The Ducks had quite the ride leading up to the 2022 NHL Draft last night.
Heading into the eve of the CPHL Draft, we had Pick 9 and 19. We decided to roll the dice a bit and make a trade with the Sharks, swapping Pick 9 for 16, 28 and 49 giving us more ammo. We then traded from 16 to 13 paying a bit of a steep price, but wanting to get our guy.
Draft day we took:
- Kevin Korchinski - CPHL Pick 13th. NHL Pick 7th to Hawks
- Brad Lambert - CPHL Pick 19th. NHL Pick 30th to Jets
- Isaac Howard - CPHL Pick 28th. NHL Pick 31st to Lightning
- Filip Bystedt - CPHL Pick 49th. NHL Pick 27th to Sharks
We then traded Jack Hughes in a bit of a gamble, getting Hischier, Slafkowsky and C. Lucius (18th pick last year, Jets property) in return.
Taking on Friedman's 32 thoughts, below are a few of mine (not 32 haha) compiled from the last few days of draft frenzy:
- Slafkowsky ended up going 1st overall to the Habs where he should fit in really well with Suzuki and Caufield. I thought he would go #1 or #2 and was pleasantly surprised to see him as 1st overall
- If Slaf can become a Rantanen or 30% of a Jagr, I would be thrilled. His highlight package is one that NHL GM's drool over.
- The Ducks in the last year have had all the 1st overall picks since 2014 on our squad at different times except for Matthews. We currently have Hischier, Power, Ekblad and now Slafkowsky. We traded Dahlin about a year and a half ago, McDavid about a year and a half ago and J. Hughes recently.
- I (shockingly) have a few GM's inquiring about Slaf. I'm not jumping up and down to move him yet as we have Free Agency and some other priorities, but am open to discussing
- The gamble with the Sharks that one of my guys would fall paid off (Korchinski and mystery man), landing me 2 extra 1st round picks and I got a guy who ended up going 7th overall.
- Lambert fell, but I wasn't overly surprised. I like he's with the Jets as they have some good young forwards. Very curious to see his development.
- Lambert doesn't have a European contract which I thought was a good move by him. It let's the NHL team direct his development. His CHL rights are currently held by the Seattle Thunderbirds. I suspect he comes to the WHL and plays with the Thunderbirds where the Jets can watch his development more closely
- If Lambert does come over, Lambert and Korchinksi will be teammates
- It's almost more important the NHL team that ends up taking the player versus the spot they get picked in terms of development and needs of the team. Even though we use the rankings to gauge the value of the player.
- Bystedt was a surprise in the 1st round. I liked his upside but thought he'd be picked in early to mid 2nd round. The Sharks are doing a bit of a re-build so I like his landing spot
- Isaac Howard's outfit last night was terrible. His interview after he got drafted included him saying he was the best-looking guy at the draft. Insert facepalm here. He definitely has that goal-scorer's confidence. Will see if it translates to the pros, and hoping the Lightning can continue their success of developing undersized but highly skilled forwards.
- All in all, the Ducks went in with 2 1st round picks and came out with 5 1st round selections in the NHL Draft. That's a good haul.
- There weren't nearly as many surprises in the 1st Round of the NHL as 'draft experts' expected. Outside of Rinzel, Bystedt and the 'big oaf' as Jiri says, it was fairly normal
- The Russian factor impacted Yurov. The Wild picking him up where he did is a great move. Especially as they have Kaprizov, so they know how to deal with Russians.
- The draft is easily my favourite part of the CPHL. I'm glad we chose to do the draft before Bob MacKenzie's rankings came out. The timing of the CPHL draft and NHL draft in terms of spacing was really good this year. It gave enough time to make some deals and create some excitement.