There's a significant amount of groupthink in the
pre-lottery mock draft thread, but most of them have us walking away at 14 (edited) with Yakemchuk, Sennecke, Chernyshov, Jiricek, or MBN. That's probably the order I'd personally want them in, although maybe Chernyshov is a bit of a wildcard that could be interesting.
Worst case, MBN as Smith's Leonard could be exciting... he's a solid all-rounder but maybe no "pop." Maybe a better Kunin. Jiricek is a risk and a wildcard.
MBN erasure...
I'm not sure I'm seeing the groupthink, although I was skimming through that thread.
I think the fact that Catton and/or Yakemchuk are falling to our pick in most outcomes is a massive win scenario. Catton is a top five player for me in this class, and the type of player Yakemchuk is if he hits are invaluable and untradable assets.
The 18s will teach us a lot, especially WRT the Finnish and Swedish players.
I've been trying to consume as much content as I can on the players for that range.
I watched PG vs Kelowna and Parascak caught my eye battling against Iginla. He was doing it all, ES/PP/PK. Too soon for that range.
I watched London play and Dickinson just didn't look like a very smart player. Wonderful breakout pass, but he feels like Juolevi-bait inflated by a superteam. He was just sloppy in all three zones.
Watching Dickinson and then going back to Levshunov was cataclysmic. Different tiers of players.
(On an aside Jacob Julien was extremely impressive and our boy Kasper Halttunen was showing a lot more dimensions to his game than I anticipated. He's more than a floating big shot.)
Only one viewing of Parekh, but I wasn't overly moved. I don't thinks someone like Adam Jiříček is all that far away in terms of talent. Parekh is a better shooter, Jiříček is bigger and more imaginative in the offensive zone.
Neither are in that group with Levshunov and Buium.
Sacha Boisvert is the anti-Greentree.
Excited to watch all of the players floating within that top ~65 range that will be with the 18s. Especially guys like Eiserman, Connelly, Greentree, Hage, Väisänen, Hemming, Elick, Kiviharju, Freij, Wallenius, Eliasson etc
And the 2025 guys like Frondell, Martone, Hensler, Wozniak, Schaefer, McQueen
Final stretch