He's no gem but I think after about pick ~18 it gets heavily subjective. Big RD with flashes tend to go pretty fast. (He's also a pretty young birthday.) His playmaking is a definite weakness suggesting limited offensive upside but I thought he did just enough to keep his stock intact. His skating and refinement improved a bit over the season IMO. In a somewhat thin draft a big, likely PK and perhaps even shutdown type bigger body RD will have its backers. Boumedienne likely has higher offensive upside but size still carries the day among some.
Lakovic is also a pretty raw bigger body that hasn't really figured it out. Again, some workable elements. Guys like Boumedienne, Fiddler and Nesbitt bring some positional value but depending on when you see them there was a lot of variance in play. A guy like Reid is a bit steadier I guess but, again, size does play somewhat of a factor in projecting out. After Kindel I'm not sure there's a convincing stud in the 20's range (even Kindel has some frame/strength questions). Hard to believe he'd slide to 27 in this draft regardless but we'll see. He's the one guy in my third tier that seems less secure based on some of the more recent public pegs. Outside of him it's a lot muddier.
Maybe they feel differently but it does seem like a draft where if they can trade 27+37 for a higher quality singular option at this stage it's probably for the best. They don't need depth so much if there's a perception of a clear tier separation. That said, easier said than done in a draft perceived to be thin and with so many teams already owning multiple firsts. Perhaps a team like Carolina that's analytically-driven could look to move back and add another dart. Otherwise there aren't many obvious targets as far as pick swaps go. Maybe if things break right the Caps could do some solid business where they're at but I'm not super convinced based on the overall field.
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