Kegs
Registered User
- Nov 10, 2010
- 3,508
- 4,005
Call me crazy but I think this is the 2021 draft.
double crazy because I really like Guenther.
2025 NHL DRAFT Thread
- Thread starter Saxon Eric
- Start date
double crazy because I really like Guenther.
Oates2Neely
Registered User
Typo! Yes 2021. And I’m not sure I’d trade Lohrei for Power right now. Although Schaefer allows you to consider moving Hampus (injury prone)
Mick Riddleton
“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
I got the Bruins the 1st pick on my second try and stopped. My work here is done.
The Andrew Peeke Fan
Registered User
- Feb 26, 2020
- 808
- 945
Kegs
Registered User
- Nov 10, 2010
- 3,508
- 4,005
U guys are using up all the wins :p save some for the actual draft lottery.
If I won the draft I’d probably take Michael Misa.
- Dec 18, 2005
- 20,106
- 26,874
Quick March Redline update
8. McQueen
9. Mrtka
10. Smith
11. O'Brien
45. Eddie Genborg
46.Eric Nilson
47. Will Sharpe
48. Ryder Lee
57. Henry Brzustewicz
58. Mateo Nobert
59. Conrad Fondrk
60. Jan Chovan
8. McQueen
9. Mrtka
10. Smith
11. O'Brien
45. Eddie Genborg
46.Eric Nilson
47. Will Sharpe
48. Ryder Lee
57. Henry Brzustewicz
58. Mateo Nobert
59. Conrad Fondrk
60. Jan Chovan
neelynugs
Registered User
- Feb 27, 2002
- 35,386
- 9,733
jake o'brien is an interesting one. pretty young for this draft. very high IQ center that
makes plays. mom and dad both played at a high level. he's a rink rat and has 3 zone
proficiency. has a lot of room to grow, kind of slight right now. probably needs to pick
up another step (like bergeron did when he was drafted).
i'd love to hear @DominicT feedback on him - assume he's seen him a ton.
makes plays. mom and dad both played at a high level. he's a rink rat and has 3 zone
proficiency. has a lot of room to grow, kind of slight right now. probably needs to pick
up another step (like bergeron did when he was drafted).
i'd love to hear @DominicT feedback on him - assume he's seen him a ton.
DominicT
Registered User
Jake O’Brien – Brantford Bulldogs – Player Profile
Jake O’Brien of the Brantford Bulldogs. Photo by OHL Images HTWTDOBPOSSHOHL DRAFTNHLCSNAT6’2”170June 16, 2007CR8th 20238th NACAN SEASONLEAGUETEAMGPGAPTS2023-2024OHLBrantford Bulldogs611351642024-20…
ohlwriters.me
Do you have O"Brien ahead of Brady Martin, if so how wide is the gap between them?Jake O’Brien – Brantford Bulldogs – Player Profile
Jake O’Brien of the Brantford Bulldogs. Photo by OHL Images HTWTDOBPOSSHOHL DRAFTNHLCSNAT6’2”170June 16, 2007CR8th 20238th NACAN SEASONLEAGUETEAMGPGAPTS2023-2024OHLBrantford Bulldogs611351642024-20…
GatorMike
Registered User
First sim in several weeks using Tankathon's fun Mock Draft simulator.
As the kids might say, "Stop the count!"
As the kids might say, "Stop the count!"
- Oct 31, 2007
- 17,777
- 16,442
I got 1st overall on my first try, deleted my browser history, and will never try again. It is set in stone.
DominicT
Registered User
Yes. As for the gap; I am one of the few that prefers to wait until after the playoffs. I think that has some weight.
Getting Misa would be a dream come true.
He is the best natural scorer in this draft.
wintersej
Registered User
I also probably wouldn't trade Lohrei for Power. I remember when both were in college, and Power was the big superstar at Michigan, one of Lohrei's Ohio State teammates referred to Lohrei as the best defenseman in the Big Ten. I thought at the time it was a plausible statement. And Lohrei is a much better player now than he was then, with plenty of room to grow.
22Brad Park
Registered User
This shows some good video on himHow ‘incredible’ Jake O’Brien became one of the 2025 NHL Draft’s top prospects
By Scott Wheeler
46
March 16, 2025Updated March 17, 2025 8:05 am EDT
Jake O’Brien is the reigning OHL Rookie of the Year. After leading all OHL rookies with 64 points in 61 games last season at 16, he’s chasing 100 points and a top-10 finish in OHL scoring at 17 this season.
He’s got a chance to be a top-10 pick in the 2025 NHL Draft, too. NHL Central Scouting slotted him eighth among North American skaters on their midterm rankings.
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And he has ascended to the top of the 2025 class as a center, as one of the youngest top prospects in the draft because of his June 16 birthday, as an alternate captain and without his Brantford Bulldogs running mate, Blackhawks first-rounder Marek Vanacker, for much of the season.
Jay McKee, the Bulldogs’ head coach, told The Athletic that O’Brien has been “incredible” in his two years in the OHL. He talks about an “elite, elite hockey IQ,” about how games just “flow and slow down for him,” and about how he “sees plays developing before they happen.” He talks about his passing ability, his deceptiveness, his unpredictability, how coachable he is, a shot that has improved and his leadership.
But most of all, he talks about his love for the game.
And that part he comes by honestly.
Jake O’Brien playing in the 2024 CHL/USA Prospects Challenge. (Eric Young / CHL)
Hockey was always going to find Jake O’Brien.
His dad, Dan O’Brien, played four seasons at Clarkson University and one in the ECHL.
His mom, Amy Turek, was a captain at Laurier University and reached the pinnacle of the game as a member of the Canadian national women’s team from 1999 to 2000. She also represented Canada at the 2003 and 2004 Inline Hockey World Championships, winning a gold and a silver. After her playing career, she opened Victory Hockey School, offering summer, holiday and March break hockey programs to girls from an all-female coaching staff. Her dad played for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and won a Grey Cup.
The Tureks at the 50th anniversary of Ed Turek winning the Grey Cup. Left to right: Jake’s sister Maddy O’Brien, Ed Turek, Jake O’Brien, Amy Turek, and Adele Turek. (Courtesy of Amy Turek)
O’Brien grew up in Brooklin, Ont., a suburb northeast of Toronto, and they billeted former NHLer Christian Thomas after he got traded from the London Knights to the Oshawa Generals and Dan reached out to Thomas’ dad, former NHLer Steve (a childhood friend of his), offering to have him at their place.
The videos of Jake and Christian’s mini sticks games live on.
Though Amy’s hockey school didn’t accept players until age 6 and was originally just for girls, he spent his summers on the ice at her camps starting at 3. Eventually, when O’Brien grew adamant about hockey, she started a boys division and they’d split the ice with boys on one side and girls on the other.
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“He’d be there all day, every day, all summer long with the older kids on the ice,” Amy said.
When he wasn’t on the ice with her, he was playing mini sticks, floorball or street hockey at home. At 2, he could sit and watch a full Generals game.
“As long as I can remember, as soon as Jake could walk and talk, he had a hockey stick in his hand. He would take slapshots with this mini stick and a puck in our living room and that’s all he did,” Amy said.
A young Jake O’Brien. (Courtesy of Amy Turek)
By 7 and 8, he was on the streets of Brooklin beating teenagers in games of road hockey, and Dan and Amy started to sense it.
In his first game for the AAA Whitby Wolves, they got blown out by a Toronto team but he dominated and scored the lone goal. That season, coaches from the GTHL teams would try to find him after their games. After they eventually moved to Toronto, he later joined the Toronto Jr. Canadiens. In spring hockey, minor hockey, and eventually internationally, he always won.
At 14, he won the GTHL title. At 15, he finished his minor hockey career by registering 17 points in seven games at the 2023 OHL Cup, winning tournament MVP and leading the Jr. Canadiens to the title. That performance made him the eighth pick in the 2023 OHL draft.
“Ever since Jake was this high,” Dan said, lowering his hand to his knee during the intermission of a recent game, “you could tell. I think the whole way along we kind of knew. … He has always been that kid who has carried the team. And I’m not just saying that from a dad’s perspective. I played college and pro and I coached junior, and from a hockey guy he’s always had that mentality and the will.”
Jake O’Brien with the GTHL atom AAA 2017-18 regular season champions trophy. (Courtesy of Amy Turek)
At 16, O’Brien followed in his mom’s footsteps, representing Canada for the first time at the Under 17 World Hockey Challenge. Last summer, shortly after his 17th birthday, he won gold with Hockey Canada at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup — a unique moment for Amy.
“It was always an amazing feeling to wear the jersey, and to see him have the same experiences is really special and to see him standing on the blue line for ‘O Canada’ with the jersey on is such a memory for me and now I get to experience watching him,” Amy said.
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Soon, she’ll get to experience watching him get drafted into the NHL in Los Angeles in June.
“It’s a special time to see the progression and be part of the journey. To experience it as a parent, I just can’t wait to be there for him,” Amy said.
Ask O’Brien about the people who’ve had an impact on his young hockey career, and after his parents and his sister Madison (a student at Queen’s University), he goes to his skills coaches, Dan Sisca and Leland de Langley, and his strength and conditioning coach Matt Nichol.
Sisca coached the 2006 Jr. Canadiens AAA team and O’Brien was always one of his call-ups from the 2007 age group when someone missed a game through injury, illness or suspension. Because the 2007s always played before the 2006s, Sisca watched O’Brien’s games, too. The team invited him to their practices as well. Eventually, Sisca started working with him through the on-ice development work he does with his CAD Sports Group, with O’Brien coming by after school and in the summers for skates.
At an early age, Sisca was always struck by how focused and determined to get better O’Brien was every time he was on the ice.
In atom and peewee, before any of the players had hit puberty, O’Brien was “that special player” who made “everybody around him better.” He always had the skating and the IQ, too.
There was a time, though, into the bantam years, when his teammates and opponents all grew, he stopped dominating quite as much and people wondered, “When’s he going to hit puberty and get that man strength?” He didn’t start growing until minor midget, and he and that Jr. Canadiens team didn’t really take off until after Christmas. But once he grew (he’s now almost 6-foot-2 and a lean 172 pounds), he pushed them to that OHL Cup win, according to Sisca.
A letter Jake’s grandfather, Jack, sent to a friend. (Courtesy of Dan O’Brien)
Throughout, Sisca credited Amy and Dan for never being overbearing hockey parents.
“They have been through it already so they weren’t overly concerned about everything, they were like ‘All right, let it take its path when he grows and gets bigger,” he said. “He has all of the tools, it’s obviously going to come.’ And when you have all of the tools and then you actually hit that growth spurt, then it gets to where it is.”
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And where it is today, Sisca insists, is that “everything that he does (stands out).” At their summer skates, people stop at the glass to watch him do drills because of how skilled he is.
“His edge work is elite. His shot’s elite. His stickhandling ability in complicated drills and taking pucks off the wall,” Sisca said. “No matter who he is skating with, whether he’s skating with NHL players now or other OHL players, his skill set in a skills session is like a wow factor.”
de Langley has seen the same things in their skates, too. He saw O’Brien play a few times with the Jr. Canadiens but last summer was their first full offseason skating together: two to three times a week for four months.
Watching him in U16 play, de Langley saw the ability but also the demeanor and attitude to excel at the next level. Now he has seen the practice habits and maturity firsthand as well.
“I was like, ‘Oh, OK, s—, this guy’s focus is laser sharp, laser sharp.’ And in summer training a lot of guys can take it easy, but he’s always looking to get better and he’s a sponge where he’s able to do things and learn from mistakes in practices, and he can just keep building off of it. That’s why he’s a leader on his team. That’s why he was a leader at the (OHL) prospects game. And that’s why I truly believe he’s going to have a long career and potentially be a future captain one day,” de Langley said. “So I’m not surprised at all by the season he’s been having. Nothing seems to overwhelm or faze him.”
On the ice, O’Brien is a cut above in de Langley’s small-area games and decision-making drills.
“He has this knack for time and space,” de Langley said. “He’s very smooth. He’s effortless. His two-way game right now is exceptional. The sky really is the limit for him. He’s really going to be able to produce offensively but it’s his two-way game and that defensive aspect that’s really going to help him excel. I know a lot of people compare him to a Ryan O’Reilly or an even more high-end Phillip Danault where you can just trust these guys in all situations. There’s still so much room for him to grow into his body from a physical maturity standpoint, too, and that’s only going to help him.”
O’Brien at the 2024 CHL/USA Prospects Challenge. (Eric Young / CHL)
Over the last two years, O’Brien has worked on that physical piece with Nichol both through the Bulldogs and in the offseason.
“He’s muscular and strong and fit, but he does have a very slight frame and he’s quite aware of that so it’s always been something that’s on his radar,” Nichol said. “Everyone’s got their areas of focus and it’s been one and will probably continue to be one for him.”
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Nichol’s also quick to point out, though, that “it’s not bodybuilding, it’s hockey,” and that he shouldn’t just add weight for the sake of adding weight.
And while weightlifting is still a big part of the work Nichol and O’Brien do together, so is other athletic training. And when they do things outside of the gym, the body control and spatial awareness that people talk about in hockey terms also stand out in other settings and sports.
“Some people just have a little bit more (athleticism) to start off with than others and he’s definitely got that,” Nichol said.
Nichol has also seen him come out of his shell.
“As proud of him as I am for his statistics on the ice, I think the thing that I’m even more proud to see is that he has taken on a leadership role with his team,” Nichol said. “(O’Brien) has always been a wonderful kid and extremely coachable and hardworking and polite and respectful, and I never like to label people as shy because I don’t know if I’m qualified for that, but he was definitely a quieter kid. And he has really come into that and his play has always spoke for itself and his leadership by example has always been there but he has also taken on a more vocal leadership role within the team and you can see that in the gym as well, encouraging others and he’s got some guys that he’s bringing along and pushing and that’s cool to see.”
The focus that Sisca, de Langley and Nichol all talk about is something Amy said he has had since he was little.
Though he never saw her play, she said he has always been a lot like her in that way. He’s the same way with everything that he does, whether it’s hockey or staying out all day muskie fishing to try to catch that 50-incher.
“He’s really routine-oriented. And he has always had really good habits. Like at a young age he had really good habits as far as eating properly, and working hard, and being the hardest worker on the ice, and setting goals and striving to achieve those goals, so I never had to bug him to try to work extra on his shot or anything else. He was always doing the extra stuff,” Amy said, smiling.
“Anything he does he jumps in with two feet. He just wants to be great at anything he does.”
(Top photo: Brandon Taylor / OHL Images)
22Brad Park
Registered User
I spoke about this guy in the past with Dom and him falling .Very interesting player but not sure what he truly is
wintersej
Registered User
I do wonder if they are not in the top 8 and there aren’t any surprise fallers if we should be 100% they will nab a forward.
I also wonder if someone likes one of the D there, let’s say Anaheim, if the Bruins actually make the pick or try to grab a more NHL ready forward with it.
McBrom7
FIRE IT UP!!
- Jun 26, 2012
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I've been researching what moving up in the 1st round would cost, say if the Bruins landed at 9 and we wanted 5 or something like that. There's not a huge precedent for pick swaps that high in the draft, but in last years draft the Sharks and Sabres swapped picks.
Sharks get: 11th pick
Buffalo gets: 14th and the 42nd pick
So if we want to move into the top 5 from 9.. It looks like it would cost at least a 2nd+. They have a boatload of picks from their mini firesale at the deadline and think it would absolutely be worth it to try and swing big for one of the "tier 1" players. Make this mini tank this year worth it and get an elite player.
If anyone knows of any trades of pick swaps in the top 5 I'd love to know too. I'm not good with these encyclopedia websites.. I want to know what it would cost if the lottery balls don't fall our way.
Sharks get: 11th pick
Buffalo gets: 14th and the 42nd pick
So if we want to move into the top 5 from 9.. It looks like it would cost at least a 2nd+. They have a boatload of picks from their mini firesale at the deadline and think it would absolutely be worth it to try and swing big for one of the "tier 1" players. Make this mini tank this year worth it and get an elite player.
If anyone knows of any trades of pick swaps in the top 5 I'd love to know too. I'm not good with these encyclopedia websites.. I want to know what it would cost if the lottery balls don't fall our way.
22Brad Park
Registered User
I think Schaefer goes 1st overall if Hawks pick 1st .Again that is my own personal take.The Bruins are 1 pt up on Ducks from falling into 8th spot but the Ducks hold game at hand .I have no idea what Sweeney will do, but I would hope he is trying to nab a longterm option at centre
It is MORE expensive, likely significantly more expensive to move from 9 to 5 than from 14-11. And even more expensive to move up 1 or 2 tiers. For example the current common consensus is there is a clear tier break after pick 4 (some might say after pick 3). Then a second tier break seems to be around 8 or 9. from 14-11 is usually in the same tier of players.
If I were a GM who had a pick at 4, and someone came to me with a pick at 9, no number of second round picks (in a shallow draft) makes me make a trade. I need either s significant young player (bruins don't really have unless someone loves Lohrei), OR an unprotected #1 next year
McBrom7
FIRE IT UP!!
- Jun 26, 2012
- 2,156
- 119
Yeah I can definitely see that being the case. Can almost make that assumption off the top haha. I found this article from "The Leafs Nation" that lays out inherent value of a pick:
Trading Up In The NHL Draft: Is It Worth It?
<center><div class="getty embed image" style="background-color:#fff;di...
theleafsnation.com
It's obviously nice to see it that way, but there's no nuance involved regarding teams situational needs and what the rest of the draft board looks like with respect to tiered players, like what seems to be the case this year. Maybe targeting a 'tier 2' center may be the best move from Sweeney and co this year.
Regardless, I think with the context of Pasta/Swayman/mMcavoys age, and needing this player they're drafting to be a player sooner, rather than later.. I think I would be inclined to pay the hefty price assuming it isn't something outrageous like 4 1st's or something.
22Brad Park
Registered User
I agree with your last paragraph but I never trust those opinions on drafts 100%.I have saw far to many times players get picked late and and up studs.The Bruins are probably landing in top 8 so hopefully though ping pong balls cooperate and take care of it .
Definitely fair, and there will likely be at least a handful of players who are drafted after the first round this year who will go on to have good NHL careers. There might even be an all star who emerges.
(discounting goalies who seem almost unscoutable, and could come from anywhere)
In terms of deep drafts or shallow there are just years for whatever reasons like 2003, and 2015, where there are people with first round grades through the 40th or 50th pick, and then years where there aren't more than 15-20 players who have first round grades.
And this happens in all sports. Like why is it there are a handful of top 5 caliber WR in one NFL draft, and then the next year it is a bit of a wasteland, and you see 3rd round type talents in past years being talked about in the first round the next. Same things happen in all sports.
ON3M4N
Ignores/60 = Elite
If you want a fun tool to play with when it comes to pick value, there is one on Puckpedia. I'll put the link at the bottom. Using that tool:
#5OA Pick = 50.13 Value
#9OA Pick = 36.66 Value
The difference is ~13.5 points.
In the value chart, that's equal to a 1st round pick in the #26OA range.
PuckPedia Perri Pick Value Calculator | Puckpedia
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