Like I said, this draft underrated and solid at the top.
Oh absolutely. I remember looking at it coming into the season and thinking it would all come down to Canada, which was very much a question mark after the mostly lost season last year. It looks like an all-time draft class for Russia, with Miro and Yurov probable top 10 and potential top 5, and then Mintyukov, Trikozov, Perevelov all likely first rounders, some maybe even top 15 or 20. Will be Russia's best class since at least 2010, maybe one of their best ever since NHL started drafting out of Russia in the late 80s. Slovakia, led by Slafkovsky, Nemec, Mesar, will have their best class since the early 2000s when they were producing the likes of Gaborik and Hossa. Nothing special out of Sweden and Finland but both look like typically strong classes. USA looks to have their best draft class since the all-time class of 2019, and well above average.
But since Canada makes up about a third of the draft every year, and was the only country that surrendered most of its season to covid last year, there was a big question mark, which is what led to all this talk of it being a weak draft class. People also seem to have forgot that players need to play hockey to develop, so it's still tough to get a proper read, as many of the Canadian (especially Ontarian) players are still catching up to their European and American peers after losing a year of development. There are years where you could comprise the entire top ten from Canadian players. This year we have only Wright, Savoie, Geekie as clear-cut top ten candidates, beyond that it looks fairly deep but the picture is still very unclear to me; real NHL scouts will have a much better idea by now, and when Bob's final list comes out we'll see a much closer reflection of where the Canadians will rank. Definitely a somewhat below average class for Canada, which brings the total quality of the draft down, but still looks like at least an average, maybe slightly above average class overall.
