2021 NHL Draft Lottery

[Josh]

Lottery is tonight!

[Josh]

The odds for the first draw of the 2021 NHL Draft Lottery are as follows:

1. Buffalo Sabres, 16.6 percent

2. Anaheim Ducks, 12.1 percent

3. Seattle Kraken, 10.3 percent

4. New Jersey Devils, 10.3 percent

5. Columbus Blue Jackets, 8.5 percent

6. Detroit Red Wings, 7.6 percent

7. San Jose Sharks, 6.7 percent

8. Los Angeles Kings, 5.8 percent

9. Vancouver Canucks, 5.4 percent

10. Ottawa Senators, 4.5 percent

11. Arizona Coyotes, 3.1 percent

12. Chicago Blackhawks, 2.7 percent

13. Calgary Flames, 2.2 percent

14. Philadelphia Flyers, 1.8 percent

15. Dallas Stars, 1.4 percent

16. New York Rangers, 1.0 percent

[matchesmalone]

Bah. Buffalo picks first, Seattle second. There goes our chance at Brandt Clarke. Corson Ceulemans and Aleksi Heimosalmi would be options for RD, on the off chance they're BPA for our pick, or we could always trade back.

Mostly I'm just excited to get started on y mock draft, now that we know the order.

[Josh]

Final order (Anaheim and Seattle swapping places is the only change):

1. Buffalo Sabres

2. Seattle Kraken

3. Anaheim Ducks

4. New Jersey Devils

5. Columbus Blue Jackets

6. Detroit Red Wings

7. San Jose Sharks

8. Los Angeles Kings

9. Vancouver Canucks

10. Ottawa Senators

11. Chicago Blackhawks

12. Calgary Flames

13. Philadelphia Flyers

14. Dallas Stars

15. New York Rangers

[Josh]

Would you trade 10OA to Columbus or Minnesota for either of their two late 1sts?

[matchesmalone]

23 and 29, or 22 and 25. I dunno man. Tough. I'm just not familiar enough with the prospects this year beyond the top 15 or 20. Seems like a pretty average crop, earlier I thought it might be a little below average after around 25, but then I discovered a few under-hyped prospects that look super legit for the late first round. Most notably Ville Koivunen and Mackie Samoskevich. And I believe Aleksi Heimosalmi will be leaping all the way into the mid first-round, so the trickledown effect means there could be close to 30 completely legit first rounders.

[Josh]

So I'm going to assume for this little exercise that the following players are off the table before Ottawa's pick: Power, Hughes, Clarke, Edvinsson, Beniers, Eklund, McTavish, and Johnson. In fact, that's pretty much exactly how I expect the first 8 picks to go:

1. Buffalo Sabres - Owen Power
2. Seattle Kraken - Luke Hughes
3. Anaheim Ducks - Brandt Clarke
4. New Jersey Devils - Simon Edvinsson
5. Columbus Blue Jackets - Matthew Beniers
6. Detroit Red Wings - William Eklund
7. San Jose Sharks - Mason McTavish
8. Los Angeles Kings - Kent Johnson

That would leave my top-three choices for Ottawa's pick as Guenther, Lysell, and Raty (though it wouldn't surprise me if they picked Wallstedt).

Of the players I expect might be available with both first round picks belonging to Columbus and Minnesota, my top choices would be Lambos, Svechkov, Ceulemans, and Chayka.

So I guess the question becomes "would you trade one of Guenther, Lysell, or Raty for two of Lambos, Svechkov, Ceulemans, and Chayka??"

My answer would be yes. And I could really see Columbus having an appetite for such a deal and walking away with two top-10 picks.

However, if any of Power, Hughes, Clarke, Edvinsson, Beniers, or Eklund are somehow still available at 10, I'd take them.

[matchesmalone]

Well, I guess the best way I can comment is to post my list. Pretty much my final list, although I'm sure there will still be minor tweaks, especially to the back half where I'm far from confident with my assessments.

1. Brandt Clarke

2. William Eklund

3. Owen Power

4. Matthew Beniers

5. Cole Sillinger

6. Luke Hughes

7. Fyodor Svechkov

8. Kent Johnson

9. Dylan Guenther

10. Mason McTavish

11. Jesper Wallstedt

12. Corson Ceulemans

13. Aleksi Heimosalmi

14. Fabian Lysell

15. Simon Edvinsson

16. Chaz Lucius

17. Carson Lambos

18. Nikita Chibrikov

19. Stanislav Svozil

20. Brennan Othmann

21. Oskar Olausson

22. Aatu Raty

23. Xavier Bourgault

24. Zach Bolduc

25. Matthew Coronato

26. Sebastian Cossa

27. Ville Koivunen

28. Sasha Pastujov

29. Daniil Chayka

30. Isak Rosen

31. Simon Robertsson

[matchesmalone]

And here's my mock draft so far:

1. Buffalo Sabres - Owen Power. It seems to be fairly consensus from the experts, so regardless of the intricacies of Buffalo's particular scouting staff, I'm guessing it wouldn't have mattered too much who was going to pick first, Power would probably be the pick. Newly promoted DAS Jerry Forton was previously their director of collegiate scouting, so it makes sense there too. My only hesitation is that the new ADAS Jason Nightingale is also their director of analytics. I have no idea what the analytics people are saying about Power, but perhaps if analytics don't look favorably upon him, Nightingale could push them to rethink

2. Seattle Kraken - William Eklund. What an all-star lineup of scouts. Wow. Seems like most of their scouting staff is composed of former head scouts. But the group is headed up by Robert Kron, recently Carolina's director of European scouting. They also snatched up Carolina's longtime DAS Tony MacDonald, who I'm assuming will get a title something like "director of North American scouting". If you look at Carolina's draft just last year, there was absolutely no hesitation to pick small, ultra-skilled forwards, particularly out of Europe and even in the top 10 - Seth Jarvis 9th overall, 5'10. Zion Nybeck 115th, 5'8. Alexander Pashin 199th, 5'7.

3. Anaheim Ducks - Brandt Clarke. We know Bob Murray and Martin Madden (former DAS and current AGM) have heavily favored the CHL in the first round since Madden has been there, with a couple first rounders from Sweden mixed in. They did go off script in 2019 picking Trevor Zegras from NTDP, which I'm assuming new head scout Bruce Franklin had a hand in. This one is tough. Hughes, Beniers, Edvinsson could all be in play, plus any of the CHLers (although they mostly didn't really play in the CHL this year). I ended up just having to pretty much guess, but based on their last couple highly successful picks, Zegras and Drysdale, it seems they're putting a premium on offensive skill and elite hockey IQ.

4. New Jersey - Simon Edvinsson. Under DAS Paul Castron and director of European scouting Greg Royce, it seems very likely they'll pick either from Europe or CHL. I've made it no secret I'm not a big fan of the player, but the experts seem to really like him, and under Greg Royce last year they took two players out of Europe in the first round with question marks around decision-making, in Mukhamadullin and Holtz. I was super high on Mukhamadullin, but I know the concerns were there for many. This year I'm one of the ones with concerns on Edvinsson and some really love him. Time will tell, but we know NHL scouts will always lean toward the giant defenseman oozing natural ability - gotta trust that your coaching and development staff can mold him, right?

5. Columbus - Mason McTavish. How do you make a prediction when the prediction is "they will go off the board"? Kekalainen is the king of new age; doesn't seem phased by traditional hockey knowledge. Yet with their DAS Ville Siren based in Finland, and their head European scout Josef Boumedienne based in Sweden, as tempting as it is to have them pick out of Europe, they do also have a pretty solid history in N.A., and AGM Basil McRae is also involved in amateur scouting and is based out of Ontario. Unless they're gonna take Wallstedt here (which is very possible), the next few BPAs are all N.A. I just can't get out my mind that the last time they picked this high, they went with the fast-rising, big center in Dubois. Plus, I'm sure they had scouts on him in Olten like nobody else.

6. Detroit - Matthew Beniers. Very tempting to think Hakan Andersson exorcises his demons of picking Thomas McCollum over Jakob Markstrom years ago and picks the Swedish goalie stud. And Yzerman certainly relied heavily on Andersson his first couple years there while he was constructing his own staff. But Ryan Rezmierski and Jesse Wallin are Yzerman's own guys that he brought in, and I expect he's going to want to start leaning on them more. Rezmierski is a former longtime DPP for the USNTDP, and a former coach with MU, so the connections to Beniers are overwhelming. Plus there's just no way Beniers falls any further than this.

7. San Jose - Dylan Guenther - Doug Wilson is practically impossible to predict. Very hard to find any discernible pattern to his drafting. One of the things that makes him great - he picks and has success from everywhere. They are in major need of goaltenders in the pipeline, but since Wilson was DPP of the Sharks in '98 they've never picked a goalie higher than 3rd round, so I just can't see it. Guenther and Hughes seem to be the BPA here, and either would make sense, but looking back at the few times Wilson and his team have had top ten picks, they predominately go CHL.

8. L.A. Kings - Luke Hughes. Rob Blake and his staff, led by DAS Mark Yanetti and DES Christain Ruuttu, generally lean towards CHL with early picks, but looks like I have the top CHLers off the board already. They've also shown some affinity for Sweden and NTDP early, so Lysell or Hughes would be options. Just can't imagine Hughes falling any further than this.

9. Vancouver - Kent Johnson. Benning's two top guys, Thomas Gradin and Ron Delorme, love to draft from Sweden and USHL/NCAA in the early rounds, and interestingly enough, Lysell, Wallstedt and Johnson are the top players left on the board. Maybe even Lucius? I'd be surprised if they took the goalie. Johnson seems to be the consensus BPA here, according to the experts (Bob's list and Central Scouting are the only ones I take seriously as a representation of what NHL teams might be thinking).

10. Ottawa Senators - Cole Sillinger. Trent Mann and Mikko Ruutu are the DAS and DES, but there's not really any Finns or QMJHLers within reach here. GM Pierre Dorion has leaned heavily on Bob Janecyk (USHL/NCAA) with their early picks throughout his tenure at the helm. Bobby Strumm (WHL) also seems to be rising up the chain of command. Cole Sillinger played WHL last season and USHL this year, so he falls in both their wheelhouses. My other best guess would be Chaz Lucius.

[matchesmalone]

I decided to go back and watch another Canada White game from U17s, to double check my take on Sillinger. Against Czechs, Canada had a 3 on 5, and Sillinger and Liam Arnsby were the two forwards out with one D.

Decided to start traking Arnsby as well for that game. Really impressed with what I saw. Very likely a first rounder for 2022, maybe even pretty high. One of those guys who can make plays in tight spaces down low.

But Sillinger, man, Josh I dunno how much chance you've had to see him yet, but I think you have an idea of what kind of players I like, and you'll get why I love this kid. He just constantly disrupts all over the ice. Any little piece of the puck he can get his stick on he'll take it. Even if he's not gonna force the turnover, he's gonna make life miserable for the opponent, trying to coral bouncing passes or handle wobbly pucks.

[matchesmalone]

Couple of things for my mock draft this year. I had Eklund going to Seattle initially, but Ron Francis said something about them wanting to build from the middle out (focus on G, D, C he said). Not sure Eklund will be a center in the NHL so maybe this is unlikely, Also, Kron's specialties have always been more Finland and Czech than Sweden anyway. Also, Carolina's longtime DAS Tony MacDonald, who "retired" in 2019, took a senior advising position with the Barrie Colts in 2019 before he was brought on by Seattle in a scouting capacity. Kron is the DAS, but whatever exactly MacDonald's role, he will have a strong voice in the scouting meetings, and he will be very familiar with Brandt Clarke.

Also, I've been beating myself up for years over being so surprised that Anaheim took Zegras in 2019, and I thought Murray just went completely out of left field according to the tendencies. But I realize now that they hired Bruce Franklin as "director of player evaluation" in 2017, who had been Chicago's DAS from 2010 to 2016 and drafted heavy out of USHL, so it's not a flaw in my method, just something missed in execution.