[butterfly]

Originally Posted by stemit14

Might as well complete my top 16 draft guesses:

Buffalo is another team I could see considering a trade with their 1st round pick. They are so loaded with prospects, they could finally make a an aggressive move try to make the playoffs next year… I have no idea what they would demand as they have so many good young players that look ready to step in. Maybe a top four right-handed defenceman with term could be enough to convince them to trade 11th overall. If not, it’s once again BPA as they have high end prospect depth at every position so there is no reason to draft for position. Buffalo could be a team to take a risk on a player like Eiserman… they have so many good prospects, they can afford to take a swing on a high risk/high reward player like him. This would be back-to-back years where Buffalo gets a player with elite, top-rated skill while selecting outside the top 10 (Benson last year and Eiserman this year).

Philadelphia lost a top center prospect this year (Gauthier) but gained a young top four defenceman in Drysdale. They will likely still go BPA but I could see them going for a center with potential to replace what was lost in Gauthier. However, the pickings on centres might be slim by this point in the draft.

Minnesota is pretty solid at drafting over the years. I could see them going for BPA in their spot as they could use prospects at all positions. By this point, there would be lots of very good defencemen still available so I could see them picking one of them.

Pittsburgh’s prospect depth is very thin so it should definitely be BPA for them. As with Minnesota, still lots of really good defencemen available so I’ll assume they take one of them.

Detroit has lots of great prospects/young NHLers both on defence and at forward so I think they also go BPA.

Washington is in a similar position to Pittsburgh (despite having more quality young players in their prospect pool) so I think they go with BPA as well.

My draft predictions for spots 11-16 (again, assuming no change from draft lottery and no trades):

11. Buffalo - Eiserman
12. Philadelphia - Hage
13. Minnesota - Yakemchuk
14. Pittsburgh - Parekh
15. Detroit - Greentree
16. Washington - Brandsegg-Nigard

San Jose has 14 and St. Louis has 16.