Welcome to the Thursday ramblings where I will give grades to NHL teams based on my opinion of their drafts and highlight what I liked and did not, or what I found interesting. Basically just my thoughts. The scale will be letter grade ratings because I am boring occasionally
But first here is my good tweet of the week / What the H hockey hall of fame
{source}<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>My rage that they continue to forget Mogilny grows <a href=”https://t.co/hBJFeu7qoR”>https://t.co/hBJFeu7qoR</a></p>— PQsFantasyHockey (@FHPQuinn) <a href=”https://twitter.com/FHPQuinn/status/1143616153224241152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>June 25, 2019</a></blockquote>{/source}
Anaheim: B
- I really loved the Zegras pick and think he slipped, but with the forwards selected he would have been the second/third last one I would have picked (tied with Cozens). He is a top six centre guaranteed
- Brayden Tracey is a fine pick at #29 but he probably could have went later
- Jackson LaCombe is a very fun player. Needs to learn defense to make the NHL but his offense skills are amazing
- No one else really jumped out for me
Arizona: C+
- They had nine picks and I am never a huge fan of having an abundance for later picks (they had seven past round three) as those players rarely pan out
- Trading up for Soderstrom was an odd move but again they ended up with nine picks and Arizona pumps money into drafting players, so we should trust them
- I am an Aku Raty fan and he could be a great pick as a late fifth rounder
Boston: D-
- John Beecher would be a good pick if you were late in the second and wanted someone who is likely a guaranteed bottom six NHLer
- I am not a fan of the drafting by Boston much since the Debrusk and no one run of three picks but they seem to just have a plethora of good players in the AHL
Buffalo: B
- Dylan Cozens is a great pick and Ryan Johnson is a safe pick
- Erik Portillo is a literal giant at 6-6 and teams love the massive goalies
- Every other pick was fine lots of skill and speed
Calgary Flames: A-
- I just felt that every pick was a good pick. Lots of people underrate Jakob Pelletier (me included) and the more I read and see the more I like
- Calgary only had five picks and drafted zero defensemen
- Dustin Wolf at pick #214 is crazy, I know goalies are voodoo but I feel he will have the same “becomes the teams #1 goalie prospect in two to three years” trend that Cayden Primeau had
Carolina: A+
- Carolina made 12 picks in the draft, with half in the first three rounds(!!!), and there are easily future NHLers in this mix
- Anttoni Honka in round three, I just said to myself “how was he still available?”
- Kirill Slepets is a nice over-age player to draft, especially in round five
Chicago: B-
- I would not have picked Dach third overall
- Alex Vlasic was a nice get in round two with the flood of defensemen that went super high in round one
- Did Chicago draft Antti Saarela in round four because they knew they would get Aleksi Saarela from Carolina incredibly cheap?
Colorado: A
- Byram and Newhook, if Newhook pans out as BCHL drafted players can more than not be first round busts. I would add more reasoning here but all I can think of is Beau Bennett, who are the others, to pan out or not?
- Colorado had five of its top eight picks in the first three rounds, a recipe for success
Columbus: D
- Columbus only had three picks so they were guaranteed to not have a great rating
- I am very interested in what Columbus say in Eric Hjorth that made them use the first fourth round pick they had on him as he only played 10 games last year
Dallas: D+
- Harley Thomas Thomas Harley is intriguing in his puck skills but is also like a cute little bunny when he needs to be intense. It will be interesting to see if he can turn on the competitiveness needed to win
- The team then had its remaining three picks in rounds four, five and six, which didn’t yield anything special to me
Detroit: C
- As much as people say “Trust in Stevie Y” he did not have his army of scouts in Tampa for these picks and relied a lot on Detroit’s scouts. I think they picked both Moritz Seider and Antti Tuomisto too high, but what the heck do I know any way haha
- The team had eleven picks in total, and three in the second round
- The Red Wings really picked apart Europe in this draft taking Seider from the DEL, Tuomisto from the Finland Junior league, and taking four other players from the Sweden Junior leagues
Edmonton: C+
- I do not for the life of me understand why you leak the pick you are going to make. It was known a week ago they were thinking Philip Broberg, so no one after them was worried if they did not have Broberg as high
- Raphael Lavoie in round two is nice as it is yet to be seen if he is really good or is just said to be really good
- I am a big fan of the Oilers taking Ilya Konovalov and think he could be a future NHL goalie, but now the Oilers prospect goalie pipeline is very full
Florida: C
- See what I said about Edmonton taking Broberg above, but add in the added risk of using a first round pick on a goalie.
- With nine picks in the draft it does make sense to grab more over-agers than other teams but I think Florida went a little too heavy in that category
- Nothing else really stood out for me with the Panthers
LA Kings: A
- Alex Turcotte is a beast, let us all just hope the injury bug stays away for a long time now
- Tobias Bjornfot was a weird pick for me, but then in picking Arthur Kaliyev and Samuel Fagemo in round two were two of the best picks in that round. Teams past #15 this year are going to be kicking themselves they did not take Kaliyev in the first round in two to three years
- The next five picks they had may or may not pan out, but that does not matter as the top four selections they had more than made up for getting nothing with those picks
Minnesota: B+
- It is good a majority of the scouts are still in Minnesota and Paul Fenton couldn’t trade the picks away for lesser picks like he does his NHL players
- Matthew Boldy was a great pick at #12 and Vladislav Firstov was a great pick at #42
- I am interested in seeing Hunter Jones play behind a team that does not let him get killed every night
- Matvey Guskov could wind up being one of the better late picks from this draft as well
Also the Wild like to pick tall players:
{source}<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Fenton on <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/mnwild?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#mnwild</a> draft: "The thing I liked is when guys came up to our table and they were way taller than me. We’ve had some smaller prospects, good hockey players, but every time somebody came up and they were much taller, you got a smile on a lot of our faces."</p>— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) <a href=”https://twitter.com/RussoHockey/status/1142555949078417408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>June 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Alright well that is all for this week, tune in next week where I will go over the last 16 teams.
Thanks for reading and follow my twitter: @FHPQuinn