The Hockey Buzz mock draft driven by the readers and hopefully a few special guests is back for a fifth season. This approach is driven by what I wrote in year 1 with those who participated then having similar interest this season, “I thought we should have a mock draft with some of the commenters taking a team and making a pick. But not only making a pick but providing the rationale for the pick. If that selector wants to propose a trade as opposed to making a pick, then they have that right. But the key has to be what works for that team and not just the Rangers."
Four of the past five seasons, we did a mock draft pick by pick to lead us up to the actual draft. This season, the interest level appears to be there again to have the same, especially with the Blueshirts at a.critical juncture of their rebuild The logistics should be similar to what we did previously, but running them below to verify that info.
Below is the info from the last few years. Please let me know any tweaks or suggestions you might have to build on the past. The draft is a little under a month away, so we have a bit of time to get this up and running and react to any changes to the team or the draft.
For those who agree to participate, please make sure I have your real name to go with your Hockey Buzz ID. In addition, please PM me or email me to
[email protected] to confirm you are in and will definitely be drafted. I would prefer not to chase everyone at the last minute, especially if we have a condensed time to complete the draft. In addition selfishly, I would like to have the Rangers but willing to cover whichever team to help us have a robust draft.
The two decisions to be made are:: 1)
do we allow trades? We did in the past, but that did create some issues, especially when it came to overturned deals 2)
when should we start?
Here is my view on trades. I am happy to have them proposed, but for ease of purpose of the draft, I would prefer not to slow down the picks and the voting by waiting for a vote on if the deal is fair. As such, my view is we have the primary picks, but if a trade is made, run with an alternate draft that has the revised selection based on the deal occurring. If the owners want me to opine on the trade rather than running through the vote, that's fine by me.
The draft is June 28, which is a little more than six weeks from today. If we get the team owners/drafters determined in a week or so, we can start the draft around the end of month. That will give us 30 days or so to complete the draft, even factoring in the Sabbath. If that is too early, we can start in June and go with one pick in the am, theen a second in the pm with voting in between, barring any major Rangers' news breaking. In addition, I am still figuring out my plans and if I will be posting top-offseason question blogs.
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 evening (for now, one pick per day, but we will go to two when we get to second half of the mock draft and possibly even before that, so that we complete on time) the team’s selector will email me at [email protected] 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.
As of now, all teams are open. I will give preference to certain owners who have participated in the past. For a few teams, I will reach out to the blogger on the site to see if they want to make the selection. But hoping to have a substantive number of picks made by the readers of the blog, as done the first four years of the Mock Draft.
2023 NHL DRAFT ORDER (as of Sunday am, May 14)
1 Chicago
2 Anaheim
3 Columbus
4 San Jose
5 Montreal
6 Arizona
7 Philadelphia
8 Washington
9 Detroit
10 St. Louis
11 Vancouver
12 Arizona via OTT
13 Buffalo
14 Pittsburgh
15 Nashville
16 Calgary
17 Detroit via NYI
18 Winnipeg
19 Chicago via TB
20 Seattle
21 Minnesota
22 Columbus via LA
23 NY Rangers
24 Nashville via EDM
25 St. Louis via TOR
26 San Jose via NJ
27 Colorado
28 Toronto via BOS
29 Montreal via FLA
30 St. Louis via DAL
31 Vegas
32 Carolina
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, as of now, having the 23rd pick in the first round.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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