Very exciting first round of the NHL entry draft. In a draft
that was deemed to be very wide open it ended up with very few surprises and
off the board picks.
The big winners for me were the New York Islanders. They
chose to keep their pick this season and give their 2015 pick to Buffalo. At #5
they selected Michael Dal Colle from the Oshawa Generals. Not too surprising as
Dal Colle was ranked as the 5th best player by numerous people. What
was really impressive by GM Garth Snow was what he did at the end of the first
round. Snow traded pick 35 and 57 to Tampa Bay for pick 28. With that pick the
Islanders picked Josh Ho-Sang. Ho-Sang has tremendous talent as shown by his 85
points in 67 games. Ho-Sang fell in this draft because he supposedly has
attitude problems. He comes across as arrogant and tends to be selfish on the
ice. I don’t know how a selfish players gets 53 assists but I digress. He has
the skill that I like.
The big losers were the Vancouver Canucks. Having picks 6
and 24 the Canucks had a chance to add two highly skilled players to their system.
They picked Jake Virtanen at 6 who isn’t a bad player by any means. He had 71
point in 71 games for the Calgary Hitmen. But the issue was there were better
players available. Rhys of “That’s Offside” had a great piece comparing
Virtanen to Nikoli Elhers, he colcluded that while Virtanen is a solid prospect
Ehlers was just better and more likely to have a successful NHL career. Canucks
could have picked Ehlers who went 9th to Winnipeg or William
Nylander who went 8th to Toronto. The bleeding didn’t stop there as
the Canucks had a chance to redeem themselves a bit at pick 24 with numerous
skill guys still available. Vancouver passed on the skill again and went with
Jared McCann. McCann has some skill shown by his 62 points in 64 games but he
is more regarded for his defensive play. He might end up being a third line
player at the NHL level.
For Day 2 of the Draft here are some names to keep your eye
on.
Ivan Barbashev, Braydon Point, Alexis Vanier , Roland
Mckeown, Chase De Leo, Rourke Chartier, Mark Friedman, Daniel Audette, Spencer
Watson, Tyson Baille, Luke Phillip , Gavin Bayreuther.
Ill do a more in-depth analysis of the entire draft once day
2 is over. I will be following day 2 of the draft very closely so check back
here for updates or you can follow me on twitter @PaulBerthelot.
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