I'm never going to pretend that I'm a scout or expert but I do spend a lot of time reading about the draft and watching video and games when I can.
My view of the draft is
- It is primarily weak because it lacks a true #1. The fact that Power is the unanimous #1 pick underscores this. He will be a very good NHLer but more along the lines of a Chris Philips or Erik Johnson. He's not going to change a franchise.
- Following Power there is a clump of really good players that each have some obvious flaws (sometimes only one) that create some risk or lower probability of their ceilings being reached. But what I like is there is a lot of skill and strong hockey sense. The flaws, in many cases, are addressable in my view.
- I think that skill extends into the latest teens, where there is another shelf, where you get into players that have either way larger and harder to overcome flaws, combinations of flaws that make them unlikely to success - or limited upside.
For example there are a number of smallish players who are also not great skaters. Being both small and not a great skater is tough to overcome just looking at historic outcomes. There's a bunch of that stuff littered through the draft.
Summarizing
- The draft lacks a strong #1 overall selection, whoever goes 2 and 3 are likely weaker than normal years too. For the record, if I had #1 I would be drafting William Eklund, but that would also be a weaker #1 than most years.
- From 4 to say 17 I actually think there's a lot of upside and quality players to pick
- From 17-35 I think it's weaker
- From then on...who knows.
I heard a podcast the other day where someone commented that it's going to be interested watching the OHL next year, and some other leagues that didn't play much or at all, because there are going to be players that emerge out of nowhere that are going to look like great steals or ones that didn't go at all. We could see a bumper crop of overagers drafted next year. Right now - we just don't know who those players are.
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