Draft Lottery Instant Reaction: Buffalo Sabres to pick No. 1, Kraken move up to No. 2
Takeaways from the Draft Lottery, what to expect from the winners and stray thoughts
Well, that was a bit anticlimactic, but if you’re a Buffalo Sabres and Seattle Kraken fan, you can’t be happier with how things shook out. The Sabres retained the top pick as the league’s last-place team and the Kraken were the only team to move up in the order. The Anaheim Ducks slipping to No. 3 isn’t a bad spot for them to be in, either. Other than that, the order was largely the same from the pre-lottery odds. Here it is, via the NHL:
If you want to get a slight jump on it, you can review my pre-lottery mock that will give you an idea of what could be available to your favorite team within the range they fell tonight. However, that one little change in the order should provide some significant movement to the full 32-pick (actually 31 because Arizona’s pick is forfeited) mock draft which will come out tomorrow. That full first-round mock will be going to paid subscribers, so if you haven’t upgraded yet but would like to, just follow the “subscribe now” link below. It’s just $6 a month to gain access to the whole site, $54 a year (nine months for the price of 12) or if you’d like to support this independent media venture more, there is a supporting subscriber option that allows you to contribute whatever you choose over and above the annual fee, with extra perks rolling out including our first virtual happy hour to be announced soon. Follow this newsletter to the end to see what kind of content I have in the works for the draft buildup.
Also, I’ll have a special lottery reaction edition of the Talking Hockey Sense podcast coming very soon. It will be 100% about the NHL Draft and what we learned from the lottery. Some of the same ground covered in this piece will be covered there, but I’m also taking questions (which you can send to me on Twitter or through email: hockeysensewithcp@gmail.com).
For now, let’s take a look at what the draft lottery results mean and what we can take away from the night’s proceedings.
Buffalo Sabres win the lottery, now what?
It has not been easy to be a Buffalo Sabres fan of late. Even winning the lottery is a bit muted as this is not necessarily the strongest year for the draft, but they’re in position to land the best player in the 2021 class. That’s not a small thing.
To me and to a lot more in the scouting community, Owen Power is the best player in this draft class. There’s not a 100% consensus on that, but ask a scout and most will tell you he’s the player they covet most at No. 1 and why wouldn’t they? The 6-foot-5, 215-pound defenseman has high-end hockey sense and mobility to go along with that big frame. He can be a foundational, top-pairing defenseman.
What complicates that just a little bit is that Power is a left-shot defenseman and the last guy the Sabres took No. 1, Rasmus Dahlin, is a left-shot defenseman. You know what you can never have enough of, though? GOOD defensemen. The Sabres blue line is one of the areas of greatest need as there’s not a terribly long list of players after Dahlin that inspire confidence going forward. On top of that, it seems more and more likely Rasmus Ristolainen has played his last game in Buffalo.
You can’t shy away from the best player in the draft because you’ve got one player at the same position. Power is a very different defenseman from Dahlin and has a better defensive projection with less offensive upside compared to the 2018 No. 1 pick. To have two big defenseman as a one-two punch, because I still believe the best is yet to come for Dahlin, that’s a pretty solid place to be in.
However, for the sake of comprehensiveness, I wanted to at least explore the other options. The first is going in a different direction and picking someone not named Power.
With the potential of trading away Jack Eichel still looming, the team could nab a pretty impactful center at No. 1 as Matty Beniers seems to be the closest to a consensus No. 2 in this class. He’s a two-way center who competes and has tremendous speed. There’s a lot of skill and hockey intelligence there, too. He’d make some sense. There’s also always an argument that if you feel it’s closer between a defenseman and a forward, take the forward as you’re likely to get a more noticeable impact.
Beniers is really the only player in this draft I could make a strong argument for to take instead of Power. I think anyone else has you risking both backlash and derision in the short term with how much you can’t get this one wrong. The fan base doesn’t have a ton of faith after the last season and bucking convention here might cause a mass meltdown. If the team truly believes there’s another option they like better than Power, that leads us to option No. 2 to maximize that value:
Trade it! Power is the top prize of the draft and if you like other players in this first round enough, you can probably get a pretty decent package to give up No. 1, but you’d have to limit yourself to who you’d be willing to trade with so as to still have an early first-rounder and land another impact prospect. Moving off of the No. 1 pick is really hard to do, but if they can find a team that’s willing to talk and has a significant enough offer on the table, this is not the worst year to do it.
I still think the best option is to take the best player on the board. That’s Power. He and Dahlin will get plenty of ice time regardless of who is on the top pairing. With those two and Dylan Cozens, you’ve got that secondary core that’s super young and talented that you can find a way to build around if you have to move on from Eichel.
Welcome to the NHL, Seattle Kraken! You pick second
The Seattle Kraken were the only team to “win” the lottery, moving up from the third-best odds to pick No. 2 and that sets them up for what I think should be a pretty easy decision for their first ever draft pick. As I noted in my pre-lottery mock draft, Ron Francis picked defensemen in his first three drafts with Carolina and really built his team from the blue line out. There’s a chance Owen Power is still available and that’s the easiest decision they’ll have in this process, but more likely they still have a chance to nab a future top-six center with two-way skills, speed and one of the best competitive drives of any player in this draft.
I’m speaking of course of Michigan center Matty Beniers. I think there still could be temptation from Francis and his staff to take a blueliner as there’s a crop that is very talented, including Luke Hughes, Simon Edvinsson and Brandt Clarke.
In cases where it’s close, I almost always lean towards the forward over a defenseman. I’m a big fan of Luke Hughes in particular, but Beniers has a lot of special qualities and the potential to one day be a No. 1 center at the NHL level.
Beniers has said in the past that he’s tried to model his game after Patrice Bergeron’s and you can see the ways he is an ardent pupil of one of the best two-way centers the game has ever seen. Beniers is a factor in all three zones. His competitive nature makes him a menace to play against without his being a snarly, pest-like forward. He just plays hard. He rarely loses puck battles and always seems to find himself in good spots. Loose pucks are as good as his in a foot race, and if he doesn’t get there first, he’s probably taking the puck off whoever did. While Beniers does not have exceptional skill, he is skilled enough and makes plays thanks to high-end hockey sense. His anticipation and finishing abilities are going to make him an impactful offensive player.
When you’re building a franchise, you need to find certain types of players that can handle being the building block. I believe Beniers can be that player for Seattle and provide a great start to what they’re going to try to build.
What’s left for the Ducks?
So the Ducks dropped one spot, which isn’t all bad. They get to be the team that has a lot of different possibilities and don’t face as much pressure if they decide to buck consensus or convention to land the player they like the best. I think most scouts agree Power and Beniers are among the top two. There’s far less certainty, especially after the World U18 Championship at which I saw Ducks GM Bob Murray for the duration of the event, for who should go third. After selecting center Trevor Zegras and defenseman Jamie Drysdale in back-to-back drafts, the Ducks can spend a lot of time carefully poring over who is the best fit to be the next key piece of their prospect system.
They can go forward, adding an impact winger like William Eklund or Dylan Guenther. Guenther, who finished with 24 points in just 12 WHL games this season, is more of a finisher than a play-driver, which is why he could fit in great with Zegras down the line. Meanwhile Eklund was the rookie of the year in the SHL and can be a responsible, productive winger that can slot in as a top six in the very near future.
With right-shot Drysdale in place, you might see them look at left-shots Luke Hughes and Simon Edvinsson as potential long-term running mates with Drysdale. Hughes in particular has a very similar game to Drysdale, but might have even more offensive upside. Edvinsson is more of a longer-term project who has great size and really good hands for a big man. That’s a pretty good start to the makings of a modern NHL blue line where you need players that can move the puck.
You’ll have to wait and see who I slot with the Ducks in the Mock Draft tomorrow, because even I’m not sure what they (or I’m) going to do with the options they have in front of them. It’s really not a bad spot to be in.
Stray thoughts from the Draft Lottery
How great was seeing the instant reactions of the GMs? Jim Nill pulling his earbuds out in resignation after the Dallas Stars stayed put in their place was a great bit of reactionary theater and maybe a reaction GIF that will become the next NHL meme. Jim Benning looked like he already knew the Canucks weren’t going anywhere in the lottery and was fine with it, or at least pretended to be. Jarmo Kekalainen was less muted, but thankfully on mute, when he appeared to utter the word FUDGE (only he didn’t say fudge). I also thought Steve Yzerman’s reaction, even though it was relatively muted, still had that knowing look of — “How can we get no lottery luck?” The Red Wings have not had the No. 1 pick since 1986. All of those GMs are competitive guys and I think some of them let that show a little bit, which is great.
On the GM note, I think Tom Fitzgerald’s backdrop with the Devils’ last two lottery No. 1 picks’ jerseys on display was a nice little wink by the New Jersey Devils. Just a little reminder of their previous lottery luck, landing Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes. The Devils at least made the effort to give their GM a dressy background for his 15 seconds of air time. It also made this tweet a little funnier in the aftermath of the lottery:
Speaking of the Devils, they’re right in the range where it will be possible to be faced with this choice: Do you take William Eklund, the Djugardens linemate of last year’s top pick Alexander Holtz if he’s there? OR do you take the younger brother of your most recent No. 1 overall pick with Luke Hughes, if he’s still there after the Ducks pick. In all honesty, I think Hughes is the pick if you’re faced with one of those two and it’s not because he’s Jack’s little brother. He’d be the best player on the board and another skilled, quick player added to the mix.
The last time the Detroit Red Wings picked sixth overall, Yzerman shocked the hockey world by picking Moritz Seider and every year since that pick has looked better and better. Seider may be the best prospect not currently in the NHL. The Red Wings are going to have some really interesting options including probably the boldest one possible: Taking a goalie. No goaltender has gone earlier than 11th overall in the years since Carey Price went fifth in 2005. Jesper Wallstedt may be the guy to break the trend. I don’t think he’s in the same tier as Spencer Knight or Yaroslav Askarov, who were each first-round goalies in the last two drafts, but I also don’t think this draft is in the same range as those other two. If there’s a team in that pack that will take a goalie, I think Detroit is the most likely one.
My pal Craig Morgan, who also is on Substack and does a spectacular job with his Coyotes Insider site, wrote about the impossibly awful luck the Coyotes have had in the draft lottery. They of course didn’t even have a pick this season, despite falling into lottery range. That was forfeited as part of their improper testing of draft prospects last season under former GM John Chayka. Arizona has never picked higher than No. 3, doing so twice and taking Kyle Turris in 2007 and Dylan Strome in 2016, neither of whom had much, if any success in the organization and were traded away, having more success in other stops. It’s really tough to turn around a franchise no matter how good your scouting staff if you don’t get a crack at one of those elite prospects that come at No. 1 or No. 2.
Alright, that’s it for some of the instant reaction. I’m really excited to get that mock together for my subscribers. It’ll be in your inboxes Thursday morning with the podcast to follow. Don’t forget to send in your questions on Twitter or to hockeysensewithcp@gmail.com. Even if it’s not about the draft, but about prospects in general, I’ll take it.
And if you haven’t upgraded to the paid side yet, consider $6 monthly subscriptions at least for June and July as I will have tons of NHL Draft coverage including more mock drafts and a refreshed 2021 ranking in the near future. I will also be doing a pre-draft NHL farm system ranking for all 32 teams, even the Kraken, who currently have one (1) prospect, so that counts! I’ll also have a wrap-up for the Men’s World Championship, in which both Matty Beniers and Owen Power are playing, with big games for each on Monday in the quarterfinals.
Now is the time to hop on board. The draft buildup is especially fun and full of content. I really appreciate all of the support from the subscribers who have signed on already. You guys have allowed me to travel a bit more, to cover the necessary expenses to run this site and keep doing what I love. Please let me know what you like and don’t like about Hockey Sense as I want to continue making this the best possible experience for those who have made the commitment to this little independent venture. All feedback is welcome at hockeysensewithcp@gmail.com.