Draft week is here!
And after making a big splash last Friday with a number of organizational and contract announcements, including Brock Boeser's new deal, all is quiet for the moment around the Vancouver Canucks. A good portion of the staff is making its way to Montreal in preparation for the first in-person draft ceremony in three years, which will run Thursday and Friday. And given the way things have been going with air travel lately, it may take them the better part of the week to get there.
The first events of draft week are set to go down on Wednesday morning. A handful of top prospects are set to take part in a youth hockey clinic at the Canadiens' training center in Brossard, then a group of top prospects will meet the media at the Montreal Science Centre. Eight players are expected to be on hand for that event: Shane Wright, Juraj Slafkovsky, Cutter Gauthier, Matt Savoie, Connor Geekie, Logan Cooley, Joakim Kemell and Nathan Gaucher.
It's a bit surprising to see Gaucher's name on this list. The big centre is ranked 16th among North American skaters on the final rankings from
NHL Central Scouting. But he adds some local flavour, as the top-ranked player from the QMJHL.
TSN's Craig Button released his final mock draft on Monday morning. He has Gaucher going to Montreal late in the first round, at No. 26.
Button also sticks with Shane Wright as the first-overall pick for the Habs, going against the scouts' poll of his colleague Bob McKenzie, which moved Slafkovsky into the top spot.
Though there has been lots of talk that new Montreal GM Kent Hughes still hasn't made up his mind about No. 1, I'm expecting he'll end up leaning toward Wright. I understand the concern that he didn't blow the doors off this year in Kingston — although he did still finish with 94 points. And after seeing his OHL season completely cancelled in 2020-21, his development path has certainly been more winding than most top prospects.
That being said, as we get closer to draft day and start to hear more about the flaws and limitations of even the highest-ranked players, I'm wondering if this draft ends up resembling 2012, when the first round was littered with disappointments.
The top four players selected that year, in order, were Nail Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Alex Galchenyuk and Griffin Reinhart. We scoffed when
Brian Burke said he had Morgan Rielly at No. 1 on his draft board after his Toronto Maple Leafs selected him at No. 5 — even though Rielly had played just 18 games in his draft year due to injury.
Ten years later, Rielly's 654 NHL games top his draft class and his 373 points rank him third, despite being a defenseman.
If 2022 does end up being a replay of 2012, that's good news for the Canucks — who might have a crack at a hidden gem at No. 15. Four of the top six scorers from the 2012 class were chosen outside the top 10: Filip Forsberg at No. 11 (469 points), Tomas Hertl at No. 17 (387 points), Teuvo Teravainen at No. 18 (369 points) and Tom Wilson at No. 16 (273 points).
Drafted at No. 30 by the Los Angeles Kings, Tanner Pearson sits eighth on the list, with 267 points.
I don't know if there's some kind of weird numerological cycle around draft years ending in '2,' but the 2002 draft was pretty crazy, as well. Rick Nash was taken first overall and ended up as the leading scorer from that draft class, but the next six most productive players were all chosen outside the top 10: Duncan Keith at No. 54 (646 points), Alexander Steen at No. 24 (622 points), Valtteri Filppula at No. 95 (530 points), Alexander Semin at No. 13 (517 points), Frans Nielsen at No. 87 (473 points) and Jiri Hudler at No. 58 (428 points).
I'm going to pick another year at random to compare....2007. Yep, much more normal.
Five of the top nine scorers came from the top 10: Patrick Kane, Jake Voracek, Logan Couture, James van Riemsdyk and Sam Gagner. Two others were first rounders chosen in the 20s — David Perron and Max Pacioretty. The outliers are Wayne Simmonds (No. 61) and Jamie Benn (No. 129). And at this point I think everyone knows the story about how teams avoided Benn because they thought he was going to pursue a career in baseball.
So — on to the nitty gritty:
Button's Mock Draft has the Canucks selecting 6'4" left-shot defenseman Owen Pickering out of Swift Current of the WHL — a relatively high ranking for the Manitoba native, who rose from No. 21 to No. 15 among North American skaters on Central Scouting's final list.
Corey Pronman of
The Athletic did a full seven-round mock draft on June 30. He has the Canucks selecting Swedish centre Noah Ostlund, who climbed from 25th to 18th among European skaters on the Central Scouting list but, according to Pronman, is getting rave reviews from scouts after a strong season with Djurgardens of the Swedish Junior League. For part of the season, Ostlund was teammates with winger Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who also played 26 games at the senior level and is more highly regarded. Central Scouting has him at No. 6 among the Europeans. Button has him going to Detroit at No. 8 and Pronman at No. 9, to Detroit.
Over at
Daily Faceoff, Chris Peters assigns Finnish forward Brad Lambert to the Canucks at No. 15. Highly touted as a potential top pick a couple of years ago, Lambert is a tremendous skater and has decent size at 6'1", but has had trouble putting his game together at the pro level in his native Finland. He dropped from No. 5 to No. 10 among European skaters on the Central Scouting rankings over the course of the season. Button has him going to Pittsburgh at No. 21 and Pronman bumps him all the way down to Edmonton at No. 29.
As for McKenzie — keep in mind that his list is a ranking based on a poll of 10 scouts. With Slafkovsky coming out on top in that poll, McKenzie reminded everyone that the margin between him and Shane Wright was very small, and could have been different if he'd polled 10 different scouts.
And
McKenzie's list is purely a ranking, not a mock draft.
He has well-regarded centre Frank Nazar from the U.S. National Team Development Program at No. 15. Smallish at 5'10", Nazar actually fell from No. 17 to No. 21 on the Central Scouting rankings over the course of the year, but had a strong showing at the U18 tournament in April and has seemed to be gaining momentum — even ranked within the top five on a couple of lists.
The mock drafts have a pretty strong consensus that Nazar will be selected right around the time the Canucks pick.
Button has him going to Nashville at No. 17, Pronman sends him to Minnesota at No. 19, and Peters puts him on Winnipeg, at No. 14.
As for the other players mentioned above, McKenzie's list has Noah Ostlund at No. 22, Owen Pickering at No. 23 and Brad Lambert at No. 16.
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