It’s NHL Draft eve. We don’t need preamble or setup anymore. Let’s get into it. Here’s everything I’ve been hearing and thinking about in the final hours ahead of Friday night at KeyBank Center, plus a couple of last-minute draft ranking tweaks I’d make and some quotes and insights I’ve gathered over the course of the season.

What I’m hearing

There are a few names I’ve been hearing a lot in recent days and weeks that I wanted to draw some attention to:

I don’t think Xavier Villeneuve goes in the first round, but I do think Tommy Bleyl does. Villeneuve will go early on Day 2 and interviewed well at the combine, but I get the sense teams are too wary of his defending to take him in Round 1.
There are several teams in the late first that I’ve heard connected to American center Jack Hextall. He was viewed as a bubble first-rounder for much of the year, but he goes in the 20s.
There are a couple of teams strongly considering Providence commit Ryder Cali at the end of Round 1. Two different sources have mentioned the Senators at No. 32 in particular. He’ll be gone before 40, for sure.
Tobias Trejbal will be the first goalie taken, and I think it will happen in the 30s. I’m keeping an eye on Calgary and Pittsburgh.
I’ve been hearing consistently since the combine that the Penguins have made a lot of calls about moving up. I think they have a guy in the top 10 they want and one in the teens they like, so there are teams in two different ranges they’ve touched base with. If they move up from No. 22 into the teens (which is the easier move to execute), I’d bet it’s for D Ryan Lin.
I don’t think the Blues make all four of their first-round picks, but look for them to take a center (or maybe two).
Eminently likable pro-styled Swedish center Alexander Command is going to go in the front half of the first round and could go closer to No. 10 than No. 16.
I’ve heard talk of the Sabres flipping No. 4, and of the Rangers not shutting the door on moving back from No. 5.
Despite his lost draft year to ACL surgery, there’s a lot of interest in ’07 Swede Jonas Lagerberg Hoen. He’s a 6-foot-2.5 winger with NHL shot/skill combo and room for physical development. I don’t think the late first is out of the question, and he’ll be a second-rounder at minimum.
When Russian Nikita Shcherbakov measured at 6-foot-5 (up from 6-foot-3) at Gold Star’s camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., it caught some teams’ attention. Defensemen that size who can move don’t last long, and I know he’s a first-rounder on some boards.

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Last-minute draft ranking tweaks

Each June, in the days between the drop of my final draft board and the draft itself, continued conversations, new info, and even some additional video work (normally precipitated by those chats) always seem to lead me to some hair-pulling and flip-flopping about minor adjustments I’d make to my list if I could.

This year, here are some of the ones I’ve been kicking around:

• I think I’d move Bleyl from No. 28 to No. 24, moving each of the four players in front of him down one spot. I think that’s where I was at previously; I just didn’t have the conviction to trust it.

• After Lavr Gashilov was measured at Gold Star’s camp and his listing was moved from 6-foot-2.5 to 5-foot-11, I’d probably move him from No. 46 on my list to No. 60, moving everyone else up by one. I’d had conversations with scouts throughout this year about how he looked smaller on tape than his listing, but until we actually get a confirmed listing, we can only go by what NHL Central Scouting had been using. It turns out whatever measurement they’d been given was, uh, off by three and a half inches.

“How he ever ended up being listed above 6-foot-2 is a mystery,” one scout texted me on Wednesday.

• I’d probably move the towering 6-foot-7.25, 240-pound Maksim Sokolovskii from No. 73 and the front of Tier 6 to the late-50s and the back of Tier 5. I still wouldn’t feel comfortable taking him in the first round (where I’m told he’s going to go), but I would in the second round, and my ranking should reflect that.

A conversation with London Knights associate general manager Rob Simpson at the OHL draft helped contextualize Sokolovskii’s tough start for me a little more clearly.

“He didn’t speak English at the start of the year. Coaches would yell D to D, and he wouldn’t know what they were saying,” Simpson said. “Guys would ask why he struggled in the first half, and he was drowning, not because of tools but because of the language barrier. He’s a physical specimen with translatable tools. Good stick. Moves. Size. Overpowers guys. Decision-making came a long way.”

Quotes from the road

Djurgården head coach Robert Kimby on Viggo Björck’s second half: Things went fast. He was really good. Like we played him against the other team’s top center every game, 20-22 minutes, short-handed. And yes, he still has a lot of things to learn, and I think he can grow his defensive awareness of guys behind him (he’s actually quite strong in the man-to-man battles part), but again, he’s 18 years old.

Djurgården general manager Marcus Due-Boje on Viggo Björck: In Djurgården, we’ve produced a lot of great players over the years, but I don’t think people have ever had a guy like Viggo. And then you still have the Anton Frondells, the Gabriel Landeskogs, the Mika Zibanejads and all those guys, but there’s something special about Viggo’s mind. He’s a guy that creates keys for himself in any situation. We think he should be higher than 9-10, I can tell you that. I know about the size and everything, and the maturity that is already there.

Boston University head coach Jay Pandolfo on Caleb Malhotra: I’ve watched most of his playoff games, and you can still see that the strength portion for him will show up more at this level than it does in the OHL, but his sense and everything that goes along with it, he’s just a player. He’s actually fun to watch.

OHL general manager on Caleb Malhotra: I like him. Super smart, super skilled, I think he’s going to need a little more time than people think. And that team had a lot around him. But all of these guys need time. He just continued to get better, though, too.

Michigan State associate head coach Jared DeMichiel on Tommy Bleyl: I thought going into the year, maybe late second or early third, and some people have said to me he might go late teens, which was crazy going into the season. He reminds me of Seamus Casey. He’s not quite as naturally physical, and Seamus is a little more quick twitch, but Tommy is more cerebral. You can’t forecheck (him). He beats one guy and snaps it, too; it’s a pretty efficient game for a young defenseman.

Youngstown co-general manager Ryan Koescki on Evan Jardine: I think he’s a second or third-round pick, but I think he’ll probably go 4-7. He competes his ass off, super smart, elite NHL shot, but he’s not huge, and he’s not super fast. The skating is just OK, and his height is just OK at 6 feet. If he was 6-2 and couldn’t skate, he’d be a second-round pick, and if he was 6-foot with elite skating, he’d probably be a second-round pick.

UMass assistant coach Tom Upton (now the head coach at Brown University) on Landon Nycz: He’s still 17, and he’s our only 17-year-old, and talking to the older guys on our roster, they’re like, “He’s more mature than half the guys on our team.” He’s just got a great pro demeanour about him at a young age, which is rare. You don’t really see that. And then he’s got some physical attributes. He’s 6-foot-2, he’s a big kid, and he’s got tremendous feet and can skate. But I think the maturity level on him and the focus is what’s really going to separate him from other guys.

Kitchener Rangers general manager Mike McKenzie on Alexander Bilecki: Bilecki’s got some pretty good upside, I’d say. He’s big, he’s 6-foot-2, and he can skate. And he’s got really good offensive ability, and he’s got some jam too. He’ll hit guys. He just needs to work on his defending, but there’s some potential there. He needs to have a big summer getting stronger.