What Phase 2 of the draft lottery has taught us all here is that we need to have a very straight forward system. Team E being Winnipeg should’ve been picking first overall. The lottery system in Phase 2 was completely botched. If I was pushing for change in the NHL, it would be getting rid of the Phase 2 draft lottery.
Fans here in my home state of New Jersey are enjoying watching a really fun, yet thrilling sport not normally played in the summer. Before I dig into my column, I want to provide a few heads up. I will be doing an extensive dive into the NHL Draft and and eligible prospects. I can try to forecast which teams could select along with the “best available” type format.
1) The Carolina Hurricanes rocked the New York Rangers like a real hurricane. The Rangers weren’t blood thirsty enough with and without Brendan Lemieux. Henrik Lundqvist was let down between his defence which lagged the defensive insight from the loss of Lindy Ruff to New Jersey. Tony DeAngelo, Mika Zibanejad and company caved into Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and the Hurricanes.
2) Andrei Svechnikov, Connor McDavid and Pierre Luc-Dubois all recorded hat tricks in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers.
3) The Chicago Blackhawks youth, goaltending and veteran leadership helped eliminate the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL play-in round. If you asked me a week ago, I’d probably say Chicago advances because of Patrick Kane, and Jonathan Toews, just to name a few. I was very impressed with the emergence of Calder Memorial candidate Dominik Kubalik. The Czech wonder is proving to be a huge piece for the team going forward.
4) The Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated by an up and coming Columbus Blue Jackets team, 3-0. Defence and goaltending has been the big variable going into the series against Toronto. Coach John Tortorella is the master chef in the success in bringing the flavours right out of the Blue Jackets with a lot of spice and some acidity.
Nick Foligno, Boone Jenner and Seth Jones remained the important keys in playing spoiler. They did so while allowing Joonas Korpisalo to do the rest of the lifting in between the pipes.
5) The Phase 2 draft lottery was terrible in many ways. One of many suggestions I would recommend is why wasn’t the Rangers lottery ball the same weight as the other lottery balls? Honestly, it felt very rigged with the lottery ball pressing the button looking at the lottery ball machine. The ball picker should’ve had a blind fold on and a timer set off to click for the pick.
6) The Montreal Canadiens likely closed the playoff window for the Pittsburgh Penguins, That’s a team with the likes of Patric Hornqvist, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Matt Murray at the core. It stinks for the city of Pittsburgh while the Habs are partying up north in round one. Pittsburgh should be reassessing their pipeline after seeking out players to succeed the roles of others.
7) Calgary edged and outhit a very solid opponent in the Winnipeg Jets. Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, David Rittich and Cam Talbot really bring a competitive young-mid aged team. James Neal, who has played for Pittsburgh and Nashville, will be hungry to get through the postseason’s first round.
8) No repeat Stanley Cup frontrunners. My deep apologies to Cam Janssen in the elimination of the reigning Stanley Cup champions. The St. Louis Blues lost in a shootout to the Dallas Stars. The Blues did a great job getting into the play-in round and it’s not easy getting back to the Stanley Cup. However, it seemed Dallas had St. Louis where they wanted them, falling in a shootout to the likes of Ben Bishop.
9) The Boston Bruins didn’t look like they were hungry enough to handle the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers are a young team, but with two aging star forwards in Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux. Both are in their 30’s and are going up against a very forward and defence deep Montreal Canadiens roster.
The Habs have a lot of depth on defence as well as through the team’s four forward lines. Carey Price has been nothing but amazing, but will Carter Hart live up to his billing?
10) New Jersey receives both Vancouver and Arizona’s first rounders in 2020. Currently, the picks are sitting at selections 18 and 20. There are plenty of other players I’ll bring on in a later podcast on the Heads Up Hockey Podcast and I’ll try to mention one on another podcast called Devils State of Mind Podcast on the Hockey Podcast Network. (Uploaded Monday August 17th, 2020).
11) The New Jersey Devils have the possibility of drafting a trio of defence, offence and goaltending. This of course being the case if Jamie Drysdale (RHD, Erie Otters) falls to seventh overall. 18th overall could be Russian netminder Yaroslav Askarov.
Although he’s slated 7-11 in most mock drafts, I see him going into the 12-19 range where Andrei Vasilevskiy fell to 19th overall. There’s always the Russian factor and a volatility variable teams shy away from. The New Jersey Devils scouts, in recent drafts, have been very high on Russian skaters. This might be the time where not only do they evaluate them, but evaluate Askarov and other Russian goalies.