Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallex
I have a 3fer...
1: Which players will absolutely not be available at #9... We keep on hearing that the draft is pretty open after Celebrini but I find it hard to believe that it's THAT open... so who in your opinion has say a less then 10% chance of being available at 9?
2: Who will be the biggest faller in the draft (and where do you think they will fall to)? Relative to expected draft position I mean.
3: You have to take a goalie: Which goalie and in what round?
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1. I'd be surprised if the likes of Demidov and Silayev. Demidov, for me, is the clear second-best forward. Silayev has a high floor, but also a high ceiling because it's rare to find a 6-foot-7 defenseman with his ability to move around the ice... and an underrated game. I don't see the quote-unquote Russian factor coming into play. I could see Levshunov (who I'm not that high on, to be honest, and we've got at No. 10) going too, but I wouldn't put him in the 'guarantee' category.
2. As much as it might not be a popular answer (depending on who you ask) I could also see Yakemchuk slipping a bit, relative to consensus ranking. I can see the scenario where teams value a few other blueliners, after the big five, like Solberg and Jiricek, and then wildcards like Emery, Pulkkinen, Kiviharju, Badinka and Shuravin. Not suggesting all will leapfrog Yakemchuk, but I could see the scenario where a couple do.
3. I shopped this out to David Phillips, one of our goalie scouts. But I kind of prefaced it as 'if you had to draft a goalie, who and where offers the best bang for buck relative to our rankings' so he won't just say Vinni in the seventh. His target is Ivan Yunin, who should go late but does stand the chance of not being drafted at all. A couple Flames targets he tossed out were Evan Gardner at 106/107 and Louka Cloutier (or Yunin) at 170.