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Quick Hits: Patrick, Hart, and More |
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QUICK HITS: JUNE 21, 2017
1) Darren Dreger was a guest Sirius XM NHL Network Radio's Power Play with Laughlin and O’Sullivan show on Tuesday. According to Dreger's sources, the New Jersey Devils appear to gave decided to use the first overall pick of the 2017 NHL Draft on Halifax Mooseheads center Nico Hischier.
“It sounds like Nico is likely going to the Devils and [Nolan] Patrick will go to the Philadelphia Flyers,” Dreger said.
Entering the 2016-17 season, Patrick was the unanimous pack leader in the race for the first overall slot in the 2017 Draft. If he had been draft eligible last year (his birth date fell four days too late for eligibility), many scouts believe that Patrick would have gone third; after Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine but ahead of the rest of the class. This past season, a surge by Hischier and Patrick's injury issues (he dealt with dual sports hernias) led to Patrick being narrowly edged out by Hischier at the finish line according to some pundits.
Patrick held on to the top spot in the final NHL Central Scouting North American rankings as well as the final International Scouting Services (ISS) list. Bob McKenzie and Craig Button each had Patrick second on their final rankings. McKeen's Hockey ranked Patrick first overall but projected him to go second in their mock draft. Kyle Woodlief's Red Line Report also had Patrick going wire-to-wire as the top draft prospect for 2017.
The outlier is the Recrutes rankings compiled by former Montreal Canadiens amateur scout Grant McCagg, which have Patrick ranked third (behind Hischier and Finnish defenseman Miro Heiskanen) with a mock draft projection of the Devils taking Heiskanen and the Flyers selecting Hischier, leaving Patrick for the Dallas Stars at third overall.
As always, Flyers general manager Ron Hextall has refused to hint anything about the team's plans, except that he anticipates using the second overall pick barring a trade offer he couldn't refuse. He has also talked about how the public (and external scouting service) consensus isn't always right in the long-term, but said that this was a philosophical belief and not a hint as to how the Flyers' own rankings played out.
Realistically, it still seems quite likely that the Flyers use the second pick on Patrick (assuming Hischier proves to be the first name off the board). However, if a player other than Patrick would be at the top of the Flyers' internal ranking list, their best bet may be to trade down a few spots (such as to the fourth spot, which the Colorado Avalanche hold) to pick up additional assets and still have a strong chance of having their targeted player available.
2) Flyers goaltending prospect Carter Hart has been invited to Hockey Canada's national junior team summer development camp. Hart is considered close to a shoo-in to once again represent Canada at the World Junior Championships assuming he stays healthy.
3) June 21, 2017 is the 15th anniversary of the trade that saw the Flyers acquire the fourth overall pick of the 2002 NHL Draft (Joni Pitkänen) from the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for Ruslan Fedotenko, the return of Tampa's previously acquired 2002 second-round pick (Tobias Stephan) and the Phoenix Coyotes' 2002 second-round pick (Dan Spang).
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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