Prospect Info: 2020 Devils-Centric Mock Draft, Conference Finals Edition

[StevenToddIves]

Who the heck decided that its a great idea to have the draft on Tuesday? Welp have to sacrifice my sleep for it and go to work after that.

What's the time difference where you live from NYC time?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

You might be right but some fans say palms should return a late first at the trade deadline so would his value be increased if we traded him for a first before the season even starts? I could see Nashville and Edmonton being interested in him. We could also add a sweetener

but trade deadline value does not equal in season value

 

[Ripshot 43]

So I did a mock draft on draftism and Devs ended up getting Sanderson, Schneider, and Guhle in the 1st round.

What STI said... at least post how the other picks went, so we can see how you did. Sounds like you beefed up the future of the Defense in one draft!

 

[StevenToddIves]

What STI said... at least post how the other picks went, so we can see how you did. Sounds like you beefed up the future of the Defense in one draft!

Absolutely. All of the Devils picks are likely going to need to be strategized according to how teams draft ahead of them. And the idea that both Guhle and Schneider will be passed over by a litany of teams looking for D between #12-#17 overall is certainly intriguing.

 

[Monsieur Verdoux]

What's the time difference where you live from NYC time?

I assume @FinnishDevil lives in Finland so the draft begins at 2 a.m. I'm not overly excited about that either.

 

[StevenToddIves]

I assume @FinnishDevil lives in Finland so the draft begins at 2 a.m. I'm not overly excited about that either.

Man, do I feel dumb right now.

 

[FinnishDevil]

Man, do I feel dumb right now.

Yeah 7PM starts are 2AM here so gotta mark an all nighter for that day.

Draft is one of my favorite things in the NHL calendar even if NJ is not picking high and now we have 3? Aint missing that.

 

[StevenToddIves]

Yeah 7PM starts are 2AM here so gotta mark an all nighter for that day.

Draft is one of my favorite things in the NHL calendar even if NJ is not picking high and now we have 3? Aint missing that.

You need to watch Day 2 of the draft, as well -- I'm pumping up a couple of my favorite Finnish prospects for the Devils in Miettinen and Rafkin.

 

[SJinNewJersey]

Where's the link? You need to self-promote, haha.

Unfortunately that site doesn't lend well to copying the results, unless someone knows something I don't.

 

[StevenToddIves]

Unfortunately that site doesn't lend well to copying the results, unless someone knows something I don't.

Copy and paste, my friend. If I can get beat up on the HFBoards for my mock drafts, so can you.

 

[Nubmer6]

Interesting info from The Athletic today...

Nine players in NHL history have been drafted with the No. 18 or No. 20 pick and played at least 1,000 career regular-season games. No team has selected more of those players than the Devils.

Martin Brodeur, Ken Daneyko and Petr Sykora are all franchise legends, while Jason Smith’s career was just getting started when the Devils traded him to the Maple Leafs in 1997 as part of a package for Doug Gilmour. When Travis Zajac plays in his ninth game next season and joins the group, he will make it five out of 10.

 

[FooteBahl]

Interesting info from The Athletic today...

So there’s a 50% chance one of our later picks will play 1000 games

 

[Xirik]

Where's the link? You need to self-promote, haha.

draftsim

I find that its pretty good at drafting the 1st round, The only picks I usually have to auto pick the ghule and Schnedier because of how you say they will probably be drafted ealier then what the simulation usuallydecides. Lapieire also gets placed higher then I usually think he should be.

Its fun messing with the teams needs bar and randomness bar to see what the differences. 100% team needs basically means that they always pick what their organization needs even if the player is 50 ranks behind the current BPA.

When I mix its draft rankings with your knowledge I seem to be able to get
7th-sanderson/Raymond/Rossi
18th - Amirov/Holoway/mercer
20th-Seth Jarvis/Gunnler/Mysak


Edit- Jake Sanderson has only been picked before 7th like... 3 out of the 100 times ive tried it as they rank him at 9th BPA
also they haven't updated our picks and have us 18th and 19th so you always have to trade with Calgary.

 

[njdevils1982]

Interesting info from The Athletic today...

the other notables

larry robinson 20 '71
michel goulet 20 '79
glen murray 18 '91
martin rucinsky 20 '91 (961 gp)
brooks orpik 18 '00
brent burns 20 '03
jacob josefson 20 '09
mirco mueller 18 '13

….and whole lot of other guys that had short careers or none at all……its still a large crapshoot in that area of drafting

 

[StevenToddIves]

I just read a quote about Marco Rossi from an NHL scout which was the best, and maybe most accurate, quote I've read about any prospect all year.

“I love Rossi. He is one of the best competitors I’ve seen in the OHL in years. This kid probably eats pucks for breakfast off of an old shin-pad.”

It might even top my favorite quote from last year's draft, about Capitals first round steal Connor McMichael, made by my buddy Mike:

"I'll take Connor McAnything."

 

[Guadana]

Who the heck decided that its a great idea to have the draft on Tuesday? Welp have to sacrifice my sleep for it and go to work after that.

Same story. I was hopping we get draft party with my red wings buddies.
Instead, I'll ruin my sleep schedule, my morning runs, and I'll have to drink champagne if the draft goes especially well at this hour of the night.

 

[Xirik]

From the draftsim site I linked a couple posts ago

(7) Lucas Raymond, RW/LW
(18) Rodion Amirov, LW
(20) Dawson Mercer, RW
(98) Ian Moore, RD
(123) Luke Prokop, RD
(129) Lleyton Moore, LD
(160) Samuel Hlavaj, G
(191) Daniel Ljungman, C
#NHLDraft draftsim

After the 20th pick I tend to go organizational need(mostly because I don't have much knowledge outside the 1st round) that the site provides (for example Moore is listed as a two way D and Moore is listed as a Offensive D).
at 98 I tent to look for any draft fallers though and saw at 123 I probably could get Moore with the next pick so I choose Prokop based off of Ives sleeper profile.

 

[SJinNewJersey]

Copy and paste, my friend. If I can get beat up on the HFBoards for my mock drafts, so can you.

Cut & paste doesn't work with that site.

 

[Ripshot 43]

I just tried one out... after the normal top 3 it went...

4. Detroit - Drysdale
5. Ottawa - Holtz
6. Anaheim - Perfetti
7. New Jersey - Sanderson
8. Buffalo - Rossi
9. Minnesota - Raymond
10. Winnipeg - Lapierre
11. Nashville - Mercer
12. Panthers - Quinn
13. Carolina - Askarov
14. Oilers - Mysak
15. Toronto - Guhle
16. Montreal - Lundell
17. Chicago - Zary
18. New Jersey - Jarvis
19. Calgary- Holloway
20. New Jersey - Schnieder
21. Columbus - Amirov
22. Rangers - Gunler
23. Philadelphia - Cormier

Right off the bat at 7 was a painful decision between Rossi and Sanderson (also Raymond). I decided to go with the all around defenseman who could just be that 1st pairing D that we’ve been looking for that could be ready in less than 2 years. At 18 I went with Jarvis as my BPA seeing that with proper development, he can line up in the top 6 as a scoring winger. With pick 20 I was deciding between what ended up being the next 3 picks. Eventually I went with Schnieder who I thought would’ve been gone earlier as a team would’ve reached that was in need onD earlier. I’m of the belief that you can’t have enough good defensive prospects.

 

[nugg]

So I did a mock draft on draftism and Devs ended up getting Sanderson, Schneider, and Guhle in the 1st round.

I almost always get Sanderson, Jarvis and Mercer on it, but I know it's based on one set of rankings and some kind of algorithm. It's fun though.
The link does look like it's draftism, but it is draft sim. Draftism, sounds like a cult... hmmm maybe that's not far off. LOL

 

[Guadana]

Raymond, Amirov, Mercer or Sanderson, Mercer and Jarvis would be jackpot. And if we draft Sanderson and Jarvis, then I agree to Schneider as a sacrifice.

 

[MartyOwns]

they way i see it, our pick at 7 will only be a difficult decision if one of the two defensemen is still on the board...and i’m 99% sure drysdale won’t be there. so if it’s sanderson vs rossi, or sanderson vs raymond, etc...that will be tough.

if i was more assured that sanderson was going to develop into a legitimate top pairing defenseman, he would be my choice in those scenarios...but with covid’s disruption, i feel like we’re going into this draft more blindly than usual, just due to the lack of scouting it has caused. of all the years to have 3 top 20 picks...ah well. gotta hope for the best

 

[StevenToddIves]

they way i see it, our pick at 7 will only be a difficult decision if one of the two defensemen is still on the board...and i’m 99% sure drysdale won’t be there. so if it’s sanderson vs rossi, or sanderson vs raymond, etc...that will be tough.

if i was more assured that sanderson was going to develop into a legitimate top pairing defenseman, he would be my choice in those scenarios...but with covid’s disruption, i feel like we’re going into this draft more blindly than usual, just due to the lack of scouting it has caused. of all the years to have 3 top 20 picks...ah well. gotta hope for the best

I feel like I've said this a kajillion times (no slight on you), so I will say it again. (This is not to you in particular, and if it sounds aggressive it's not meant to be. I'm just trying to dispel these recurrent and utterly false depictions of Jake Sanderson as some sort of low upside, safe defenseman.).

If you're betting in Las Vegas on the first defenseman to be taken in the 2020 draft, Jake Sanderson is the guy to put your money on.

The reasons why are simple.

1) while draft-writers were consumed with showing you charts of why "defensive defensemen" should not be ranked in the top 10, NHL scouts were busy watching Miro Heiskanen completely dominate the NHL playoffs. And Sanderson's closest comparable in the past half-decade of drafts is certainly Heiskanen. I would say Sanderson is more polished and slightly better at the same age.

2) the team drafting #4 is organizationally thinner at LD than any other team in the entire NHL, and they have a GM in Steve Yzerman who would not give two f**ks what the folks at The Athletic or The Hockey Writers said if they took Sanderson at #4 overall.

3) the teams drafting #5 and #6 draft with size in mind -- and the numbers back this up -- more than any other team in the entire NHL. The 6'1-185 Jake Sanderson not only is bigger than the 5'11-180 Jamie Drysdale, but he plays a bigger game. This is not a dismissal of Drysdale, whom I love and have advocated for the Devils drafting since pretty much November. But facts are facts -- the last time the Ducks used their top pick on a player under 6'0 was Kyle Palmieri (I feel like I've heard of that guy) in 2011. The last time the Senators did so? Patrick Eaves in 2003. I can't remember the last time either team relied on a defenseman under 6'0. These are "old school" scouts, and Sanderson is their type of player.

4) the argument that Jake Sanderson is the best defenseman in the 2020 draft is not difficult to make. As one scout (Mark Edwards) said about Sanderson: "We think the best way to summarize his offensive game, is that he’s a lot closer to Drysdale offensively, than Drysdale is to him defensively." Edwards' hockeyprospect.com ranks Sanderson #5 overall.


Ultimately, I have not hovered around these Devils threads advocating Sanderson at the #7 pick because, in my mind, there's no chance he will be there. I've been mostly discussing guys the Devils might actually have a shot at, like Raymond and Rossi and Drysdale. But the important thing to remember about Sanderson is he's not the "stay-at-home, low upside" player lazier draft writers will have you believe. Far, far from it. He's a potential carry-his-team-on-his-back, two-way superstar defenseman. And likely to be the first one taken in the 2020 draft.

 

[Spoiled Bratt]

As much as I Iove Rossi, if one of the two dmen are on the board, that’s who you take.

My top #4 at our spot, in that order, is...

Sanderson, Drysdale, Rossi and Raymond.

 

[StevenToddIves]

I agree, Sanderson and Drysdale are both no-brainers for me at #7.

But -- like I said -- if the Devils miss out on them, the worst case scenario for NJ would be reaching for a D at #18 or #20. If you miss out on Sanderson and Drysdale? F**k it, just take three great forwards.