It\u2019s NHL Draft eve. We don\u2019t need preamble or setup anymore. Let\u2019s get into it. Here\u2019s everything I\u2019ve 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\u2019d make and some quotes and insights I\u2019ve gathered over the course of the season.<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m hearing<\/p>\n
There are a few names I\u2019ve been hearing a lot in recent days and weeks that I wanted to draw some attention to:<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t 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.
\nThere are several teams in the late first that I\u2019ve 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.
\nThere 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\u2019ll be gone before 40, for sure.
\nTobias Trejbal will be the first goalie taken, and I think it will happen in the 30s. I\u2019m keeping an eye on Calgary and Pittsburgh.
\nI\u2019ve 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\u2019ve touched base with. If they move up from No. 22 into the teens (which is the easier move to execute), I\u2019d bet it\u2019s for D Ryan Lin.
\nI don\u2019t think the Blues make all four of their first-round picks, but look for them to take a center (or maybe two).
\nEminently 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.
\nI\u2019ve heard talk of the Sabres flipping No. 4, and of the Rangers not shutting the door on moving back from No. 5.
\nDespite his lost draft year to ACL surgery, there\u2019s a lot of interest in \u201907 Swede Jonas Lagerberg Hoen. He\u2019s a 6-foot-2.5 winger with NHL shot\/skill combo and room for physical development. I don\u2019t think the late first is out of the question, and he\u2019ll be a second-rounder at minimum.
\nWhen Russian Nikita Shcherbakov measured at 6-foot-5 (up from 6-foot-3) at Gold Star\u2019s camp in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., it caught some teams\u2019 attention. Defensemen that size who can move don\u2019t last long, and I know he\u2019s a first-rounder on some boards.<\/p>\n
Are the Sharks why the Blackhawks traded for Bowen Byram?<\/p>\n
Corey Pronman, Scott Wheeler and more<\/p>\n
Last-minute draft ranking tweaks<\/p>\n
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\u2019d make to my list if I could.<\/p>\n
This year, here are some of the ones I\u2019ve been kicking around:<\/p>\n
\u2022 I think I\u2019d move Bleyl from No. 28 to No. 24, moving each of the four players in front of him down one spot. I think that\u2019s where I was at previously; I just didn\u2019t have the conviction to trust it.<\/p>\n
\u2022 After Lavr Gashilov was measured at Gold Star\u2019s camp and his listing was moved from 6-foot-2.5 to 5-foot-11, I\u2019d probably move him from No. 46 on my list to No. 60, moving everyone else up by one. I\u2019d 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\u2019d been given was, uh, off by three and a half inches.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow he ever ended up being listed above 6-foot-2 is a mystery,\u201d one scout texted me on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u2022 I\u2019d 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\u2019t feel comfortable taking him in the first round (where I\u2019m told he\u2019s going to go), but I would in the second round, and my ranking should reflect that.<\/p>\n
A conversation with London Knights associate general manager Rob Simpson at the OHL draft helped contextualize Sokolovskii\u2019s tough start for me a little more clearly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t speak English at the start of the year. Coaches would yell D to D, and he wouldn\u2019t know what they were saying,\u201d Simpson said. \u201cGuys would ask why he struggled in the first half, and he was drowning, not because of tools but because of the language barrier. He\u2019s a physical specimen with translatable tools. Good stick. Moves. Size. Overpowers guys. Decision-making came a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quotes from the road<\/p>\n
Djurg\u00e5rden head coach Robert Kimby on Viggo Bj\u00f6rck\u2019s second half: Things went fast. He was really good. Like we played him against the other team\u2019s 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\u2019s actually quite strong in the man-to-man battles part), but again, he\u2019s 18 years old.<\/p>\n
Djurg\u00e5rden general manager Marcus Due-Boje on Viggo Bj\u00f6rck: In Djurg\u00e5rden, we\u2019ve produced a lot of great players over the years, but I don\u2019t 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\u2019s something special about Viggo\u2019s mind. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Boston University head coach Jay Pandolfo on Caleb Malhotra:\u00a0I\u2019ve 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\u2019s just a player. He\u2019s actually fun to watch.<\/p>\n
OHL general manager on Caleb Malhotra: I like him. Super smart, super skilled, I think he\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s not quite as naturally physical, and Seamus is a little more quick twitch, but Tommy is more cerebral. You can\u2019t forecheck (him). He beats one guy and snaps it, too; it\u2019s a pretty efficient game for a young defenseman.<\/p>\n
Youngstown co-general manager Ryan Koescki on Evan Jardine: I think he\u2019s a second or third-round pick, but I think he\u2019ll probably go 4-7. He competes his ass off, super smart, elite NHL shot, but he\u2019s not huge, and he\u2019s not super fast. The skating is just OK, and his height is just OK at 6 feet. If he was 6-2 and couldn\u2019t skate, he\u2019d be a second-round pick, and if he was 6-foot with elite skating, he\u2019d probably be a second-round pick.<\/p>\n
UMass assistant coach Tom Upton (now the head coach at Brown University) on Landon Nycz: He\u2019s still 17, and he\u2019s our only 17-year-old, and talking to the older guys on our roster, they\u2019re like, \u201cHe\u2019s more mature than half the guys on our team.\u201d He\u2019s just got a great pro demeanour about him at a young age, which is rare. You don\u2019t really see that. And then he\u2019s got some physical attributes. He\u2019s 6-foot-2, he\u2019s a big kid, and he\u2019s got tremendous feet and can skate. But I think the maturity level on him and the focus is what\u2019s really going to separate him from other guys.<\/p>\n
Kitchener Rangers general manager Mike McKenzie on Alexander Bilecki: Bilecki\u2019s got some pretty good upside, I\u2019d say. He\u2019s big, he\u2019s 6-foot-2, and he can skate. And he\u2019s got really good offensive ability, and he\u2019s got some jam too. He\u2019ll hit guys. He just needs to work on his defending, but there\u2019s some potential there. He needs to have a big summer getting stronger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s NHL Draft eve. We don\u2019t need preamble or setup anymore. Let\u2019s get into it. Here\u2019s everything I\u2019ve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-726053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}