Steven has sent me his detailed prediction of how the first round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft should play out. The first ten picks have been covered in this post, while picks 11-20 and 21-30 will be covered in posts this week. Enjoy, and comment away ... - Ian
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| The stage where Bettman gets booed |
What the 2014 draft lacks in sheer sparkle, it makes up for
in intrigue. It is difficult to recall a draft with a greater amount of the
proverbial “boom or bust” prospect, and major draft ratings bureaus are
absolutely all over the board with some of these young players. While it is not
uncommon to see, for example, the ISS
rank a player at 8th and the Red Line Report rank that same player
at 18th, the 2014 draft has players ranked in the top ten on one
draft board and not until the mid-second round on another. This rare occurrence
is relatively unique to this draft.
The class of 2014 also contains an aberrant amount of
highly-skilled but undersized forwards. While this serves as a testament to the
NHL’s moving away from a more physical but lumbering game and towards a
speedier and more skill-oriented product, the sheer number of players in the
Patrick Kane and Martin St. Louis molds is somewhat staggering: William
Nylander, Nikolaj Ehlers, Robby Fabbri, Sonny Milano, Josh Ho-Sang, Nick
Schmaltz, Jakub Vrana, Kasperi Kapanen, Brayden Point and so on. While all of
these players have top-ten pick-worthy NHL skill, none of them have ideal size
and it is possible to project them being selected anywhere from the top-five
until late in the second round.
Lastly, a note on mock drafts. While I am generally more
accurate than some purported sports-media outlets (ESPN? You hear? Maybe stick
to fluff stories on LeBron’s toe-nail clipper and Johnny Manziel’s iPod
playlist and leave the sports-writing to the non-lobotomized ), the purpose of
my writing this is not to prove myself as some modern-day Nostradamus. It is
generally geared to give the reader a ballpark idea of where players will be
drafted, along with descriptions of the skill-sets they offer and the
corresponding needs of the teams which will be drafting them. So, without
further ado…
1) Florida Panthers
The Team: Panthers’
GM Dale Tallon has been heavily rumored to be shopping this pick. In a draft
short on high-end defensemen, the Barrie Colts’ young blueline phenom Aaron
Ekblad has several teams kicking the tires on what it would take to entice him
to deal the top overall pick. Several teams have been rumored to be offering
their own first-round picks along with established players in order to move up
to the top pick, among them Edmonton, Toronto and Carolina.
The Pick: D Aaron
Ekblad, Barrie, OHL The Panthers are set at center for the foreseeable
future with young studs Sasha Barkov and Nick Bjugstad. Their in-season trade
for Roberto Luongo solidified their goaltending situation. Though they have a
good deal of second and third pairing young talent on the blueline with Erik
Gudbranson, Dylan Olsen, Ian McCoshen and Mike Matheson – what they truly lack
is a bona fide #1 stud to build their defense corps around. Ekblad represents
exactly that: a 6’4”, 230 lb. behemoth with terrific skating ability, the
hockey sense and demeanor of an NHL veteran, and a slap-shot from the point
which registers on the Richter Scale. It might be wiser for the Panthers to
eschew all trade possibilities and just draft this burgeoning star with Chris
Pronger-like upside.
2) Buffalo Sabres
The Team: The
Sabres’ aggressive rebuilding effort has yielded a bounty of young talent and
draft picks which have many people thinking they are just a few years away from
becoming the next Chicago Blackhawks or Pittsburgh Penguins. Their 2013 draft-table
bonanza landed them not one but two franchise defensemen in Nikita Zadorov and
Rasmus Ristolainen, along with a young Ryan Callahan-clone in J.T. Compher.
What they need now is a franchise center to build their top-line around, and
the second overall pick should leave them a trio of such players to choose
from.
The Pick: C Sam
Reinhart, Kootenay, WHL The general scouting consensus has the top two
centers as being a toss-up choice of Sams. The WHL’s Sam Reinhart is a sublime
talent who reminds us of Adam Oates – he is an outstanding passer who plays a
responsible two-way game with virtually no weaknesses. The OHL’s Sam Bennett is
a gritty wolverine on skates who reminds virtually everyone of Doug Gilmour –
he is an outstanding playmaker who will just as soon go through an opponent as
around them despite his modest stature. Though Buffalo has been rumored in the
hockey media to be leaning towards Bennett, we say here they go for Reinhart –
a more NHL-ready product who is more likely to stay up the middle than Bennett,
who many foresee as best utilized on the left wing.
3) Edmonton Oilers
The Team: Despite
numerous high draft picks in the past decade (including three top overall
picks), the Oilers have built a team which lacks size and speed and does not
seem even on the verge of competing for a Stanley Cup. New Edmonton GM Craig
MacTavish has done a fine job repairing their gaping hole in net with the
promising duo of Ben Scrivens and Viktor Fasth, but the Oilers still need a #1
defenseman and a #1 center with size, two core-building elements which are very
difficult to come by in today’s NHL. Edmonton has been heavily rumored to be
hot after Florida’s top overall pick with the idea of taking Ekblad to build
the defense around, dangling the third overall pick and the extremely talented
but equivalently mismanaged forward Nail Yakupov as bait.
The Pick: C Leon Draisaitl, Prince Albert, OHL If
Ekblad and Reinhart go one-two as we predict, the Oilers will be faced with a
choice of Sam Bennett or Leon Draisaitl. Though not necessarily better, Draisaitl is bigger (6’2”, 205
lbs) and stronger than Bennett (6’0”, 175 lbs) and fills a franchise need for
size up the middle while also offering the talent and tools necessary to become
an absolute force in the NHL. A virtual lock to be the highest-drafted
German-born player in the history of the NHL, Draisaitl is a two-way beast who
is a master at protecting the puck in traffic. Often compared to Anze Kopitar,
Draisaitl actually lacks that sort of skating speed, which may the only knock
on his game. However, the young German has more of a mean streak, a quality the
Oilers desperately covet on their scoring lines.
4) Calgary Flames
The Team: Newly
appointed GM Brad Treliving hopes to give some stability to a Calgary front
office which has lacked it for quite some time. He comes from a Phoenix
organization which built teams based on skating speed and defensive acumen. In
order to achieve this, the Flames are going to need to find themselves a
franchise netminder in the near future, but Treliving inherits a franchise with
some intriguing pieces to work with. On the blueline, Mark Giordano and T.J.
Brodie have established themselves as a top pairing to build around. At wing,
there is terrific talent in the pipeline with Sven Baertschi, Morgan Klimchuk,
Emile Poirier and the undersized but sublimely skilled Johnny Gaudreau. Most
importantly, the 2013 draft landed them a franchise center in blooming
superstar Sean Monahan.
The Pick: C/LW Sam
Bennett, Kingston, OHL The Flames were the organization which developed and
won a Stanley Cup with the great Doug Gilmour, and they would be thrilled to
draft a player considered to be the second coming of the Hall-of-Famer. Bennett
plays the game with an infectious tenacity and a motor which never stops, he is
like a cyborg wolverine on skates. He never gives up on a puck in the offensive
or defensive zone, making him impossible to not love for a fan, coach or
teammate. What makes him rare is that his third-line digger heart is in the
body of ridiculously talented player. Bennett’s creativity with the puck is
astounding, his wrist shot is like heat-seeking laser beam, and he can skate
the lights out. This generation of fans never had the pleasure of seeing Doug
Gilmour play hockey -- we’re saying here they will get to see this very similar
player in the same jersey Gilmour began his career in.
5) New York Islanders
The Team: Okay,
this is the Islanders. Take the worst trade your favorite team has ever made –
the Islanders have made ten trades that bad in the past decade. The latest was
the Tomas Vanek debacle – (somehow an NHL) GM Garth Snow gave up the very good
Matt Moulson along with a first and second round draft pick to rent the
one-dimensional scorer for a few months and then held out too long at the
trading deadline before shipping him off to Montreal for equivalently as much
as the Sabres received for Moulson. Faced with the prospect of giving up the #5
pick in the 2014 draft or their first-rounder in the potentially
franchise-changing 2015 draft, Snow kept the 2014 pick. Due to this, the
Islanders are absolutely desperate not to be a lottery team in 2015. It would
be catastrophic for the franchise to give up a top-three pick in a draft with a
trio of generational talents in McDavid, Eichel and Hanifin. Thus, the
Islanders have made off-season deals acquiring the rights to goaltender
Jaroslav Halak and defenseman Dan Boyle – and it is extremely likely they trade
this pick for immediate help as well. The Islanders loss of Moulson and Vanek
leaves them with a severe need for a top-line left wing to skate alongside John
Tavaras and Kyle Okposo. It would not be a shock to see the Isles deal this
pick for Winnipeg’s Evander Kane or San Jose’s Patrick Marleau, both reportedly
available in the off-season trade market.
The Pick: LW Michael
Dal Colle, Oshawa, OHL Assuming (because we have to) the Isles hang onto
this pick, at fifth overall they should have the opportunity to take the best
left wing in the draft, a player who could ride shotgun with superstar John
Tavares in a season or two. Dal Colle is big and strong at 6’2” and 180, has a
rocket of a shot and terrific playmaking ability. He plays a well above-average
all-around game for a sniper of his age and pedigree and has been compared to
players as varied as James Van Riemsdyk, Bobby Ryan and Alex Kovalev. Though
Dal Colle is a carbon copy of none of them, he combines elements of all of them
and is a surefire first-line stud down the line for whomever is lucky enough to
tab him in the 2014 draft.
6) Vancouver Canucks
The Team: The
Canucks have made a litany of terrible decisions in the past two years to turn
them from a perennial contender into a lottery team. First, they fired a
terrific head coach in Alain Vigneault and replaced him with the incompetent
and alienating John Tortorella. Second, faced with an embarrassment of riches
in goal with Roberto Luongo and Corey Schneider, they dealt the upcoming
Schneider while hanging onto the older and higher-paid Luongo. Then they
shipped off Luongo leaving them barren in goal. They are now faced with the
problem of fixing management, finding a solution in net, and re-signing all
sorts of Sedins while shopping stud center Ryan Kesler who asked off this
sinking ship for the chance to play with a contender.
The Pick: C/RW
William Nylander, Modo, SWE The Canucks have built a
strong Swedish culture in their organization, icing a team headlined by the
Sedin twins and Alex Edler among others. Nylander is the best Sweden has to
offer in this year’s draft, along with arguably the highest offensive upside in
the draft. An explosive skater with dazzling puck skills, Nylander would be a
top-five pick were it not for questions about his size (5’11”, 170) and
attitude – on occasion Nylander can play a pouty game if his teammates and the
referees underperform in his estimation. All of these positives and negatives
make Nylander remind us of Claude Giroux, a player whose occasional gaffes are
more than offset by his standing as a fixture among the NHL scoring leaderboard.
7) Carolina
Hurricanes
The Team: New
‘Canes GM Ron Francis has his work cut out for him. Long-time GM Jim Rutherford
made a habit of drafting almost exclusively forwards in the first round, then
going after defenders and netminders later. This has left Carolina with a
plethora of talent up front (Eric Staal, Jordan Staal, Jeff Skinner, Elias
Lindholm) but question marks all over the organization in goal and on the
blueline.
The Pick: D Hayden
Fleury, Red Deer, WHL The 2014 draft is loaded with defensemen who are
loaded with question marks. There are only two surefire top-pairing studs. The
first, Aaron Ekblad, has received considerable and well-deserved hype and is
the safe bet to go first overall. The second is Hayden Fleury. There is nothing
not to like about this kid – he combines NHL size (6’3”, 200) with NHL skating
while boasting an NHL caliber point shot and terrific skating ability. He
rarely gets caught out of position and has the perfect combination of heart and
smarts to develop into a key minute-muncher at the NHL level.
8) Toronto Maple Leafs
The Team: I
overheard an argument the other day that Mad
Men was a soap opera. I recall thinking that the Maple Leafs are both a
soap opera and madmen. Seemingly under new management on a bi-monthly basis,
the latest incarnation of Leafs’ leadership is headlined by Brendan Shanahan, a
brilliant man with a tough task at hand. Can he take a team with a rabid
fan-base full of frustrations out of perennial mediocrity? He has a terrific
young goalie (Jonathan Bernier) and a couple of shining young stars (Phil
Kessel, James Van Riemsdyk) to work with, but the Leafs have long lacked a
top-line center and sufficient scoring depth. Thus, they have been heavily
rumored to be attempting to trade up into the draft’s top four for a chance at
one of the big three centers: Reinhart, Bennett and Draisaitl.
The Pick: LW Nick
Ritchie, Peterborough, OHL Every team covets a power forward, a big-bodied
scoring winger who plays like a bull in a china shop. The 6’4”, 235 Ritchie
takes that model and one-ups it – he plays like a T-Rex in a Faberge egg shop.
His OHL highlight-reel is jarring, the freakishly strong Ritchie is such a
physical beast he simply goes through opposing defenses as if he is playing
amongst children. Ritchie is thus often compared to Boston brutalizer Milan
Lucic, although Ritchie may have even more offensive skill and is somewhat less
threatening in the handshake line. Though it is highly likely to us that the
Leafs trade up in the draft, if they remain at #8 Ritchie is the type of power
forward they traditionally love and swung and missed on with David Clarkson in
the 2013 free agent market.
9) Winnipeg Jets
The Team: The
Jets have been somewhat maligned in the hockey media for failing to make the
playoffs since their return to Winnipeg. Yet the fact remains that they iced an
extremely good team last season which arguably only missed the playoffs due to
their poor play in goal, where Ondrej Pavelec struggled for much of the season.
The Jets’ biggest mistake may have been not making a play for Jonathan Bernier
prior to the season, and we might see them use the draft not only to select a
future star but also to trade for an established netminder, having been linked
in the media to Carolina’s Cam Ward.
The Pick: LW Nikolaj
Ehlers, Halifax, QMJHL While the Jets’ top need is for a franchise goalie,
drafting netminders often amounts as much to voodoo as to science, and thus it is
unlikely Winnipeg spends such a high pick on that position. It is more likely
they go for the best available player, whom in this scenario would be Ehlers.
We are saying here that Ehlers has the greatest offensive upside in the draft,
greater than the big-three centers or Nylander. He is simply a magician with
the puck and likely the best skater in the draft. There is a great deal of
Patrick Kane in Ehlers’ game, though it is probably safer to compare him to his
teammate in Halifax, future Tampa Bay star Jonathan Drouin. Though, like many
in this draft, there are questions about his size (5’11”, 160) and defensive
play, Ehlers’ arsenal of stickhandling moves is downright mind-boggling.
10) Anaheim Ducks
The Team: The
Ducks have an embarrassment of riches right now. Already a deep, big and fast
team which looks to annually compete for Lord Stanley’s Cup behind superstars
Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, next year they are giving the goaltending duties
to mega-prospect John Gibson, the top prospect in the entire NHL according to
the good folks at The Hockey News.
Add to that a plethora of picks in the 2014 draft: the Ducks own the tenth pick
as a result of the Bobby Ryan trade with Ottawa last year in addition to their
own (#24) pick and two picks in the second round (#38, #55). Desiring a big,
two-way second-line center to slot behind Getzlaf (Kesler? Spezza?) and loaded
with picks and prospects, the Ducks strike us as the most likely team to pull
off a huge trade at the 2014 draft.
The Pick: LW Jake
Virtanen, Calgary WHL Assuming (because we have to) Anaheim hangs onto this
pick, they can afford to take a chance on Virtanen. The mega-talented
power-forward has dropped in many pundits’ draft estimation due to shoulder
surgery which will sideline him for the upcoming season, but Virtanen might be
worth the wait. A terrific offensive force who can score and pass with NHL
precision, Virtanen is also a tremendous skater who plays with an edge to his
game. This tantalizing combination has garnered him comparisons to Jarome
Iginla and Corey Perry though he may lack the two-way game and, apparently,
durability of those two future Hall-of-Famers. Still, his massive upside and
skill-set have Virtanen as a wild-card in this draft, a player who could go as
early as sixth overall.
Picks 11 - 20 and 21 - 30 to follow...
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