GDT: NHL Entry Draft | Day 2

[Hansen]

Lockhart drafted 3rd overall in the OHL entry draft. Is this particularly good? Do high CHL drafting usually pan out in the NHL or are they not really that big to look into?

Its all over the place, but he produced at a respectable rate as a rookie in the OHL and then couldnt even play last season. Who knows where he could be at this season

 

[VIPettersson]

Lucas Forsell

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Ya Forsell is fine there.

 

[RealGudbranson]

Lucas Forsell

One of the youngest in the draft... I think.

 

[Saturated Fats]

EDIT: I was too slow

 

[The Vasili Jerry]

Commercial

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Our 7th rounder is Lucas Forsell, a winger from Farjestad's junior team.

Got a cup of coffee in the SHL as well. Not too bad for a 7th.

 

[MS]

Its all over the place, but he produced at a respectable rate as a rookie in the OHL and then couldnt even play last season. Who knows where he could be at this season

Yup. He had very solid production as a 16 y/o. This could be a guy who would have done a Seth Jarvis or Marco Rossi and blown into the two two rounds of the draft. Or he could have scored 45 points and not been drafted. We have no idea.

But the odds this player is a home run are far higher than for your typical Euro jr. guy (like our other picks) who had a pretty normal season and is a pretty normal 6th round longshot.

It's a weird draft and from rounds 2-7 I probably would have gone entirely CHL. The Canucks did the exact opposite and aside from one pick went with all 'known quantities' they could scout from Europe. To me it was a backward, incorrect strategy.

 

[Tonystretcher]

Sounds like they did well with the picks they had. Just so disappointing having so few picks… yet again

 

[geebaan]

Love the Lockhart pick, not stocked on any of the others

 

[Melvin]

Yup. He had very solid production as a 16 y/o. This could be a guy who would have done a Seth Jarvis or Marco Rossi and blown into the two two rounds of the draft. Or he could have scored 45 points and not been drafted. We have no idea.

But the odds this player is a home run are far higher than for your typical Euro jr. guy (like our other picks) who had a pretty normal season and is a pretty normal 6th round longshot.

It's a weird draft and from rounds 2-7 I probably would have gone entirely CHL.

I'm with you. If you have a pool of players with some data that all look pretty meh, and a pool of players with *no data* where they could be anything, you 100% take from the second pool.

 

[RebuildinVan]

The Canes vs Nucks last 3 years:

Carolina last 3 years = 32 picks + 13 next year ... 6th best team in the NHL by points

Canucks last years = 20 picks + 5 next year ... 25th best team in the NHL by points

Benning better hope he's winning a cup in the next 2 years.

Baffling....I just dont get it

 

[Melvin]

With the lack of data available for this years draft, this was 100% the year to go in with a million 3rd and 4th rounders and use them all on CHL guys who didn’t play a game last year. You will never have another chance like that to potentially take the best Canadian in the draft at some absurd low position because of the lack of information.

Instead we go in with no picks in the top 100 and take a bunch of Euro prospects. Just so backwards. Everything we do is so backwards.

 

[MS]

I'm with you. If you have a pool of players with some data that all look pretty meh, and a pool of players with *no data* where they could be anything, you 100% take from the second pool.

Absolutely.

If you're taking normal players who had a normal season, outside of the very odd Garland/Gallagher exception, there is a 0% chance you'll be getting a top-2 round quality player in the mid-late rounds. You're getting what you're getting and hoping for future development.

If you're taking guys who didn't have a season, there might be a 5% chance you're hitting a home run on a guy who would have had a major breakout. Which is huge.

If you go to the 2020 draft and look at where the guys would have been ranked if no 19-20 season happened, guys like Quinn/Jarvis/Foerster amongst many others would have been mid-late round picks and absolute home runs for whoever got them at that spot.

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Gonna be some decent guys to camp invite... hoping Almqvist makes it through

 

[MS]

With the lack of data available for this years draft, this was 100% the year to go in with a million 3rd and 4th rounders and use them all on CHL guys who didn’t play a game last year. You will never have another chance like that to potentially take the best Canadian in the draft at some absurd low position because of the lack of information.

Instead we go in with no picks in the top 100 and take a bunch of Euro prospects. Just so backwards. Everything we do is so backwards.

100%

The absolute complete, wrong, totally incorrect strategy to extract value from a very unique draft.

 

[tiny103]

well that was fun. I think I have one OHL player to go watch from this draft right?

 

[beachcomber]

100%

The absolute complete, wrong, totally incorrect strategy to extract value from a very unique draft.

Too early to make any judgement like that.

 

[VanJack]

As a casual fan, you might as well be throwing darts at a board from a distance to try and figure out whether any of these guys represent value picks in the later rounds.

Just off the top of my head, the Finnish goalie Aku Koskenuvo looks like a bit of steal....probably an Ian Clark special. Big, 6'4" rangy goalie who looked good in the U-18's.

And Connor Lockhart might be a good gamble in Round #6. Was poised to have a big year in the OHL but ended up not playing a single game. An example of a kid whose draft stock really took a hit as a result of the Pandemic.

 

[MS]

Too early to make any judgement like that.

Not really.

This isn't scouting. It's math and logic.

Just looking at what would have happened in any previous draft were these unique circumstances in place tells you immediately there would have been a pile of guys who ended up going in the top 2 rounds from the CHL who would have instead gone much, much later because of the lack of data. These will be by far the highest-value picks in the draft when it flushes out fully, and a smart team trying to extract value would very obviously have been chasing those players.

 

[Tryamkin]

What a fantastic day 2 for Jim. I see a lot of negativity surrounding this draft, but if we ignore trading away multiple picks, the drafting was very solid in my honest opinion.

Huge fan of Connor Lockhart, he has middle six written all over him. Hidden on a mediocre Erie Otters team, he hadn't had the start he wanted in the OHL last year, but he boasts a great multi-level offensive threat, able to create plays and also finish them.

Lucas Forsell is a hidden gem I had ranked at #102 and he's a dynamic winger that has big potential. He will 100% get some time with Farjestad in the SHL next year and could be an NHL talent if developed properly.

Hugo Gabrielson is another player I had ranked higher than the Canucks selected him at. He played with Simon Edvinsson at Frolunda and was slightly overshadowed, but he can QB a PP and projects as a 4/5 dman.

I didn't do much goaltender scouting but Aku Koskenvuo has a good frame to be a goalie in the NHL and we know what Ian Clark can do.

Jonathan Myrenberg is a defender who played the season split between the top flight U20 division and the Men's third tiered HockeyEttan. He is a terrific skater and has a decent shot but lacks any sort of Quinn Hughes esque vision or creativity. Could be a bottom pairing defender.

 

[Bitz and Bites]

With the lack of data available for this years draft, this was 100% the year to go in with a million 3rd and 4th rounders and use them all on CHL guys who didn’t play a game last year. You will never have another chance like that to potentially take the best Canadian in the draft at some absurd low position because of the lack of information.

Instead we go in with no picks in the top 100 and take a bunch of Euro prospects. Just so backwards. Everything we do is so backwards.

That would have been an excellent strategy. Even if it meant trading down a couple times from our second and once from our fifth round picks, it would really increase the odds of getting a real steal in the late rounds.

 

[Melvin]

That would have been an excellent strategy. Even if it meant trading down a couple times from our second and once from our fifth round picks, it would really increase the odds of getting a real steal in the late rounds.

The more uncertainty there is, the more valuable it is to be picking later in the draft. Trading down, scooping up low picks and using all of them on mystery boxes is quite clearly the smartest thing to do.

 

[VanJack]

What a fantastic day 2 for Jim. I see a lot of negativity surrounding this draft, but if we ignore trading away multiple picks, the drafting was very solid in my honest opinion.

Huge fan of Connor Lockhart, he has middle six written all over him. Hidden on a mediocre Erie Otters team, he hadn't had the start he wanted in the OHL last year, but he boasts a great multi-level offensive threat, able to create plays and also finish them.

Lucas Forsell is a hidden gem I had ranked at #102 and he's a dynamic winger that has big potential. He will 100% get some time with Farjestad in the SHL next year and could be an NHL talent if developed properly.

Hugo Gabrielson is another player I had ranked higher than the Canucks selected him at. He played with Simon Edvinsson at Frolunda and was slightly overshadowed, but he can QB a PP and projects as a 4/5 dman.

I didn't do much goaltender scouting but Aku Koskenvuo has a good frame to be a goalie in the NHL and we know what Ian Clark can do.

Jonathan Myrenberg is a defender who played the season split between the top flight U20 division and the Men's third tiered HockeyEttan. He is a terrific skater and has a decent shot but lacks any sort of Quinn Hughes esque vision or creativity. Could be a bottom pairing defender.

Canucks Army was all over Koskenuvo....rated him the best value pick goalie in the entire draft, and predicted he'd definitely be a target for the Canucks. In Ian Clark we trust.

 

[WishfulThinker]

I personally would have gone for more homerun swings, but at least they got 1 player like Lockhart.

Bad analogy but it feels better having Lotto Max tickets in your pocket rather than a bunch of half cleared 'promising' scratch and wins.

I do understand though that there are players on the other side of the spectrum that have a great d-2 season and that regress in their d-1 and onward. A guy like Raty would have been a top draft pick this year for example.