A not as fast Clayton Keller in a 6-3 frame? Sounds like a player I’d want on my team.
But at any rate, there is obviously just a disagreement in player evaluation between you and scouts that have him higher. If things are as you say, obviously it’s nonsense to pick him. But not everyone sees it that way lol.
If MBN does everything well, has the floor plus the ceiling…well he wouldn’t go 15. You may be right in the end, but that just doesn’t seem to be how the scouts are seeing it. Something is going on to keep him out of the top 10.
There is so much bias involved in the NHL Draft universe.
Myself included. If a draft writer whom I respect like Cam Robinson or Steve Kournianos is particularly in love with a prospect, I'm going to double up on how much tape I'll watch on that prospect. Oftentimes, this results in a bump in my own rankings for such prospects.
A good example of this would be Adam Fox in 2016. Routinely left off of top 100 lists entirely, I always liked him but Kournianos loved him as a potential 1st round pick from the get go. Inspired by Kournianos, I hit the game film of Fox, hard. The more I watched him, the more I agreed with Mr. Kournianos until I ultimately lifted Fox into my own 1st round.
Cam Robinson and I both hit on Brock Faber as a top-20ish worthy pick about the same time in the 2020 draft. I think we fed off each other a bit, sending each other dozens of messages about how terrific Faber was and wondering why other draft writers could not be bothered to give him the time of day.
I can honestly say that most draft writers -- even names I respect like Pronman, Wheeler and Button -- do not affect my rankings even a little. Though I respect them (and state it often), I rarely agree with either their methodology in ranking prospects or the rankings themselves.
Simply put, most of my evaluations come from researching and watching the prospects. I was the first person I saw (along with
@Guadana) to say Nygard was worthy of a top 10 pick, or that Solberg was worthy of a top 15 pick (although
@Guttersniped clearly liked him a lot). This is not to boast, but simply to say I have my own conclusions and, right or wrong, I'm willing to back them up with cohesive debates why.
The one thing I will say in my behalf is that I'm unaffected by geographical biases. To me, if all things were the same about Sennecke and Nygard except Sennecke was Norwegian and Nygard was an Ontario kid playing in the OHL, the consensus ranking between the two would not be close and Nygard would be far, far ahead. I said the same thing with Kopitar in 2005, with Ehlers in 2014 and with Seider in 2019. I'm saying the same things with Nygard and Solberg now.
I also don't really care about height with forwards. It's why I had Brayden Point ahead of John Quenneville and Brendan Perlini in 2014 and why I had Logan Stankoven ahead of Oskar Olausson and Zach Dean in 2021. Whereas length gives an appreciable edge to defenders, with forwards these things can almost always be overcome through a mix of intelligence and compete level.
I'd say I'm pretty obvious and consistent with my reasoning, and am the first to admit I'm not always right. But I'd say a better response in this scenario than questioning my explained-ad-nauseum argument that Sennecke is not a realistic top 10 pick would be to write Corey Pronman and ask for a detailed explanation of how he has Sennecke ranked over Demidov when Demidov is visibly much-better-to-much-much-better than Sennecke at every possible thing we could think of aside from being 6'3. Again, I really like Pronman and he's a good dude, so I'd say there's a good chance he'll get back to you.
To sum up and move to other things -- is it possible Sennecke goes top 10? Yes, absolutely. Teams love 6'3 and Canadian and spectacular highlight reels, and Sennecke has all three. He's a realistic mock draft pick to Ottawa at #7, maybe even Utah at #6 since that Utah scouting staff is more obsessed with height than any other in the entire NHL.
Is it possible that the Devils take Sennecke at #10? I don't see it. Fitzgerald has shown a repeated desire to get more difficult to play against, which I think rules out Eiserman and Sennecke and Parekh as realistic possibilities, and lowers the possibility of Catton. It's speculative, but I think Fitzgerald really wanted Matt Tkachuk and, after missing out, went all-in (smartly) for Timo Meier. I think out of all the top 15 2024 draft forwards, the three players who fit this general profile are Lindstrom, Nygard and Chernyshov. While Lindstrom will be likely be gone already by #10, I think Nygard gets a slight edge over Chernyshov in the same player-type. This is why my mock draft had Nygard to the Devils, and still does.
If you're going to say I just speculated a lot, you are entirely right. But seeing as I don't have Fitzgerald on speed-dial (
yet -- doesn't he read the HFBoards draft threads?), I have no other choice than to take him at his word.
