With the 2021 NHL Draft a little more than a week out, I wanted to open the floor to my subscribers and listeners once again to answer their most pressing draft questions. As draft day gets nearer, it seems as though there is even less clarity about what will actually happen when the picks start being made, but I did my best to help sort through it.
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So there’s no guest this week, with the listeners taking control of the content by asking the questions and me doing my best to answer them. I also talked a bit about my story earlier this week about the Tampa Bay Lightning and three keys of their roster construction as it pertains to how they handle their prospects.
After that, it’s almost entirely 2021 NHL Draft centric. Here’s a look at a sampling of the questions that I answered in today’s podcast:
“There’s a pretty agreed upon top 9 in the 1st round right? Is the rest of the projected 1st round very similar, or is there another tier after that that drops off again at a later pick?”
“Which player that you currently have ranked outside of your top 20 has the chance to turn into the best player to come out of this draft in 10 years?”
“Any dark horses that could turn into real gems in the long run?”
“Do you ever factor a player’s personality into their overall evaluation? In other words, during a normal season, do you put much stock, if at all, into how a player conducts himself during an interview?”
“What traits to you value highest when evaluating prospects? And, when watching them and doing reports do you assign numerical grades within various categories (skating, sense, skill, etc) to have hard evidence to fall back come ranking time? “
“What skills can be coached/improved upon the most for draft eligible players? Conversely, what skills are the most challenging to improve upon for draft eligible players?”
“Every year it seems like there one or two guys rated highly that last much longer than anyone would expect. Who from this class do you think is at risk of a pretty decent fall, and why do you think this happens?”
And there are a bunch more where that came from.
I’ll soon be sharing plans for the 2021 NHL Draft coverage on Hockey Sense as well. There will be one more podcast pre-draft and I’ll also have a draft reaction pod soon after it’s all finished.
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Talking Hockey Sense Episode 17: NHL Draft Q&A