentioned. I wonder about his upside and how much offense is there, though.

 

[Draftin Europe]

Offtopic regards 2025 draft was surprised how low Orpana was. His skating isn't fast and only played U16SM but I think his highly skilled center with strong twoway game. Id rather build team around him than teammate Joki or Mensonen etc. You guys don't like Aaron Paju? also Aapo Vanninen could have been mentioned and theres also defender Victor Björkenheim that I like.

I am not sure I should answer this here and end up mixing up 2024 and 2025 prospects discussions.
Maybe there is another thread where this should belong instead?

Btw, I forgot to mention that for those interested there is a free podcast avalable where we introduced this release some time ago:

The Pilot by Amateur Scoutin Europe: A Hockey Podcast

EP1: We welcome guests Mik Portoni of Draftin Europe, Chapin Landvogt of McKeen's and the IIHF, and Rob Love, the Head of Business Development at Elite Prospects. In Segment 1, European Draft Buzz, Mik and I discuss why we prefer Matvei over Leo; Mik breaks down the top European prospects for...

podcasters.spotify.com

There is some draft talk mixed in, but the first part of that episode is for the most about top prospects for 2024 and 2025.

 

[Draftin Europe]

Offtopic regards 2025 draft was surprised how low Orpana was. His skating isn't fast and only played U16SM but I think his highly skilled center with strong twoway game. Id rather build team around him than teammate Joki or Mensonen etc. You guys don't like Aaron Paju? also Aapo Vanninen could have been mentioned and theres also defender Victor Björkenheim that I like.

Just going to reply here since I wasn't re-directed elsewhere.

First off, couldn't find notes from last season on Vanninen & Björkenheim, turned out they didn't play in what we'd consider the main intl events/tests and we didn't have access to the few games they did play last season with the national team. So don't make anything of their omission, we have yet to start evaluating them.

Orpana, skilled enough to generate at the level he is playing now, but doubt he is to the point to remain able to create consistently when he moves forward and he is a below-average skater, so I think he would need to improve his skating. He is certainly more mature and ready than Mensonen though.
Joki seems the safest bet out of the three to become at least a useful pro, with Mensonen being at the other end of that as the biggest question mark.

Paju, he is a defenseman that in our viewings looked solid until he was confronted with situations where he had less time and space to execute and find solutions, that's where we thought he showed limitations. Hopefully he can get a bit quicker in his game.

 

[Czechboy]

Who would be the third highest Czech after jiricek and galvas? Do jiricek and galvas project as first rounders?

 

[Draftin Europe]

Who would be the third highest Czech after jiricek and galvas? Do jiricek and galvas project as first rounders?

Dominik Badinka is our 3rd ranked Czech going into the season.

And yeah, Jiricek is ranked in the 1st round by pretty much anyone and we are no different for that matter, but we also have Galvas as a 1st round talent. Hopefully he will develop enough physically through the season to be able to confirm he belongs there.

 

[Czechboy]

Dominik Badinka is our 3rd ranked Czech going into the season.

And yeah, Jiricek is ranked in the 1st round by pretty much anyone and we are no different for that matter, but we also have Galvas as a 1st round talent. Hopefully he will develop enough physically through the season to be able to confirm he belongs there.

So 3 D!

I've been joking that galvas is our second best forward behind benak. Tyson barrie incoming

 

[Draftin Europe]

So 3 D!

I've been joking that galvas is our second best forward behind benak. Tyson barrie incoming

if you mean Galvas is going to be one-dimensional, hopefully not. Especially when he may not have enough offense to make up for that. But that's not how we see him.

Also, Barrie could probably only wish to be able to skate like Galvas

 

[hockeyprospects9]

@Draftin Europe what’s going on with your website?

 

[theslatcher]

SSL certificate expired 23 days ago, gotta get that renewed.

 

[Draftin Europe]

@Draftin Europe what’s going on with your website?

Sorry about that issue, took a while to get it fixed. For whatever reason when the certificate thing was (only apparently) fixed it was working in Switzerland but not elsewhere, so it took some time to realize the issue was not really solved.
To make things worse I didn't check these forums for a while (not sure how I didn't notice your tag when I did, apologies).
Eventually we figured it out and hopefully now it will keep renewing automatically like it was supposed to.

Anyway, will try to make up for that in this new thread:

Draftin Europe pre-U18s Ranking (top 2 rounds)

Hello everyone, we released days ago our updated list for the 2024 Entry Draft: https://www.draftineu.net/2024/04/2024-draft-pre_u18-top-2-rounds/ This ranking includes all players (22) that got assigned top-2 round value in our overall projection heading into the U18 World Championships. As...

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