The annual NHL draft will finally take place in a little over two weeks in Las Vegas.
The teams who all attended the Combine to watch and talk with the crop’s top prospects now return from Buffalo with a better idea of where each player ranks on their respective draft lists.
Present at the event, the journalist Marc-Antoine Godin of Radio-Canada Sports drew up a portrait of the situation according to the information circulating behind the scenes.
According to what he was allowed to learn from a GM on site, five players currently seem to have stood out from the rest of the crop and would have a better chance of being selected in the Top-5. These are the attackers Macklin Celebrini, Ivan Demidov And Cayden Lindstrom as well as defenders Artyom Levshunov And Anton Silayev.
Moreover, the closer we get to the draft, the more the chances of seeing Lindstrom still available in fifth place when the Canadian appears on the podium seem to weaken. On the other hand, the chances that Demidov could slide to the Canadian seem to be increasing.
We came away from Buffalo with the impression that the chances of the Canadiens being able to select Demidov were better than originally believed, while the chances of getting Lindstrom may not be as great as hoped.
– Marc-Antoine Godin
The Anaheim Ducks and the Columbus Blue Jackets would be the two teams to watch in the Lindstrom file.
But even if Demidov slipped to fifth place, it doesn’t seem like it would be automatic to see CH select him even though his status in the KHL and his nationality would put many off.
There are definitely concerns surrounding when Demidov might become available to the team that drafts him. Relations between Russian hockey and the rest of the world are complicated and highly politicized, and they have not improved compared to last year.
In principle, Demidov’s contract with SKA St. Petersburg expires at the end of the next campaign, but some are wary of the resistance that will offer SKAone of the strongholds of Russian hockey.
The fact remains that the unpredictability of this file, combined with the fact that Demidov made fireworks in a league where the caliber was not the highest, could encourage teams drafting before the Canadian to look elsewhere.
– Marc-Antoine Godin
The option of opting for a defender in the fifth row would indeed be real and the names of the giant Anton Silayev and dynamics Zeev Buium would be worth monitoring if this were the case.
Regardless, it seems increasingly clear that we are in for one of the most unpredictable drafts in a very long time.
