Biggest surprise was Simon Zether, a towering but smooth skating Centerman, falling all the way to the last pick of the 4th round. Absolutely destroyed the J20 in Sweden and was an impact player for Rögle's SHL team. Helped them turn their season around after the firing of the Abbott's. Played increased minutes during Rögle's playoff run. Their high energy 4th line was a big reason why they did not lose a single playoff game until the final.
There are no holes in Zether's game. As mature as it gets for a draft eligible player. Very intense, very physical and he has yet to fill out, is therefore only gonna get better. I'd say he's 2nd best two way forward of his draft class. Very good at breaking up plays. His high hockey IQ allows him to evaluate/calculate where the puck is gonna go faster than pretty much everybody else. That was visible even at the highest level of European pro hockey.
Only downside is that he hasn't played and scored much for most of the season. His regular season average TOI was very low. He did play and score a lot in the J20 but was mostly up with the big club. Apparently will be playing Allsvenskan next season which shows he's a smart kid as well willing to take a step back in order to improve. He's proven more than good enough to play SHL but, especially after not playing much last season, it's gonna be important for him to play Center and big minutes in all situations. A strong SHL squad like Rögle was most certainly unable to guarantee him that large of a role.
To summarize. Florida getting a mid first round kinda talent with the last pick of the 4th round was an absolute shocker for me.
Other shockers include the Avs picking a small triple overager this early (with all other goalies going much later) plus the downfalls of Kiviharju and Misa as well as Galvas and Ustinkov going undrafted.
Personally I'm shocked about the 2nd and 3rd overall picks as well but those have been predicted by many so perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. Still can't make sense of those picks though.
Lots of smaller surprises as well. A pretty wild draft compared to others I feel.