Toggle sidebar

2020 Draft & Undrafted Free Agent Thread: Part II

  • Xenforo Cloud will be upgrading us to version 2.3.5 on March 3rd at 12 AM GMT. This version has increased stability and fixes several bugs. We expect downtime for the duration of the update. The admin team will continue to work on existing issues, templates and upgrade all necessary available addons to minimize impact of this new version. Click Here for Updates
  • We're expeting server maintenance on March 3rd starting at midnight, there may be downtime during the work.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Ola said:
Raymond had an unfulfilling season in terms of getting a ton of attention. How good did he play? How much did he develop? I think its hard to tell. Like he went into the WJCs nothing skated for a bunch of weeks and so forth. The kid is really good, think its hard to rank him.

Most of my ranking is a complete dart throwing mess. But a few things. In previous years we have seen extreme movement by European players from January to June. Now we are stuck at the January ranking. I think Nybeck and Andrae could have been two candidates to make a Kravtsov/Kotkaniemi jump. They are small but don't play small. Very special talents hands down. Andrae is the youngest player to play top hockey in Sweden ever. I like these kids a lot.
Click to expand...

I may be one of the few who agrees with you on Lucas Raymond. But Nybeck to me really hasn't done enough to be close to the top 10. Gunler and Holtz have been the best Swedish prospects, looking at their overall performance. Nybeck and Raymond play a very opportunistic style of hockey. Not necessarily bad, but Holtz and Gunler were at times trusted with tougher minutes and assignments, a sign of their overall progression.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband, Joey Bones and Ola
Amazing Kreiderman said:
I may be one of the few who agrees with you on Lucas Raymond. But Nybeck to me really hasn't done enough to be close to the top 10. Gunler and Holtz have been the best Swedish prospects, looking at their overall performance. Nybeck and Raymond play a very opportunistic style of hockey. Not necessarily bad, but Holtz and Gunler were at times trusted with tougher minutes and assignments, a sign of their overall progression.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree for sure.

This is me really projecting what Nybeck and Andrae showed late in the season looking really good during a short stint. I know for sure though that if both of them has a good finish to the SHL and the POs as well as being top 3 players for Sweden in the U18s (which definitely isn't unlikely) moving up that much wouldn't be rare at all. And since I am projecting that -- the margin of error is of course very high. I know looking back at previous years that I have dropped some kids that I was high on early 30-60 spots since I just got convinced that their overall motor and game wasn't strong enough after seeing them closely especially in the U18s.

Also, with Nybeck and Andrae -- without any doubt -- especially size but also lack of SHL success have held them back. They have performed tremendously well up until this season, during which they also have done well but it wasn't until the last 3-4 weeks of the season they won regular spots in the SHL. Andrae has been a No 1-2 D for his junior national teams and worn a A or C regularly. Nybeck has behind Raymond and Holtz been the big star, and the goto player when those two have played with older junior national teams.

But I just don't think that either plays small and that is all that matters. Andrae is 5'9 but quite stock at 185 lbs. Both guys skates really well.

The biggest risk from my POV is development curve, how much is it really pointing upwards lately? That is probably the biggest factor. Its one thing to be good at 18, but what matters is that you are good when you are 22-23 and kids that are that usually had a steady development curve and kept getting better on a regular basis. I've especially not followed Andrae closely for a a long time. I know he broke out really early and was a mega star at 14-15.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband
I just surfed the web and found this scouting report on Andrae from Jokke Nevalainen. I am don't always love scouting reports I come across, I am usually really picky, but I agree 100% with this one:
Emil Andrae

January 2020 – Andrae started the season at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup where he played very well and scored four points in five games. Since then, he has spent most of the season in J20 SuperElit where his nine goals and 29 points in 32 games lead the league in both goals and points among defensemen. Andrae has also played five games at the men’s level in the SHL, and even though he has averaged just five minutes of ice time per game, it is a positive sign that he has earned those call-ups.
Andrae is an undersized offensive defenseman with a left-handed shot. His biggest strengths are his skating ability and hockey sense. His edge work is excellent and it allows him to be very elusive. He is a great passer who can start breakouts with short and long passes, and he is also very strong in the offensive zone. Even though he doesn’t own a heavy shot, he’s good at getting shots to the net and sneaking in close enough to score with his good wrist shot. He is a very creative player who can execute plays that most players can’t even think of. Although an offense-minded player, he is also surprisingly good defensively, especially with his active stick. There are a lot of similarities between Andrae and Erik Brännström who plays a similar style, and they both played on HV71 system for the final two years before their draft. Andrae is not quite as good a prospect as Brännström was but he’s not that far from it either.
Andrae is expected to be the number one defenseman for Team Sweden at the U18 Worlds. If he has a strong performance there, he could solidify his spot in the first round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. There is no clear favorite for the second defenseman to go off the board at the draft but Andrae is definitely one of the top options. Jokke Nevalainen
Click to expand...

Why he should be a top 15 pick?
Skates really really well. Really steady. Great attitude and work ethic. Super skilled. No 1 D for Sweden. Dominated Hlinka. Jokke claims that he could be the No 2 defender picked on draft day, and I would definitely not shoot that down based on any tangible reason.

Why shouldn't he be a top 15 pick? He is short. No other reason.

Definitely think that he has Krug potential.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband
Ola said:
I just surfed the web and found this scouting report on Andrae from Jokke Nevalainen. I am don't always love scouting reports I come across, I am usually really picky, but I agree 100% with this one:
Emil Andrae



Why he should be a top 15 pick?
Skates really really well. Really steady. Great attitude and work ethic. Super skilled. No 1 D for Sweden. Dominated Hlinka. Jokke claims that he could be the No 2 defender picked on draft day, and I would definitely not shoot that down based on any tangible reason.

Why shouldn't he be a top 15 pick? He is short. No other reason.

Definitely think that he has Krug potential.
Click to expand...

Jokke is a great guy. I met him in Helsinki last year, and he really goes into detail on his content. To be fair, the points you bring up for Nybeck and Andrae also apply to Gunler, who was also much better later in the season. If that's what you're going for, I don't understand why Gunler is so low in your ranking
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ola
Ola said:
Raymond had an unfulfilling season in terms of getting a ton of attention. How good did he play? How much did he develop? I think its hard to tell. Like he went into the WJCs nothing skated for a bunch of weeks and so forth. The kid is really good, think its hard to rank him.

Most of my ranking is a complete dart throwing mess. But a few things. In previous years we have seen extreme movement by European players from January to June. Now we are stuck at the January ranking. I think Nybeck and Andrae could have been two candidates to make a Kravtsov/Kotkaniemi jump. They are small but don't play small. Very special talents hands down. Andrae is the youngest player to play top hockey in Sweden ever. I like these kids a lot.
Click to expand...

I've been saying on here that Raymond is going to have a Freddy Forsberg type draft. Unknown where his potential could be due to a weird draft season, but in previous years was slated to be one of the best in the class. His junior game is phenomenal, but hasn't consistently gotten the chance to put it together at the pros, yet. He's got time, but not enough for me to give him top 5 accolades.

Context matters, though. Kravtsov was consistently playing in the KHL when he was drafted and skyrocketed after an amazing KHL playoffs. Kotkaniemi, on the other hand, played a full season in Liiga before going to Montreal. Nybeck and Andrae played most of the season in SuperElit and hand a hand full of games in the SHL this year. It looks good for the development, but not enough to be selected that high. There's barely any pro experience. I think both will go in the 2nd round with a reach potential as a late late 1st rounder.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband and Ola
Ola said:
I just surfed the web and found this scouting report on Andrae from Jokke Nevalainen. I am don't always love scouting reports I come across, I am usually really picky, but I agree 100% with this one:
Emil Andrae



Why he should be a top 15 pick?
Skates really really well. Really steady. Great attitude and work ethic. Super skilled. No 1 D for Sweden. Dominated Hlinka. Jokke claims that he could be the No 2 defender picked on draft day, and I would definitely not shoot that down based on any tangible reason.

Why shouldn't he be a top 15 pick? He is short. No other reason.

Definitely think that he has Krug potential.
Click to expand...

Again, the pro experience will trump this and teams generally look into the CHL/NCAA commitment before the SuperElit. I think biases are still prominent in a team's draft culture, which will ultimately knock some of these guys lower. I like Nybeck and Andrae, but there hasn't been much to see with their pro game yet. Give them time to develop in the SHL and people will start to see whether or not they were right by taking them presumably earlier in the draft.

With lack of pro exposure, though, they will ultimately get pushed down the rankings. With their junior success and small pro exposure, I think the 2nd round is a good realistic spot for their selections.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ola
Joey Bones said:
Again, the pro experience will trump this and teams generally look into the CHL/NCAA commitment before the SuperElit. I think biases are still prominent in a team's draft culture, which will ultimately knock some of these guys lower. I like Nybeck and Andrae, but there hasn't been much to see with their pro game yet. Give them time to develop in the SHL and people will start to see whether or not they were right by taking them presumably earlier in the draft.

With lack of pro exposure, though, they will ultimately get pushed down the rankings. With their junior success and small pro exposure, I think the 2nd round is a good realistic spot for their selections.
Click to expand...

I believe that your are right and I wasn’t trying to make a mock draft just rank them.

One thing though, there are certainly no absolute rules. Adam Boqvist is a really good example. Was drafted 8th overall and more or less had the same pro experience as Andrae. If you go up against 90% of the best at a U18 WJC and clearly show that you are one of the best you will get drafted high.

Andrae would have been Sweden’s No 1 D at the WJC and at least at the Hlinka, he was a top 2-3 D.

But of course, I also think he would have needed a top finish and a top WJC to raise that much.

Hence why I think Gorton’s best move must be to trade down from 13. Would definitely do like 13 to like SJ for 26, 34 and 56 or something like that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband
Trade 1
13 and 75 to SJ for 26, 34 and 56

Trade 2
23 for 39 and 40

Draft:
Nybeck at 26
Andrae at 34
Tuch at 39
Foudy at 40
Viro at 56

Thoughts? :)
 
One interesting aspect to consider is that teams in Sweden are training for full right now.

How is it in other places, are kids in Canada or the US training right now? Does it differ from state to state?
 
Amazing Kreiderman said:
No. This team has 0 need for quantity in terms of draft picks. We are entering year 3 of our rebuild. We need to go for quality. Trading down doesn't do anything for us
Click to expand...

I am just thinking that whatever quality we get, it’s 4-5 years away anyway.

And how well prepared are teams for the shortened season? Seems like there can be a boat load of steals made late 1st/early second.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband
Ola said:
I am just thinking that whatever quality we get, it’s 4-5 years away anyway.

And how well prepared are teams for the shortened season? Seems like there can be a boat load of steals made late 1st/early second.
Click to expand...

This is not the year to trade out of the 1st round. This draft is very top heavy. The top-15 has a lot of potential stars. But after the first round it is just like any other draft
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband, SnowblindNYR, Joey Bones and 1 other person
Amazing Kreiderman said:
This is not the year to trade out of the 1st round. This draft is very top heavy. The top-15 has a lot of potential stars. But after the first round it is just like any other draft
Click to expand...

And if we don’t win the lottery we should see a potential really good prospect make it to #13. Just like we saw in 2019 with some guys who fell a bit to the 13-17 range. I’m not trading our first pick.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband, nsvoyageurs, Joey Bones and 1 other person
bl02 said:
And if we don’t win the lottery we should see a potential really good prospect make it to #13. Just like we saw in 2019 with some guys who fell a bit to the 13-17 range. I’m not trading our first pick.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If this was 2017, sure. Trade down, acquire some extra picks. Stock the cupboard, so to speak. The cupboard is full and we are figuring out which trophies we keep, and which ones we let go of.

Picking 13 and 23 is huge for this franchise. Assuming the following players are picked in the top-7 (Lafreniere, Byfield, Stützle, Raymond, Holtz (99!), Askarov, Drysdale), that leaves us with one of Lundell, Rossi, Perfetti, Zary, Holloway, Mysak, Gunler ideally. That's huge for this org.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband, charliemurphy, nsvoyageurs and 2 others
Ola said:
Trade 1
13 and 75 to SJ for 26, 34 and 56

Trade 2
23 for 39 and 40

Draft:
Nybeck at 26
Andrae at 34
Tuch at 39
Foudy at 40
Viro at 56

Thoughts? :)
Click to expand...
I think trade #1 is very unlikely. Rangers will get a top end player. Not sure exactly which one though.

I think trade #2 is much more likely depending on where the first round nets out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: egelband, Joey Bones and Ola
Ola said:
I believe that your are right and I wasn’t trying to make a mock draft just rank them.

One thing though, there are certainly no absolute rules. Adam Boqvist is a really good example. Was drafted 8th overall and more or less had the same pro experience as Andrae. If you go up against 90% of the best at a U18 WJC and clearly show that you are one of the best you will get drafted high.

Andrae would have been Sweden’s No 1 D at the WJC and at least at the Hlinka, he was a top 2-3 D.

But of course, I also think he would have needed a top finish and a top WJC to raise that much.

Hence why I think Gorton’s best move must be to trade down from 13. Would definitely do like 13 to like SJ for 26, 34 and 56 or something like that.
Click to expand...

I get that every team has it's own board, but in Boqvist's defense he had multiple concussions his draft season and would've definitely played in the SHL/Allsvenskan longer if he were healthy. I'm sure the U18's would've changed some rankings based on performances, but we can't look at the what ifs right now. As of today, Andrae really hasn't done anything spectacular to be rated as high as you did.

And we all discussed how improbable trading up or down can be in the draft....
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ola
Ola said:
Trade 1
13 and 75 to SJ for 26, 34 and 56

Trade 2
23 for 39 and 40

Draft:
Nybeck at 26
Andrae at 34
Tuch at 39
Foudy at 40
Viro at 56

Thoughts? :)
Click to expand...

This is a year where if the Rangers were to trade in the draft, it would be up for one of those stud center prospects. I doubt they trade back unless their draft board goes completely south in the plan.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ola and bl02
Joey Bones said:
He took the site down temporarily. It will be back up when this pandemic will cease.
Click to expand...

But if it ever should be up — shouldn’t it be now?

I am getting a more than little tin foil here — but did some team buy exclusivity the of the year?
 
Ola said:
But if it ever should be up — shouldn’t it be now?

I am getting a more than little tin foil here — but did some team buy exclusivity the of the year?
Click to expand...

Might not have enough subscribers to help pay for the website to be up and running right now.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom