2025 NHL DRAFT

[GeauxPreds1]

I'm just going to sit here and remember how we felt up here when Edmonton managed to win the draft lottery again when we were bottom of the league and so we'd have to settle for someone like Ryan Murray instead of the obvious future superstar Nail Yakupov. Really, the only real star that came out of that one (to the extent that any of them were stars) was a guy we'd looked at but who ultimately dropped to, like, 11th overall. Trying to remember his name... Phillip something, except he spelled it with an F for some strange reason...

That goalie from tampa bay is pretty good from that draft

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Final Central Scouting rankings are a little... surprising... past #3... ?

(keeping in mind they rank NA vs. Europe separately so Frondell is still #1 Europe and not included above)

 

[jumb0]

Pronman's latest tier ranking

Tier 1 - NHL All Star
Schaeffer

Tier 2 - Bubble All Star and Top of Lineup Player
Misa
Desnoyers
Hagens
Martone

Tier 3 - Top of Lineup Player
Frondell
O'Brien
Eklund
McQueen
Aitcheson
Smith

 

[herzausstein]

Final Central Scouting rankings are a little... surprising... past #3... ?

View attachment 1015207

(keeping in mind they rank NA vs. Europe separately so Frondell is still #1 Europe and not included above)

Having O'brien up that far is pretty shocking. I don't think I've seen a single mock draft where he is picked before 10th OVA or before Martone/Desnoyers

Pronman's latest tier ranking

Tier 1 - NHL All Star
Schaeffer

Tier 2 - Bubble All Star and Top of Lineup Player
Misa
Desnoyers
Hagens
Martone

Tier 3 - Top of Lineup Player
Frondell
O'Brien
Eklund
McQueen
Aitcheson
Smith

Plus side, no matter how the draft lottery goes we land with a Tier 2 or better prospect.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Having O'brien up that far is pretty shocking. I don't think I've seen a single mock draft where he is picked before 10th OVA or before Martone/Desnoyers

Plus side, no matter how the draft lottery goes we land with a Tier 2 or better prospect.

I also don't think I've ever seen Mrtka that high either. But I guess if you think about it, a 6'6" RD with getting towards a point-per-game...

 

[Scoresberg]

I figured O'Brien would rise going into the draft but didn't envision a jump like that one. That's CRAZY.

I know he put up some decent numbers in the OHL but he has a disturbing amount of PP points in there.

Actually just checked and he has 50 PP points this year. 98 points altogether. Even Misa - who had 134 points - doesn't have that many points on the PP.

Buyer beware on O'Brien..

 

[Scoresberg]

Aside from O'Brien, I really "like" seeing Cootes, Potter, Reschny and Fiddler that low. All would be pretty solid options with our later picks.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Aside from O'Brien, I really "like" seeing Cootes, Potter, Reschny and Fiddler that low. All would be pretty solid options with our later picks.

I see a lot of other teams (well, fans) mentioning Reschny and Fiddler too though. Higher than our picks.

It really sucks that Tampa went on a bit of a run and their pick is currently sitting #26. Vegas at #30. I guess we can hope for a lot of playoff upsets to shift those up a bit. But it's still not going to be what I was initially hoping for.

We should still get good/interesting prospects with those picks, regardless. I definitely wouldn't double them up to move up a few spots in the draft. We'll never get into the top-10 doing that. And outside of that, it feels like there is quite a plateau of uncertainty. Use the 2 picks, cross our fingers.

 

[braindead]

Aside from O'Brien, I really "like" seeing Cootes, Potter, Reschny and Fiddler that low. All would be pretty solid options with our later picks.

Sascha Boumedienne​

I really like his story- made the jump to college from 16 yr old in Ushl. Improved over the course of the year playing against something closer to grown men.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I was also going to mention... this year we didn't go down the NCAA "free wallet" path at all... I think that's sort of fair?

For a crappy team, you can usually lure the top NCAA free agents a little easier, since they can envision an easier path on a crappy team. Jake Livingstone was one of the absolute elite-rated NCAA FAs his year, but he doesn't really look like he's going to pan out as an NHL player. We had Colin Graf on tryouts, too bad he signed with SJ, he looks like a player.

But most of these guys aren't going to make it. I wouldn't really critique our org for not adding anybody via this path this year? We have had a lot of draft picks lately, so we're already bringing in a lot of prospects.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Sascha Boumedienne​

I really like his story- made the jump to college from 16 yr old in Ushl. Improved over the course of the year playing against something closer to grown men.

Yea i'd take him over Fiddlers kid all day. He is rising fast though

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I don't think any of us ever had Molendyk or Surin on our 1st round bingo cards, though. Whoever we think we like today based on the rankings/reports... probably those guys will be gone, and we'll get some completely different guys. And TBH, I don't think we're making bad picks? We're just not developing these later 1st round guys POST draft.

 

[herzausstein]

For our later 1st/2nds
From the d crowd:
Hensler
Brzustewicz
Boumedienne
Fiddler
Amico
Threthaway

Forwards:
Zannon
Potter
Ryabkin


G
Ivankovic


Grab some combination there and I'll be pretty happy

 

[Flgatorguy87]

Historically the preds scouts have put a high priority on primary scoring/assists based on my recollection. They've also tended to gravitate towards guys that were scoring 5v5 points.

I could be talking out of my ass, because I can't recall the exact argument I made once before. I do recall being bored over a summer and digging into it and finding a lot of players who seemed to be primary scoring threats at 5v5 being a theme. This isn't exactly groundbreaking, but when players are "close" in rankings I think they lean towards a less productive player who is scoring primary points vs. a more productive player with secondary and PP scoring.

 

[Scoresberg]

I don't think any of us ever had Molendyk or Surin on our 1st round bingo cards, though. Whoever we think we like today based on the rankings/reports... probably those guys will be gone, and we'll get some completely different guys. And TBH, I don't think we're making bad picks? We're just not developing these later 1st round guys POST draft.

Sometimes, it wouldn't hurt us to take a guy who's "dropping" on draft day. That's how you end up with guys like Debrincat, Chychrun, Caufield, Robertson or Aho.

 

[Soundgarden]

Sometimes, it wouldn't hurt us to take a guy who's "dropping" on draft day. That's how you end up with guys like Debrincat, Chychrun, Caufield, Robertson or Aho.

And how we got Tolvanen and Kemell.

 

[herzausstein]

And how we got Tolvanen and Kemell.

Tolvanen has worked out pretty good for a very late 1st rounder. It took another team to figure it out though

 

[Roman Yoshi]

I'm just going to sit here and remember how we felt up here when Edmonton managed to win the draft lottery again when we were bottom of the league and so we'd have to settle for someone like Ryan Murray instead of the obvious future superstar Nail Yakupov. Really, the only real star that came out of that one (to the extent that any of them were stars) was a guy we'd looked at but who ultimately dropped to, like, 11th overall. Trying to remember his name... Phillip something, except he spelled it with an F for some strange reason...

That draft was so bad

 

[Gnashville]

I'm just going to sit here and remember how we felt up here when Edmonton managed to win the draft lottery again when we were bottom of the league and so we'd have to settle for someone like Ryan Murray instead of the obvious future superstar Nail Yakupov. Really, the only real star that came out of that one (to the extent that any of them were stars) was a guy we'd looked at but who ultimately dropped to, like, 11th overall. Trying to remember his name... Phillip something, except he spelled it with an F for some strange reason...

Oilers don’t get McDavid if that had drafted Forsberg that year. He was already a 60 point guy and Yakupov got injured that year

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

I think you really just have to figure out what you think the realistic upside of Misa, Hagens, and Frondell really is?

I think there's actually quite a lot of doubt out there about ANY of them being "true #1C" players in the NHL, right? They can still be the #2/3/4 ranked players in this draft, and still not really make the cut as a "true #1C" hopeful. Maybe you're looking at Elias Lindholm or Sam Bennet or Dylan Strome or Jesperi Kotkaniemi or any of a host of "decent NHLers" who were top-5 picks in their drafts? Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was #1OA. Or Ryan Johansen or Matt Duchene. Unicorn "true #1C" types are rare... they skip most draft years entirely.

Whereas if the scouting opinion is that Schaefer actually is a "true #1D" with Norris superstar upside... obviously that's better than where the vast majority of randomly assorted top-5 drafted forwards ends up in the NHL.

So I don't think the question is really ever going to be about A) Winning the #1 pick in the Draft lottery (11.5% odds), then B) Picking somebody other than Schaefer #1OA. That's just not going to happen.

Our 88.5% odds of picking #2/3/4/5 are going to make the debate all about which of the available centers we think at least gives us the best chance at the best center we can get. The Schaefer talk is a red herring at this point.

I am going to assume that Schaeffer and Misa go 1-2 at this point. If we are picking 3, I would be looking at Frondell, Hagens, and Denoyers. Those are the next 3 best centers (and along with Martone I think likely the 3-6 players in the draft). While I can see arguments for all 3, I'm leaning Frondell, Desnoyers, and Hagens in that order. I'm rather curious to see how far Desnoyers can lead Moncton and how dominant Frondell is at U18.

 

[Scoresberg]

I am going to assume that Schaeffer and Misa go 1-2 at this point. If we are picking 3, I would be looking at Frondell, Hagens, and Denoyers. Those are the next 3 best centers (and along with Martone I think likely the 3-6 players in the draft). While I can see arguments for all 3, I'm leaning Frondell, Desnoyers, and Hagens in that order. I'm rather curious to see how far Desnoyers can lead Moncton and how dominant Frondell is at U18.

I'm still in the camp of "just get a top-four pick". Frondell's played better lately in the Allsvenskan Finals and might not make it to the U18's. Desnoyers' an interesting case and I guess I could settle for him if we're picking 5th. Don't see a huge, explosive 1C upside (although that's questionable even with Frondell and Hagens) but there's a legit NHL top-six center in there.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Our two acquired 1sts don't look likely to pan out quite as well as once hoped... we can certainly get behind cheering for an early elimination of Vegas along with maybe a couple other teams in that bottom 4 group to help bump their pick up to #27-28 range, or likewise for an underdog or two to leapfrog TB. Who knows... but anyway, not going to be picking higher than 24 or 25 at best from these picks. A Tampa-Vegas Stanley Cup Final would be about par for the course for this season instead...

 

[herzausstein]

Our two acquired 1sts don't look likely to pan out quite as well as once hoped... we can certainly get behind cheering for an early elimination of Vegas along with maybe a couple other teams in that bottom 4 group to help bump their pick up to #27-28 range, or likewise for an underdog or two to leapfrog TB. Who knows... but anyway, not going to be picking higher than 24 or 25 at best from these picks. A Tampa-Vegas Stanley Cup Final would be about par for the course for this season instead...

View attachment 1016123

Good news is our first 2nd will be like pick 35. We will have some flexibility here. Not amazing depth in this year draft but our defense and goaltending pipelines are pretty bad. Also got the possibility of making trades to move up some. Package a 1st and our 2nd to go up a few spots if there is someone we feel we must have

 

[101st_fan]

If

Good news is our first 2nd will be like pick 35. We will have some flexibility here. Not amazing depth in this year draft but our defense and goaltending pipelines are pretty bad. Also got the possibility of making trades to move up some. Package a 1st and our 2nd to go up a few spots if there is someone we feel we must have

If anyone but Trotz was the GM then I would expect a roster forward plus one or both of the late 1st round picks packaged in an attempt to move up. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if Trotz traded the late first rounders to get 4th liner. There has to be a Big Sexy II he could chase.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Good news is our first 2nd will be like pick 35. We will have some flexibility here. Not amazing depth in this year draft but our defense and goaltending pipelines are pretty bad. Also got the possibility of making trades to move up some. Package a 1st and our 2nd to go up a few spots if there is someone we feel we must have

I can remember the days of following the prospects very closely and being very aware of exactly who I wanted and didn't want, so I can imagine if you're actually in that position then packaging picks to move up a few spots can sometimes appeal.

Whereas today, when I sit back in my armchair and look back upon the 40 or so drafts I've followed... I don't think it makes sense. It's usually just self-delusion to think the guy you want 3 spots earlier is really going to be any better. Although you can always cherry-pick the draft 10 years later and say "oh, what if we had traded up 3 spots to pick Player X" who turned out to be a steal. Yeah, but you rarely knew that on Draft Day. If you actually do have a crystal ball, or Michael J. Fox brings you the Hockey Guide and Register from the future, sure, trade up. But you don't. So don't fool yourself.