The NHL draft is a crapshoot at best. More often than not, you can't predict at 17 or 18 what a player is going to be at 20, 25, and 30.
Not everyone can be fortunate enough to have their pick of the bunch and get a Connor McDavid, John Tavares or Sidney Crosby.
It used to be an even bigger guess, but science and psychology has really trimmed down the "busts" in the top 10 in recent years as compared to 15 or 20 years ago and beyond. That being said, picking outside the top 10 in any year becomes a guessing game, because all the players have similar talent level and it becomes a mind game as well as how a team develops him that will determine his level of success or failure at the NHL level.
And as for teams being able to unearth the late-round gems, forget that. If Detroit knew how good Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk were going to be, they certainly wouldn't have waited until the 210th and 171st picks respectively before picking them. That is pure luck, not "smart drafting" The Wings certainly get credit for developing them from non-prospect status to superstars, but it was luck that they fell into their laps. Ask Jari Tolsa, Andrei Maximenko, Kent McDonnell, Ryan Barnes, Tomek Valtonen, Jake McCracken, Brent Hobday, Carl Steen and Adam DeLeeuw about the Red Wings draft success. Over the two drafts, the first 3 were Red Wings own selections before Zetterberg, and the last 6 were selected by Detroit prior to Datsyuk. Combined NHL games for those 9 players - 34. The lone exception over those two drafts was Jiri Fischer, who the Wings selected in the first round of the Datsyuk draft who played over 300 games before his scary health issues forced a very early retirement.
That just shows how fickle the draft can be, and how much luck plays into projecting what kids will be in 5 years.
The Ottawa Senators have the 18th overall pick later this month, and the odds are that they will get a player who will be a contributor. Will he be a top 3 forward or top pairing defenseman? Not likely, but this is one of the deeper drafts in recent memory and the Senators have had a pretty good track record drafting in that neighborhood as of late. In 2008, they chose 15th and selected a skinny little defenseman named Erik Karlsson. 2012 saw them pick 15th again and they selected hometown blueliner Cody Ceci, and a year after that they nabbed Curtis Lazar with the 17th pick.
Which brings us to what will happen this year. The Senators have 3 picks in the top 50 - 18, 42 (from Dallas in the Spezza trade) and 48. There will no doubt be opportunities to trade up, trade down or stand pat. If they see a guy they like still on the board at 13 or 14 then they could move up 3 or 4 spots using a 2nd rounder and their first rounder to do so. They could also like a guy that they think will still be there a bit later, and trade down 4 or 5 spots and add another 2nd or 3rd round pick.
But those opportunities are almost infinite, so lets say they keep the 18th pick. Who will be on the board at that time?
The consensus top 5 are McDavid-Eichel-Strome-Marner-Hanafin. So they won't be around for Ottawa to pick, and the price to move into the top 5 will be prohibitive.
Names like Crouse, Provorov, Werenski and Zacha will likely be in the next group.
So now I will throw out a list of 5 names that could be available when the Senators pick and/or who would be within the range of trading up in order to get.
1. Mikko Rantanen - The Finnish forward moved into the #1 European skater by CSB, and was #10 on Bob McKenzie's draft list. He is a big guy who can skate and has a good shot and competes hard.
2. Travis Konecny - The Ottawa 67's captain had a bit of an up and down year, but finished strong and moved up from 26th to 14th in the central scouting rankings. He isn't a great skater and isn't big which might make him available at 18th. He has a great shot and good hands and will pay the price.
3. Nick Merkley - The under 6' winger is almost the opposite of Konecny. He is a good skater but is more playmaker than shooter. He plays with an edge and was a key contributor on a Kelowna team that made the Memorial Cup final. He dropped to 23rd in Central Scouting but McKenzie had him slotted at 17 in his final rankings.
4. Jakub Zobril - "Nasty" is the adjective to describe the blueliner from the Saint John Sea Dogs. He is a good skating defenseman who can carry the puck and play in all situations. He finished 12th among NA skaters and was 14th on McKenzies ranking.
5. Evgeny Svechnikov - Russian and Bryan Murray don't always go together, in fact they rarely do. But Svechnikov is one of the more NHL ready players, and came to North America to play junior so he is obviously willing to stick around. The Russian factor could be interesting given the turmoil in the KHL, and this is a talented all-around winger who could be a game-changer. McKenzie has him ranked 18th, right where Ottawa is scheduled to pick.
In this area of the draft, there aren't really many defensemen. McKenzie has Zobril ranked 14th and then the next blueliner is Brandon Carlo at 22.
Once you get to the point in the draft where Ottawa is picking, there could be 10 or 15 different players that a team would have as their next pick. This is where the scouts earn their money, because that is what the decision will be based on.
And whoever they pick, don't expect an immediate impact. Only 3 players from last year's draft played more than the 9 games they are allowed before the year kicks in on their contract, and only one of those, David Pastrnak, was selected outside the top 3. This year is deeper and there could be 4 or 5 first rounders seeing regular NHL action next year, but the 18th pick likely won't be in that group.
Patience is a virtue and that is never more evident than dealing with an NHL prospect, with a few cases being the exception.