Early Look at the 2019 NHL Draft - LWOH Rankings and Early Report

[LastWordArmy]

It may be early and there is still a full year of hockey to be played, likely leading to a lot of movement between these rankings and where players end up at the end of next season, but still, let’s take a look and preview the 2019 NHL Draft. The 2018 class has been criticized for the lack of high-end centres available but featured an abundance of talented puck-moving defencemen. At this point, the 2019 draft class looks to be a reverse of that trend.

Early Look at the 2019 NHL Draft - Last Word on Hockey

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[ijuka]

Outside of Honka's exclusion, the biggest problem here is having Kaapo Kakko's scoring as a 55 points in 38 games lump sum, being called the Finnish u20 league. He scored 32 points in 26 games in the qualifying series(fall) and 23 points in 12 games in the lower series(spring). He did not play a single game in the actual Nuorten SM-Liiga and his numbers are very inflated as a result, if compared to players who actually did. Nuorten SM-Liiga and Nuorten SM-Liiga alempi jatkosarja aren't even close to being the same thing, one's around twice as easy to score in. Examples are numerous, but in addition to Kakko we can for instance look at someone like Samuli Vainionpää. In the qualifying, he scored 17 points in 29 games. In the lower series, he scored 24 points in 18 games. So his scoring more than doubled. On the other hand, players tend to have a dip in scoring when they enter the actual Nuorten SM-Liiga(upper series).

 

[Hokinaittii]

Outside of Honka's exclusion, the biggest problem here is having Kaapo Kakko's scoring as a 55 points in 38 games lump sum, being called the Finnish u20 league. He scored 32 points in 26 games in the qualifying series(fall) and 23 points in 12 games in the lower series(spring). He did not play a single game in the actual Nuorten SM-Liiga and his numbers are very inflated as a result, if compared to players who actually did. Nuorten SM-Liiga and Nuorten SM-Liiga alempi jatkosarja aren't even close to being the same thing, one's around twice as easy to score in. Examples are numerous, but in addition to Kakko we can for instance look at someone like Samuli Vainionpää. In the qualifying, he scored 17 points in 29 games. In the lower series, he scored 24 points in 18 games. So his scoring more than doubled. On the other hand, players tend to have a dip in scoring when they enter the actual Nuorten SM-Liiga(upper series).

32 points in 26 games is still pretty solid considering he had some smallish injuries in the the Fall. Also, his points per game ratio to his teammates is one of the biggest when comparing to the other top u-17 scorers in the past, which would indicate he hardly had any real support in scoring. If I recall right, since 2010 only the Granlund brothers had more impressive U-17 numbers when taking into account how they produced compared to their teammates.

Not to mention, Kakko's game is much more than just pure offence. He is one of the most responsible players I've seen at that age. He doesn't cheat for the sake of offence. Also, he seemed to play PK in his club team and did fairly well, so he might become a regular PK killer in a few years which should only increase his stocks in the eyes of scouts.

But yeah, TL;DR I personally feel like Kakko is a lot better prospect than his point totals in club team indicate, as we saw in U-18, there were not many players more impressive than him out there. When you add his character (he is well known for his perseverance amongst his teammates), he should have a real bright future ahead of him and it should not be out of the question for him to be even the #2 overall pick of his draft.

 

[Vide]

I really like this list.

 

[Dominance]

Hopefully it works out like this. It would be nice to get back to the days of 10 Canadians being picked in the first 15 of the draft. This list is probably heavily NA-centric, though, as most early draft lists are; there always seem to be at least 2 or 3 Finnish or Swedish guys that jump up the rankings.

 

[LastWordArmy]

Hopefully it works out like this. It would be nice to get back to the days of 10 Canadians being picked in the first 15 of the draft. This list is probably heavily NA-centric, though, as most early draft lists are; there always seem to be at least 2 or 3 Finnish or Swedish guys that jump up the rankings.

I fully expect Europeans to jump in the rankings as we get more viewings of them as the season goes on. It is a limitation that we are exposed to more North Americans at age 16 than Europeans at this point.

Unfortunately the exact rankings do have limitations now, but we try to give accurate reports on the players we have seen. Thats where the real value lies at this point IMO

 

[Kevin Musto]

Not sold on Byram at all. No way he's the top D in the draft.

Also this article says Murray's skating is a positive, but every time I watch him play he looks very slow. His positioning is good though. Tends to be in the right place at the right time.

 

[93LEAFS]

Again, no Cajkovic?

 

[lawrence]

Not sold on Byram at all. No way he's the top D in the draft.

Also this article says Murray's skating is a positive, but every time I watch him play he looks very slow. His positioning is good though. Tends to be in the right place at the right time.

his playoff performance might have boosted his stock. that said just a early list. who do you think is the top ranked d in this draft?

 

[LastWordArmy]

Again, no Cajkovic?

The only exposure we've had at this point is the Under 18. We try not to rank a player unless we have had multiple viewings, and ideally at different points in the year to see some change, and not just get focused on a hot streak.

Once he gets to Saint John, I'm sure we'll see a lot more and have a better handle on where to rank him in our November update.

 

[Kevin Musto]

his playoff performance might have boosted his stock. that said just a early list. who do you think is the top ranked d in this draft?

I honestly haven't seen enough yet, but from what I've seen of Byram, he shouldn't even go top 10. Maybe Cam York? It's hard to say since it's the forwards that are really shining right now.