Quote:
Originally Posted by The Fonz
Short of Edmonton/Calgary drafting 1st, I don't see any way that Reinhart isn't taken.
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That seems to be overstating things IMO. I can see plenty of ways that Reinhart doesn't go 1st.
1. Islanders win the lottery. At the top end it's centres and Ekblad. The Islanders seem set at centre with Tavares/Strome. They have no 1st pairing defencemen. Ekblad fills a massive need for them and would seem the obvious choice for them unless they are absolutely in love with someone else.
2. Florida wins the lottery. Similar to NYI they seem set with Barkov/Bjugstad/etc. They also lack a #1 defenceman. Ekblad fills their biggest need.
3. Calgary wins the lottery. We could go a few diff ways but Ekblad clearly fills our biggest need. Monahan despite people wanting to keep their expectations low looks likely to he a 1st line centre. Backlund seems to be progressing into a 2nd line centre. And we've still got our wild cards in Granlund and Jsnkowski. We have no future top 3 defencemen in the system.
4. Edmonton wins the lottery. Their biggest need is clearly for Ekblad, I think we can all agree on that.
5. Buffalo wins the lottery. They lack #1 centres and a #1 defenceman. I think they could go either way but they are the team in the bottom 5 most likely to prioritize a forward.
If you analyze the needs of the worst five teams in the league who have the highest chances of winning the lottery it seems to indicate Ekblad is probably the favourite to go 1st overall. Thus I find your statement highly questionable to me. Where do you disagree with my analysis?