With star power lacking, no quick fixes in 2017 NHL draft
The drafting of Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel in 2015 and Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine in 2016 proves there are always opportune times to be a bad NHL team.
But this season’s prospect list shows that the rewards of drafting early vary greatly from season to season.
“Nolan Patrick is a good solid player and (Nico) Hischier is a good solid player but they are not in a class with those four – they are just not,” said TSN director of scouting Craig Button, a former NHL team executive with almost three decades of scouting experience.
This year’s non-playoff teams won’t find the star power or depth that has been available in the past two years in the draft.
“The top guys are going to be able to have an impact on their NHL clubs,” said Dan Marr, the NHL's director of Central Scouting. “But the list does get shallow pretty quick.”
Patrick, a 6-3 Western Hockey League center, is the consensus No. 1 pick. He was injured early this season, but has continued to strengthen his status. He has 14 goals and 33 points in 21 games for the Brandon Wheat Kings.
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“He has impacted at every level he has played at so far,” Marr said. “He has the size, strength, power package. He has hockey sense, a good skill set. And he does all of the little things.”
Marr said Patrick is a two-way center who works at all facets, including being proficient in the face-off circle.
“He can play the power forward game but he can also play the finesse game,” Marr said. “There aren’t any situations where he can’t make something happen. I don’t know if he has any limitations to his game.”
The No. 2 prospect is Hischier (pronounced HEE-shur), a skillful Swiss center who has 37 goals and 77 points in 46 games for Halifax in the Quebec League. He was one of the youngest players at the world junior championships, and yet was one of the tournament's most talked-about players. Hischier finished with four goals and seven points in five games.
“He’s full of drive and determination,” Marr said. “He’s driven to get to the puck first. If there is a loose puck, he wants it.”
The gap between Patrick and Hirschier isn’t wide. And the gap between those two players and the other top prospects isn’t significant, either.
“We had to put our list out, but within a week we were already shifting names around,” Marr said.
The June 23-24 draft does include a handful of other intriguing centers, including Gabriel Vilardi (Windsor, Ontario Hockey League), Michael Rasmussen (Tri-City, WHL) and Casey Mittelstadt (Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota) who is the highest-ranked American.
"(Mittelstadt) is an explosive skater with an excellent first three strides," said USA Hockey's national teams director Jim Johannson. "He creates offense in low zone play. He's a versatile all-situation player. From a pure scouting perspective, he has tremendous upside."
But no one seems to agree on the order of the first-round picks, or even who should be chosen in the first round. “It’s not an easy job sorting these players out,” Marr said.
The draft make-up will have an impact on what happens at the NHL trade deadline. For example, general managers might be more willing than they have been over the past two seasons to part with a first-round pick.
GMs might be also more inclined to make a long-shot run at the playoffs because there is less certainty attached to this year’s draft crop.
“One team may think that the guy they have ranked fourth is good, but another team might have him ranked 16th,” Button said. “So if you are trying to make the playoffs, you might say, ‘Wait a second, the guy we would take at five might be available at 16.’’’
