Here's how I think its going to go, assuming everyone stays where they are with Detroit 1, Ottawa 2/3, Us 4 and Ducks 5.
Obviously Lafreniere is going #1 no matter what.
I think Byfield is a no doubter #2 pick, but our draft is going to depend on what Ottawa does with its 3rd pick. Do they go with another forward in Stutzle or do they go with a defenseman that could one day play next to Chabot or even be better than Chabot. I think the Kings will take the odd man out of those 3 players. If it goes Byfield and Stutzle, then they'll go with Drysdale. If it goes Byfield and Drysdale, then they'll go with Stutzle. If by some chance Ottawa passes on Byfield twice I'd think they would sprint up to stage taking the BPA. I don't really see a scenario where we trade down if that happens. If by some chance a team behind us wins the lottery then we may be more open to a deal, but I think this top 10 is solid all the way through where I think the Kings would be content with where they are at.
With regards to our 2nd round picks, I think its a different story. Our prospect pool has been built up tremendously over the last 3 years. I'd say if this was 5 or 6 years ago, Fagemo and Thomas would've been our top prospects. Going by the Mayor's ranking they're barely top 10. That shows how good our pool has become. I think given with where we are at right now and the trend that we are going that we should be more diverting our focus from quantity of prospects to quality, so I can easily see a scenario where Blake and Yannetti see a player (Bjornfot) and take the gamble that he won't be there by the time your first 2nd pick is there. We got 3 2nd round picks this year and a potential of 3 in next years draft, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them be a little more aggressive trading up into the late 1st round if there is a prospect that they really want.
But I can also seeing them easily to continue hoarding prospects and building up the pool even more mostly as trading assets that could come in handy once we are ready to start competing again. You could also look at it long term and think once guys like Kopi, Brownie, Carter are all gone and Vilardi, Turcotte, Kaliyev take their spots, then who do you have to replace the roles that those 3 had before they were given the reigns and just sort of having an endless cycle of prospects.
And as always with prospects, not all of them are going to hit and we've had this discussion about development recently. I think as a whole, we are very good at making NHL players and better than most teams. Certainly not the best, but certainly not the worst.
