The fourth mock Hockey Buzz mock draft driven by the readers and a few special guests is underway. Hank Bailing did not go off the board with the Sabres pick, selecting Owen Power first overall. Sean Maloughney is up for Seattle's pick with climbdenali12 on deck for Anaheim's selection. Below is the voting poll, please weigh in with your view.
First, some logistical information just for this blog: Thanks to all who have agreed to participate. Almost all teams are spoken for, meaning we have close to a full complement of General Managers, but need a few more. As a reminder, when you have your pick, rationale for the selection, who else you considered and if you weighed a trade, please send that to me via email to jan.levine@gmail.com. As said previously, for those who agree to participate, please make sure I have your real name to go with your Hockey Buzz ID.
The draft is July 23 and we will start the draft July 8 in the morning. That will give us 15 days or so to complete the draft, even factoring in the Sabbath. For weekdays and Sunday, I will post a pick in the am, theen a second in the pm with voting in between, for around the first 20 picks. The last 11, we will run three per day so we get all 31 picks by or on July 23.
As a reminder, for each pick, included should be: a) Selection and reasoning/scouting report, and, b) Alternatives considered(both players and trades). Please provide me via email your pick with the aforementioned information following the posting of the prior pick on the site. If I become aware of a pick or a few picks in a row, I will email you to help facilitate moving the mock draft along. I will post the blog with the pick and the voting poll within each blog.
Overall Rules and Process
As mentioned previously, there is a little kicker. After the pick or trade is made, a poll will be posted to rate the selection or deal. If the majority of people like the pick or trade, that selection stands and it moves on to the next team’s picks. If not, the majority rules and that’s what happens with that team and pick. I have the last right of refusal to keep everything on the up and up and avoid ballot box stuffing. My request to you is that you take this seriously and not make a mockery of the mock draft, because that would be an insult to the others who are participating and makes the whole process a sham. But by playing this out, we get to have healthy debate and conversation to remain engaged up and possibly beyond the draft. If teams make deals and they occur before a team’s selection is due, that deal will play a part as to when each person’s selection occurs.Here how this will work: each morning and evening (for now, two picks per day, but we will go to three when we get to latter third of the mock draft, so that we complete on time) the team’s selector will email me at jan.levine@gmail.com their pick and their rationale for that selection. If making a trade, the same applies, and all the selectors have been listed below along with their screen name if from this site or their twitter handle if external to help facilitate making trades. I will post that pick and rationale on the site and create a voting poll. For now, I was thinking solely just a yes or no vote for the poll, but if people want me to list other options for the selection at that pick number in cases of a no vote, I am happy to do so, to help make it more robust.
With the 1st Overall Pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, the Buffalo Sabres, represented by Hank Bailing, select Owen Power, D, University of Michigan
Rationale for the selection with scouting report along with alternatives considered (both players and trades):
The Sabres should exhaust all efforts to maximize the value of their 1st overall pick by trading down in a draft that did not have a consensus pick until only recently. Power still isn’t a total lock on all mock draft boards as Dobber Prospects came out with their prospect rankings last week and listed Power at #6. There is risk in a recency bias and in the case of Owen Power, that recency bias is due to his stellar performance in Riga, Latvia at the World Championships in the spring. It was only after the conclusion of that tournament that the rankings really solidified around Power being the 1st overall pick.
Power certainly has some intriguing attributes as he possesses a strong two-way game for a young man and he certainly has good offensive instincts. Combine that with Power's 6'6" frame and you can see why he's often at the top of mock draft boards.
Alternatively, his somewhat sudden rise up the mock draft boards reminds me of a quarterback prospect at the college level who has a stellar pro day and as a result, his draft stock rises and it throws the rankings into disarray for a period before the draft. A team shouldn’t make a decision based on a tournament’s worth of work even if it was an impressive showing because there is at least some risk that a single strong performance is not an indication that a player will be the best player in the draft.
This isn’t to disparage a player who projects to be an almost sure-fire NHL contributor, but rather a reaction to the position in which the Sabres find themselves in with the potential departures of Jack Eichel, Sam Reinhart, Jake McCabe and Linus Ullmark which would leave the Sabres in a position to fill as many organizational holes as possible. For that reason, the Sabres should attempt to trade down into the 2-5 range to pick up additional pieces which can help them now while also selecting a player in this year’s draft who may turn out to be just as good if not better than Owen Power.
It is also true that I am intrigued by the unique physical gifts of Luke Hughes, the strong two-way play of Matty Beniers and the pure dynamic ability of Dylan Guenther, although it wouldn’t make much sense for the Sabres to select either one of them at 1 when the Sabres could easily trade down and get one of them while picking up assets in the process. It’s simply not good asset management to take anyone but Power at 1. (Quick blog plug here. I have an ongoing prospect series here at Hockeybuzz so please check that out. I’ve written about Power, Beniers, Luke Hughes, William Eklund and several others).
Perhaps the Sabres could make a deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets who own 3 first round picks, or perhaps with Anaheim at 3. Anaheim has been one of the teams hot on the trail of Jack Eichel and perhaps swapping picks 1 and 3 would incentivize the Ducks to include both Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale in a deal. Would the Kraken want to swap picks to make a splash in their inaugural season while giving the Sabres a prospect they collect in the expansion draft? There are a lot of moves the Sabres could make which would help them out in a bigger way than simply selecting one player.
There are almost certainly teams out there who covet the big, offensive defenseman at the top of the draft and the Sabres could exploit that to satisfy their need to add talent across the board while also adding a solid prospect at whichever draft position they trade down to. The Sabres need to explore every opportunity to maximize what pieces they have in order to turn the tide on the decade-long organizational dysfunction in the shortest amount of time possible without sacrificing pieces for the future. Trading down in the draft is a simple way to turn one asset into multiple assets in the hope that the additional pieces increase the chances that they hit on a high-ceiling piece.
If the Sabres can’t reach a deal however, they easily take Power who projects to be at least a solid second-pairing defenseman.
2021 NHL DRAFT ORDER 1. Buffalo Sabres - Hank Bailing, Owen Power, D, Michigan 2. Seattle Kraken - Sean Maloughney, Seattle Kraken blogger on the site, Thursday, July 8, pm 3. Anaheim Ducks - climbdenali12, Ryan Armstrong, Friday, July 9, am 4. New Jersey Devils - Zabber, Friday, July 9, pm 5. Columbus Blue Jackets, slimTJ, TJ Reilly, Saturday, July 10 pm
6. Detroit Red Wings - fed91tstammer, Sunday July 11, am 7. San Jose Sharks - hockeygm, Sunday, July 11 pm 8. Los Angeles Kings - dudestar, Nicholas Plazio, Monday July 12 am 9. Vancouver Canucks - Nucker101, Monday, July 12 pm 10. Ottawa Senators - optimus_rein, Luke Herrington, Tuesday, July 13 am
11. Chicago Blackhawks - Theo Fox, Blackhawks blogger from site, Tuesday, July 13 pm 12. Calgary Flames - ShallowLarynx, Wednesday, July 14 am 13. Philadelphia Flyers - Flyersfan328, Phil Brunner, Wednesday, July 14 pm 14. Dallas Stars - NYRangers1124, Thursday, July 15, am 15. New York Rangers - Jan Levine, Thursday, July 15 pm
16. St. Louis Blues - Tommycasino, Tom Dueck, Friday, July 16 am 17. Winnipeg Jets - Ross77, Darren Ross, Friday, July 16 pm 18. Nashville Predators - Saturday, July 17 pm 19. Edmonton Oilers - maximumbone, Silas Bengtsson Sunday July 18 am 20. Boston Bruins - Sunday, July 18 afternoon
21. Minnesota Wild - jryan88 - Sunday, July 18 pm 22. Detroit Red Wings (from Washington Capitals) - fed91tstammer, Monday, July 19 am 23. Florida Panthers - jimbo, Jimmy Reilly - Monday, July 19, afternoon 24. Columbus Blue Jackets (from Toronto Maple Leafs) - slimTJ, TJ Reilly, Monday, July 19, pm 25. Minnesota Wild (from Pittsburgh Penguins) - jryan88, Tuesday, July 20, am
26. Carolina Hurricanes - Bingo, Chris Cote, Tuesday, July 20, afternoon 27. Colorado Avalanche - Tuesday, July 20, pm 28. New Jersey Devils (from New York Islanders) - Zabber, Wednesday, July 21, am 29. Las Vegas Golden Knights - Wednesday, July 21, afternoon 30. Montreal Canadiens - Wednesday, July 21, pm 31. Columbus Blue Jackets (from Tampa Bay Lightning) - slimTJ, TJ Reilly, Thursday, July 22, am
Nashville, Boston, Colorado, Las Vegas and Montreal are available. Russ Cohen has agreed to take one of the open teams and TommyGTrain will draft for one as well.
Looking forward to running this again. We had a ton of fun the last few seasons. That should be the same again this year with New York having the 15th pick in the first round.