[sureLoss]

http://ww2.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blo...at-much-harder

This year’s draft, in which Tallon is picking No. 1 as GM of the Florida Panthers, is more or less the same. Sam Bennett? Aaron Ekblad? Sam Reinhart? Leon Draisaitl? Depending on whom you ask, they could each go No. 1 or fail to crack the top five.

“Is there a consensus guy that’s one, two or three? Probably not,” Tallon said in the lobby of the Westin Bristol Place hotel, where the NHL Draft Combine is being held this week. “But it’s a draft where we’re going to get two really good players. And that’s all I care about.”

“I would consider it an average draft,” said Dave Morrison, the Toronto Maple Leafs director of amateur scouting. “I wouldn’t say it’s as weak as everybody thought it was. It just doesn’t have that superstar at the top. Having said that, I think there’s players there where, who knows, they might have that potential. There’s skill there, there’s enough talent where, all of sudden, he’s a superstar.”

From there, it’s a crapshoot. When Marr and his staff were rating the players on an A, B, C scale (A represents a potential first-round pick, B is a second-round pick), he said they had difficulty coming up with 30 A-rated players. Even B-rated players were scarce.

“This year’s draft, it’s like a jar of marbles,” Marr said. “Teams will be taking players everywhere. It’s not deep. But I think this draft is deep enough where there are players that are not in your top four D or your top six forwards, but there’s still a lot of candidates to play in the NHL.”