It would be insane to use a 2nd overall pick on a winger who has never played higher than the MHL. Especially when there are so many safe defense prospects available. Kyle Davidson seems like a really stupid guy so maybe he does it anyway but that would be such a massive risk.
I think they should. I also think Demidov is the clear BPA at 2. All the defensemen have too many question marks for me.
It's not surprising that EP has him ranked 2nd if they view all of the "safe" dmen as having various glaring issues.
Does EP have a mock draft in any of that content? It'd be interesting to see what that sort of place would have for us at 14.I’d definitely consider him at 42. I’m pretty locked on defense at 33 though.
I have an EP Premium membership and spent the last three or four hours reading through hundreds of pages of scouting reports. Pretty insane amount of content. My favorite part of it is the “Industry quotes” section where anonymous NHL scouts give sound bites to EP. Really interesting to see what real NHL scouts are saying.
I obviously won’t give up a ton of paid content, but if anyone has any specific questions on any specific prospects I can give an overviews. They have microstat tracking profiles, tool grades, projections, etc. I also like the cute little icons that they tag each profile with. Macklin has “sniper”, “tactician”, and “got that dog in him”.
I was particularly intrigued by some NHL scout quotes on Dickinson and Yakemchuk. They reflect things that I have seen myself, though I’m higher on both players than EP.
Dickinson:
This was a fascinating quote to me because I feel like Nurse is a pretty decent comparison. Nurse has the size, skating, physicality, shot, and he can make some great individual offensive plays, but the package doesn’t add up to what it should. I think Dickinson lands somewhere between Nurse (#4D who can eat minutes but also drives you a little crazy) and Hanifin (solid if unspectacular #2D). He’s one of the guys who I think it will be fascinating to follow. To me, he feels like a coach’s dream… which may end up biting a team in the ass when he’s playing too many minutes too early a la Ristolainen. I think you could also say that about Levshunov, so it’s kinda pick your poison. With all that said, he’s still worth a pick in the 6-8 range. Floor is two high to fall any further IMO.
Yakemchuk:
There were some more disparaging quotes from other NHL scouts, but this one was the worst IMO. The game reports from the EP scouts mirrored a lot of what I’ve seen too.
On the whole, this defensive class may be a little overrated. Levshunov and Dickinson have hockey IQ questions. Yakemchuk has hockey IQ and skating questions. Parekh has physicality and defensive questions. Silayev has puck-handling and offensive questions. And Buium has translatability questions, though I believe in him the most.
All this to say that I’d be thrilled with any of those defensemen at 14, but holy hell are well lucky to have Macklin. I don’t envy the teams in the 2-5 range that have to distill something from this mess.
Their latest mock, which they released after the lottery, had the Sharks taking Sennecke at 14. I'm not sure how realistic that is anymore as the firmly ranked Sennecke in the top 10 in the latest guide.
Notably, Brandsegg-Nygard was gone but Yakemchuk was still on the board. Otherwise going before us was the usual suspects, including Eiserman.
Yakemchuk is going to go a lot lower than I think us fans think. His defensive and IQ issues just tell me BUST.
He's a polarizing prospect even among pro scouts. He could go high, or he could go low. I don't think anyone (including professionals) know for sure what's going to happen with him.
The pro scouts quoted from EP rinkside are hesitant on his top 4 potential. Seem to see him more as a 5. Everyone loves that he's mean, but some question whether or not his puck skills are translatable. Today, Pronman added in his latest that he sees top 4 upside and likes his ability to move pucks enough. He definitely seems like a Grier guy.
Yeah, I think he’s gonna be one of the most fascinating stories in the draft. I’m low-key worried Grier would pass on him.
I think that’s a reasonable projection. EP ranks his tools as average across the board but gives him an 8 (out of 9) for physicality and compares him to Trouba stylistically.
If we draft a legit top pair guy with our 2025 1st (preferably a right shot but can't be too picky) I think we could make it work with that guy, Shak and Solberg in the top 4. Or we trade Shak or Solberg in a few years to address a different need.
Totally. A true #1 doesn’t need another top-pairing quality D on his pairing to make it work. In fact, I feel like best-slash-most attainable formula for a successful defense might be something like the Tampa model, where Hedman/McDonagh/Sergachev played on different pairings with decent bottom pairing guys as their partners. It’s juniors, but Saginaw just won the Mem Cup with Parekh/Donavan/Dionico on separate pairs until crunch time where they pretty much played only four D.
