|
Well folks, it's the When is it taking place and where can I watch it? The 2021 NHL Draft is being held roughly a month later this year due to the delayed start to the season and will once again be over Zoom. The first round takes place on Friday, July 23, 2021 and rounds 2-7 take place the following day Saturday, July 24, 2021. It will be aired on Sportsnet in Canada. It is widely expected that ESPN will air the draft as part of its new NHL TV deal, but the league has not officially announced the channels or timing. Who's eligible this year? Ice hockey players born between January 1, 2001, and September 15, 2003,* are eligible for selection in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. Additionally, un-drafted, non-North American players born in 2000 are eligible for the draft; and those players who were drafted in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, but not signed by an NHL team and who were born after June 30, 2001, are also eligible to re-enter the draft. *For context: Shake Ya Tail Feather by Nellie and P. Diddy was the #1 single in the world on this date Who are the top prospects? In short: no one but here's some of the highest ranked guys. It's a bad year with no standout or even consensus #1. This is in large part due to the fact that a lot of top prospects were forced to play limited minutes in professional leagues overseas as the CHL seasons were either very short (QMJHL and WHL) or did not happen at all (OHL). Owen Power - LD - 6'5" 215lbs - Shoots Left  Matthew Beniers - C - 6'1" 185lbs - Shoots Left  (Also a nerd) Pronounced "Bin-ears," Matty Beniers was a teammate of Owen Power this year and is generally regarded as the best forward available. He's an up tempo, two way guy that has (not unfairly perhaps) been compared to UND product Jonanthan Toews in his two-way ability. He's not a flashy player, but he's always on the move and loves to have the puck on his stick. He'll relentlessly hassle guys on the backcheck and has the dexterity and stick lifting ability to steal the puck and quickly turn the play in the opposite direction. He'd probably benefit from being a better distributor and carrying the puck a lot less in the pros, but he's one of the few guys in this draft that could step into an NHL lineup next next season given his 2002 birth year and polished play. It's unfair to expect any dynamite offensive seasons from him, but it's safe to assume he'll top out somewhere in the Ryan O'Reilly/Derick Brassard range. Brandt Clarke - RD - 6'1" 180lbs - Shoots Right  A smooth skating right shooting defender, Clarke spent the year in Slovakia due to the OHL not holding a season and acquitted himself very well against professionals. His strength is first and foremost his skating, especially off the rush. He's a quick defender with an all out offensive mindset who can pivot and sidestep equally well forwards and backwards. He loves to join the rush and step in from the point, and in the NHL will likely end up a powerplay specialist. He has a good shot and is a slick passer who can run the cycle from the blueline or down low because he loves to play in front of the net in the attacking zone and sorta forgets to get back in position. He's basically a fourth forward. Defensively... well he's never going to be a guy you rely on at any level. He's a wind 'em up and let him go sorta guy while you let a partner cover for the inevitable mistakes and turnovers. Think Tyson Barrie or a (hopefully) less racist Tony DeAngelo. Luke Hughes - LD - 6'2" 180lbs - Shoots Left  (The one on the right) The third and final Hughes brother is very much cut from the same cloth as his sibling, but with the added benefit of being 6" taller. Like Jack and Quinn, he was coached by his mother into being a world class skater. Like his brothers, he's a smooth and effortless skater with a penchant for quick pivots and spins away from forecheckers to find open space. He walks the line well and relies on being elusive and quick thinking over any sort of exemplary physical attributes. Unlike Quinn, he's less inclined to lead the rush or carry the puck below the goal line. He takes a safer mindset, but is certainly no slouch in the offensive zone. He's a work in progress and committed to Michigan next year, so he's likely 2-3 seasons away from the NHL but projects to be a regular top pairing guy down the line. Late season foot surgery has raised questions about his recovery timeframe and how it'll affect his skating, but those are probably just looking to find a problem with a guy who's been a consensus top 10 pick since he was 14. Buffalo needs to take him 1st overall so they can have Jack Quinn and Luke Hughes. William Eklund - LW/C - 5'10" 170lbs - Shoots Left  A smaller winger, it's quite possible he'll move to centre at the NHL level given his two-way play and unique skillset. He's probably the most naturally gifted forward in this draft, and the one with perhaps the highest likelihood of being a top level NHL scorer (although don't get too excited about that). He's a flashy forward in the modern Swedish style with great skating ability, terrific vision and a bullet one-timer combined with a high level of defensive awareness. With that said, he's smaller and doesn't have a great top end speed. He could certainly stand to gain some weight and work on his positioning in all zones, but he's pretty close to a finished product already. He'll likely return to Djugardens for another season and be relied on to be a top offensive threat, but should move over to the NHL in 2022/23. He gets compared to Zetterberg and Pettersson a lot (stylistically at least if not from a high end skill level), but I see a lot of Pavol Demitra in his game. He could be the pick of the draft in 3-4 years IMO. What about the rest? That's roughly the consensus top 5 at the moment, but this draft is really all over the place so the top-9 could go in pretty much any order based on team needs/priorities. Guys like Dylan Geunther could easily go as high as #2 overall. Here's some current rankings to give you an idea of how all over the map things are. https://www.tsn.ca/owen-power-the-unanimous-no-1-in-tsn-s-mid-season-draft-rankings-1.1626057 https://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-defencemen-dominate-top-of-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings-1.1638404 http://www.nhl.com/ice/draftprospectbrowse.htm https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/sportsnets-2021-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings-may-edition/ Draft Order 1. Buffalo Sabres 2. Seattle Kraken 3. Anaheim Ducks 4. New Jersey Devils 5. Columbus Blue Jackets 6. Detroit Red Wings 7. San Jose Sharks 8. Los Angeles Kings 9. Vancouver Canucks 10. Ottawa Senators 11. Chicago Blackhawks 12. Calgary Flames 13. Philadelphia Flyers 14. Dallas Stars 15. New York Rangers Now, let's all come back to this in 5 years and laugh at how wrong I/you were about these kids. ThinkTank fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Jun 10, 2021 |
#
?
Jun 10, 2021 17:12
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 17:16 |
|
|
Can't wait to see how the Hughes trilogy ends. I didn't watch the Worlds at all and didn't know Power had played, pretty good for an 18 year old eh?
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2021 20:07
|
|
|
Yeah the USA took Matty Beniers too but he was used pretty sparingly (although apparently acquitted himself nicely). It's becoming somewhat commonplace that the top guys in the draft get taken to the WCs by USA and Canada. It's mostly a last chance at scouting to see how they do against NHL leclr competition and the guys get pretty limited minutes. It's notable when they're given a more substantial role like Power this year and Quinn Hughes back in 2018 (in retrospect it's insane he fell to 7th as he already had the full trust of the USA Hockey in the WCs which should've been a huge hint to teams he was more complete defensively than they assumed).
|
|
#
?
Jun 10, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
Power has been hunting he might go back to college for another year Pretty sure that won't matter much, but shrug emoji
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2021 21:27
|
|
|
Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Power has been hunting he might go back to college for another year I'm sure any team currently at the bottom of the league won't be very upset avoiding an infusion of talent going in to the Shane Wright draft.
|
|
#
?
Jun 11, 2021 21:35
|
|
|
We're just over two weeks away from someone getting to draft the 34 year old teenager! https://twitter.com/wyshynski/status/1412521590680600578?s=19 Also lol https://twitter.com/ChrisFaber39/status/1412524921507389445?s=19
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:40
|
|
|
How is a big, not very mobile, defensive defenseman the consensus for #1? Guessing he drops the day of. I know the Blues won it all a few years ago, but I bet they'd redo 2006 if they could.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 14:54
|
|
|
Mr. Kite posted:How is a big, not very mobile, defensive defenseman the consensus for #1? Hope that clears things up for you
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 15:17
|
|
|
I'm sure teams are watching him and drooling at the thought of him being the next Hedman or Pronger.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 16:27
|
|
|
It's not a great draft and his offensive numbers are pretty decent
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 16:42
|
|
|
Luke Hughes has the goods, any team that passes him over is gonna feel awful silly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 17:36
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:I'm sure teams are watching him and drooling at the thought of him being the next Hedman or Pronger. Eh, I think he's viewed as more of a McDonaugh/Suter lite type. Team Canada was fine with him playing a 20 minute a night shutdown role at the World Championships so it's safe to assume his defensive game is already low end NHL quality. He might never emerge as any sort of offensive threat, but really at worst you're looking at a steady as she goes second pairing guy who's not going to hurt you. That might not be too exciting and probably isn't worth a 1st overall, but he's a solid double in a draft full of bunts and singles.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 18:02
|
|
|
Mr. Kite posted:How is a big, not very mobile, defensive defenseman the consensus for #1? It's worth noting that the consensus is not very unanimous, and you will find serious (or at least as serious as hockey prospecteering gets) rankings with Beniers at 1-1. I think I've seen a mock with someone else there too.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 18:08
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:Eh, I think he's viewed as more of a McDonaugh/Suter lite type. Team Canada was fine with him playing a 20 minute a night shutdown role at the World Championships so it's safe to assume his defensive game is already low end NHL quality. He might never emerge as any sort of offensive threat, but really at worst you're looking at a steady as she goes second pairing guy who's not going to hurt you. That might not be too exciting and probably isn't worth a 1st overall, but he's a solid double in a draft full of bunts and singles. I'm not saying he'll be Hedman or Pronger but when you get a 6 6 defenseman who can skate that's going to be what goes through a lot of gms minds I'm sure.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 18:56
|
|
|
Hand Knit posted:It's worth noting that the consensus is not very unanimous, and you will find serious (or at least as serious as hockey prospecteering gets) rankings with Beniers at 1-1. I think I've seen a mock with someone else there too. With Power saying he's probably going back to college and the seeming lack of interest in him from Buffalo, I think the Sabres want someone who'll step into the lineup straight away and will pass on him and take Beniers (especially if they trade Eichel).
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 19:53
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:With Power saying he's probably going back to college and the seeming lack of interest in him from Buffalo, I think the Sabres want someone who'll step into the lineup straight away and will pass on him and take Beniers (especially if they trade Eichel). I don't think there's a lack of interest from Buffalo. They are interviewing Power along with other draft eligibles tomorrow, and I don't think they've conducted many prospect interviews as of yet. With no combine teams have had some more freedom to conduct interviews on different timelines, but it used to be most interviews were only conducted a couple weeks before the draft, so their timeline is still consistent with that. With that said, there's been more than a couple people that have suggested the Sabres have Eklund as the #1 forward on their board.
|
|
#
?
Jul 7, 2021 20:41
|
|
|
If this sparks anyone's interest, a stats guy from Twitter has posted his NHLe model publicly for people to play around with: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/topdownhockey/viz/NHLEquivalencyandProspectProjections/ProspectProjections It's interesting to see how the "star projection" model hits and misses. Just from my cursory review today, it seems very poor for projecting defensemen, but pretty good for projecting forwards, or at least for finding potential hidden gems among forwards. Not all of the highly projected players hit, but a lot of the success stories from later rounds show up in the top-30 each year. For example, Panarin/Gusev/Toffoli in 2010, Gaudreau and Kucherov in 2011, Deangelo(lol)/Pastrnak in 2014, Kaprizov in 2015, Robertson in 2017. One of the main drawbacks seems to be that it really underestimates the projections from the QMJHL, though I also feel like the Q tends to have more higher scoring forwards fail to make it to the NHL than other developmental leagues. It also looks like all of the "hidden gems" are either Russian or undersized, which tracks pretty well for the NHL. bub spank fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jul 13, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2021 18:21
|
|
|
That all tracks pretty well with my "William Eklund is the only worthwhile prospect in this draft class" theory.
|
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2021 18:47
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:That all tracks pretty well with my "William Eklund is the only worthwhile prospect in this draft class" theory. Sillinger's a really interesting one too. He's quite young for the draft, and his statistical profile is similar to a lot of former top-5 picks, but he's generally projected to go in the teens at the earliest. There aren't any forwards with better "star probabilities" at the draft than Sillinger that didn't make a difference in the NHL, and there's only a few guys above him who didn't live up to that potential, but they all became useful NHLers - for example, Gagner, Lehkonen, Drouin, and Colin Wilson. The only exceptions being Filatov, Yakupov, Jordan Schroeder, and Taylor Cammarata, who are all either Russian or very small. He's also lacking any of the warning signs you usually see in potential busts - he's average height (6'0), heavy for his size (200lb), he's only played in domestic leagues (WHL in draft-1, USHL in his draft year), and he's known to have a really good shot, even if his skating isn't great. bub spank fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Jul 13, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 13, 2021 19:42
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/loganmailloux_/status/1417454073582850048?s=19
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 13:36
|
|
|
Luke Hughes looks pretty good in the videos I've watched and seems toolsy as gently caress but I fully anticipate being disappointed that he sucks or disappointed that like the Ducks take him or something. What's up with people ranking Edvinsson and Clarke ahead of him? They both look like far worse mechanical skaters in the videos I've seen (quote this when they're both better than him).
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:16
|
|
|
Eklund dropping to Vancouver would be a dream but there's zero shot. Fingers crossed for Kent Johnson at 9. Also gently caress Logan Mailloux and gently caress the London Knights
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 14:37
|
|
|
T-Bone posted:Luke Hughes looks pretty good in the videos I've watched and seems toolsy as gently caress but I fully anticipate being disappointed that he sucks or disappointed that like the Ducks take him or something. Hughes is an incredible skater. He's not his brothers though and his mindset is less all out offence than them with the drawback that he's a serious work in progress defensively. As you say he's toolsy, a 6'2 defender who skates like Mat Barzal is a rare thing. If he adds a mean steak you're looking at a player who is basically unprecedented in league history. However, he's at least two years away from the NHL and coming off a serious foot injury. He loves to jump in from the point but his timing can be off and he's not a physical presence or a down low defender. These are all teachable things imo and I think he'll be the best of the bunch, but he's not a sure thing. Clarke is just an all out offence yee haw wild West bang bang pistols fired into the sky type. If he puts it together you've got a Mike Greenesque goal scoring defenceman who can lead a rush and turn a game around. He is quite opportunistic and exciting. I'm not sure it'll work in the NHL but boy it would be neat if it did! Edvinsson is a big two way Swedish defenceman where scouts dance around ways to describe his skating as something other than "underwhelming." He's a great passer and can move the puck but I think if he was a 6'1 Czech kid people would picture Victor Hedman a lot less and be a little more realistic on him. All three are guys that if they put it all together they'll be excellent but none are at all polished in any way. I like Hughes the most, but really it's so hard to say from the limited playing time they all had. So long as you're not thinking any are at all likely to turn into a franchise D you can't go seriously wrong with any of them.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:20
|
|
|
Rooting for the Red Wings to draft a Wolverine.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:21
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:Hughes is an incredible skater. He's not his brothers though and his mindset is less all out offence than them with the drawback that he's a serious work in progress defensively. As you say he's toolsy, a 6'2 defender who skates like Mat Barzal is a rare thing. If he adds a mean steak you're looking at a player who is basically unprecedented in league history. However, he's at least two years away from the NHL and coming off a serious foot injury. He loves to jump in from the point but his timing can be off and he's not a physical presence or a down low defender. These are all teachable things imo and I think he'll be the best of the bunch, but he's not a sure thing. This sounds a ton like Letang tbh though if Hughes is a better skater then woah boy that would be fun.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:24
|
|
|
rex rabidorum vires posted:This sounds a ton like Letang tbh though if Hughes is a better skater then woah boy that would be fun. I say Ryan Whitney or a more opportunistic Dan Hamhuis as a stylistic comparison. He's not a lead the rush type usually but he likes to activate off the point and can skate himself in and out of trouble. I don't expect he'll be a huge point totals guy in the NHL, but 30-40pts a season at his peak is probably fair? Some scouts have talked about him maybe being the best of the brothers but I'm definitely not sold on that. He's way less eager to just throw caution to the wind and hold onto the puck like Quinn and he's not the dangler Jack is. He seems way more cautious and wanting to retreat back to the point in the attacking zone when he's unsure unlike Quinn who'll hold up behind the net even without the puck. I think his defence will come around as he matures but it's pretty unlikely he'll ever be a shutdown guy. If he does boy he could be special though because no defenceman his size I can think of skates quite as nimbly as he does (although I'd say he's the weakest of his brothers in that regard due to his higher centre of gravity and uptight skating stride).
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:44
|
|
|
I'm not nerding out hard on this draft since the Pens have few picks to speak of but my knee jerk reaction to what I have read is that this draft is kinda boring/sucks. It feels like a lot of the scouting reports even for the top 10 are "I dunno could be good, has some tools but seriously unpolished". Where the slam dunks at
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:55
|
|
|
Ginette Reno posted:Where the slam dunks at The next two drafts which have three out of the box franchise players in them including the best prospect since McDavid in Connor Bedard (2023).
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 15:57
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:The next two drafts which have three out of the box franchise players in them including the best prospect since McDavid in Connor Bedard (2023). Shane Wright is the other one, right? I watched some of his highlights and he seemed kinda milquetoast for an exceptional player. I mean great shot but I didn't see anything else that wowed me like skating or hands or anything. He just kinda played a reliable sniper game. Which is fine but not super exciting. I haven't seen any Bedard highlights yet. Time to get a youtubin'.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 16:02
|
|
|
Wright's highlights are from his age 15 season where he scored at a slightly better rate than McDavid at the same age. It's a shame he didn't get to play this year because I think a jump to 80-90pts wouldn't have been unreasonable to expect. Bedard is the big one. He was 2ppg in the WHL and he just turned 16 this week. He's young for his draft class and still putting up numbers miles ahead of McDavid at the same age (and a July birthday versus January for McDavid). His big test will be his first full season with Regina this upcoming season and that'll be the first real metric we'll have to compare him and McDavid (who had 99 pts aged 16). If Bedard puts up something around that the hype train will seriously begin. Matvei Michkov is similarly well regarded in the 2023 draft. He's a late 04 birthday so a fair bit older than Bedard but 35g in 50 games in the MHL is crazy good. He had 70g 109pts in 26 games (not a typo) in the U16 league. It's quite likely he'll be a full time KHLer in his age 16 season next year. He's signed through 2026 with SKA so he'll take a long time to get to the NHL so I doubt he'll supplant Bedard but he's basically Kucherov+ and that's saying something. The next two drafts are really good. ThinkTank fucked around with this message at 16:40 on Jul 20, 2021 |
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 16:38
|
|
|
Would this be a draft where if you're Calgary and your guy isn't there, trading down wouldn't be the worst idea, since outside the top 9 it seems a crapshoot and you can get some extra picks?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 17:11
|
|
|
El Gallinero Gros posted:Would this be a draft where if you're Calgary and your guy isn't there, trading down wouldn't be the worst idea, since outside the top 9 it seems a crapshoot and you can get some extra picks? thats kind of true of every draft once you get outside of the first 8-12 players.. guys that are picked in the 20's are not that much better than guys picked in the 3rd round in terms of average number of games played in the league. Calgary is kind of in that grey area where you can still land an impact player at a fairly high frequency, so they are really well positioned to move up or down depending on how they feel about the situation because other teams will want to be in their spot.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 17:19
|
|
|
From reading up on the draft, it definitely seems like there's a "Tier 1" of the consensus top-9, and then a "Tier 2" of maybe 5-6 players that are fairly comparable to that top 9 and project fairly safely to be NHLers, in particular Cole Sillinger, Chaz Lucius, Matthew Coronato, the 2 goalies, and maybe a few other guys like Svechkov and Lysell. It seems like once you get past the Rangers the draft turns into more of a crapshoot.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 17:57
|
|
|
The TSN mock has Ottawa taking the Swedish goalie at #10. I don't think they have any insider knowledge, and the hot rumour heading into the last draft was they were going to take Askarov at 5 which wasn't true, but still curious about the possibility. Seems insane on face value and I think people are pretending like we have too many defense and forward prospects to play them all whoch is some dumb thing they just say every now and then.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 18:42
|
|
|
It's not rocket science, just take BPA. You can never have too many prospects in any one position because they never work out as well or as frequently as people believe. You'd have to have literally a dozen or more solid forward prospects to be statistically sure you even had two top line quality players. Even if things did work out perfectly, you can always trade from a position of strength. This isn't the NFL where you're drafting to fill a roster need tomorrow. You're selecting guys who likely won't make an appreciable impact for 4-6 years.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 19:33
|
|
|
Drafting for organizational "need" over BPA is how you get Fleury over Eric Staal, and while hey that worked out for everyone eventually... it's only because if the Pens picked Staal they would not have been terrible enough to get Malkin and Crosby Wait I've lost the moral here
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 19:38
|
|
|
The Devils should be picking top 5 for at least two more years so two more shots at a slam dunk sounds nice
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2021 19:56
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/TSN_Sports/status/1417925497560911872?s=19 TSN have snagged the CHL TV rights from sportsnet. Pierre McGuire must be crushed.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2021 20:19
|
|
|
Good Soldier Svejk posted:Drafting for organizational "need" over BPA is how you get Fleury over Eric Staal, and while hey that worked out for everyone eventually... it's only because if the Pens picked Staal they would not have been terrible enough to get Malkin and Crosby I love hypotheticals like this, so I excuse what I am about to write. Eric Staal was great in his second season, but I don't think he was good enough in his rookie year to really help the Pens. The 03-04 Pens with Staal probably finish around where they did, and still end up with Malkin and Crosby (I mean, maaaaaybe they finish a little better, and end up with Cam Barker). However, in 05-06, how much does Eric Staal really help the Pens? They were a messy team, and even if Staal is able to have the same season he actually had, I don't see him helping them getting, like, 12 more points to tie Washington as the fourth-worst team. Either way, even if they did, they probably still end up in the top-5 of drafting. Who was drafted in 2006, you ask? Erik Johnson, Jordan Staal, Toews, Backstrom, and Kessel. In the end, Fleury was the right choice, which I don't think anyone would argue. By 06-07, when they got good, they would have still been looking for a starting goalie if they didn't have him. I don't think Thibault was the answer. Their quick rise to Cup contender may have been, ahem, stalled, unless they were able to find someone. Also, as a side note, is Jordan Staal the most forgettable player in the league? I am always reminded of him, look to see that he's still playing for Carolina, then promptly forget him again.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 00:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 20, 2024 17:16 |
|
|
Sitting here fingers crossed for Räty to fall to the 20s because "Consensus high pick a year ago plummets" is extremely my poo poo (outside of lasting injury, sexpestery, or similar). Probably even more this year than others given the pandemic. Give me a posthype guy who isn't even 19, I'll overlook the flawed skating. Twin Cinema posted:Their quick rise to Cup contender may have been, ahem, stalled, unless they were able to find someone.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2021 00:52
|
|