I was actually thinking a little bit about who the KD era Hawks picks are in this draft.
Could be why they traded up those two spots too (ofc multiple other potential reasons too).
Based on the mocks and everything, I think the first 14ish picks are kind of locked in. Not the order, but the total pool:
1) Celebrini
2) Demidov
3) Levshunov
4) Silayev
5) Lindstrom
6) Buium
7) Iginla
8) Parekh
9) Catton
10) Sennecke
11) Dickinson
12) Yakemchuk
13) Eiserman
14) Helenius
Well, maybe Eiserman/Helenius I could see dropping for some other prospects, but we still see them talked about in the same pool.
So that's 3 more selections until 18th with ours being the 4th.
From the guys mocked in the second half of the first:
MNB, Jiricek, Hage, Connelly, Greentree, Solberg, Chernyshov, Luchanko, Boisvert, Artamonov, Basha, Parascak, Emery, Ritchie, Hutson, Beaudoin, Hemming.
Luchanko, MNB, Hage and Chernyshov fit the elite skating amongst forwards.
That pretty much guarantees at least one of them will be at 18 if they want to go that way.
Could be overthinking, but this makes me feel pretty good about having the 18th pick. We should have plenty of favorites to pick from.