Over the course of the last two seasons the Minnesota Wild moved both their first and second round picks in the 2017 NHL Draft. With a pick in the third round, two picks in the fourth, and a pick in each remaining round, the chance at acquiring significant upside was considered minimal entering the draft. [...]
The 2017 NHL Entry Draft symbolized the start of a new era for the Los Angeles Kings. When Rob Blake took over for Dean Lombardi as general manager this summer, he was handed an uncomfortable salary cap situation and a pretty shallow prospect pool. This summer represents a new beginning for the former Western Conference [...]
After missing the playoffs for the first time since 1990 the Red Wings entered the 2017 NHL Entry Draft with the 9th overall pick, their first top ten pick since 1991 where they had selected Martin Lapointe 10th overall. With 11 picks in this year’s draft and six in the first three rounds, the Wings [...]
Entering the 2017 NHL draft, the Edmonton Oilers held eight picks. They ended up only drafting seven players due to trading the 82nd pick and the 126th pick for the 78th overall selection. As expected, the Oilers went heavy on forwards and light on the backend. They ended up selecting four forwards, two defensemen, [...]
After a lackluster 2016-17 campaign, the offseason has been a whirlwind thus far. The Dallas Stars fired Lindy Ruff, hired Ken Hitchcock, lost center Cody Eakin to Vegas expansion, bought-out Antti Niemi, traded for Marc Methot, signed free agents Martin Hanzal and Alexander Radulov, and hope to have finally found a reliable goalie Ben Bishop. [...]
After a disaster of a 2016-17 season, wrapped up by losing even the draft lottery, the Colorado Avalanche had a big off-season ahead of them. Step 1 was the NHL Entry draft, which overall was very successful. They had a total of seven picks, and got good value with most of them relative to where they [...]
For the first time since 2014, the Chicago Blackhawks had a first round pick (amongst nine total picks) to make on draft day. They spread those out geographically, choosing two players each from Canada, Finland and the United States while adding one each from Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic. Overall, they chose five defencemen [...]
2017 Carolina Hurricanes: After making trades for goaltender Scott Darling’s rights, and acquiring Trevor van Riemsdyk from Las Vegas following the Expansion Draft, GM Ron Francis and the Hurricanes still had eight selections entering the 2017 NHL Draft weekend. Many, including myself, did not expect the team to draft eight players, rather anticipating the Canes [...]
2017 Calgary Flames: Due to the acquisitions of Michael Stone and Curtis Lazar, the Flames had five selections in this year's draft. The Flames have created a draft pattern in the last few seasons with regard to how they select in rounds 5-7. They like to grab players who had seemingly fallen potentially since midseason [...]
The Buffalo Sabres came into NHL Draft weekend with seven total selections. When the Vegas Golden Knights had the interest of selecting Linus Ullmark in the Expansion Draft, the Sabres needed to deter them by supplying them with a sixth-round pick and in return Vegas selected Will Carrier instead. Losing Carrier was still somewhat of [...]
