After having taken a look at Dobber Prospects “NHL Certainty” ratings, I will now dissect the inner workings of it. According to Dobber Prospects, there are multiple players north of NHL Certainty potential. Later in the article, I’ll come up with my own rankings based off how I interpret Dobber Prospects’ perspective.
Left Wings: Alexis Lafreniere is the 10.0, Tim Stutzle 9.9, Lukas Reichel, Rodion Amirov both, John-Jason Peterka, Ridly Greig 6.5, Jake Neighbours 5.5.
Centers: Quinton Byfield 10.0, Marco Rossi 9.9, Cole Perfetti 9.0, Anton Lundell 9.0, Dylan Holloway 7, Hendrix LaPierre, Jacob Perrault 6.5, Connor Zary 6.5, Brendan Brisson, Mavrik Bourque 6.0.
Right Wings: Lucas Raymond 9.9, Alexander Holtz 9.0, Jack Quinn 7.5, Noel Gunler, Seth Jarvis and Dawson Mercer 7.0, Jan Mysak and Tyson Foerester at 6.0.
LH Defensemen: Jake Sanderson 9.0, Kaiden Guhle 7.0 and William Wallinder 6.0. RH Defenseman: Jamie Drysdale 9.0, Braden Schneider 7.0, Helge Grans and Justin Barron 6.0.
Goalies: Yaroslav Askarov 8.0 is the only above 5/10 percentile certain goalie, while Drew Commesso, Jan Bednar, Joel Blomqvist are 2.5’s, Nick Malik is the 2.0/10.
What the biggest weakness is in this year’s draft is that the goaltending seems to have overwhelmingly underperformed in player potential and the left-handed defensemen category above 5/10 is more promising. The right-handed defence, however, is only slightly better but has a lot of similar promise. Centremen have a plethora of quality and quantity, earning it my stamp of approval above the right and left wings.
This is a very forward heavy NHL Draft and it is very thin on goalies and some defensemen. What I would do is, in this case, making trade offers to do my very best to fill a need for a goaltender and maybe some defenders.
In my nhlentrydraft.com mock draft, since Anaheim took Alexander Holtz (9.0) RW at six, I took Lucas Raymond (9.9) a RW/LW from Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League. Lucas would bring a well rounded shooting, and playmaking style of hockey while being a wonderful two-way player. At 17th Rodion Amirov (6.5) LW went to Chicago.
Noel Gunler (7.0) I took at 18th overall. The Calgary Flames, in my mock draft sim, took Mavrik Bourque (6.0), a center whose potential isn’t high as Jack Quinn (7.5) where the winger, who is one of the best shooters in this draft, fell to one of my picks at 20th overall.
This is just an example of how some teams may undermine a player long term potential without the proper understanding. The near and long-term growth to developing players based off an individual players development curve is effected by their ability to learn and play their game to the path of progress and fruition.
Joe’s Picks for the New Jersey Devils: Lucas Raymond RW (9.9), Noel Gunler (7.0) RW, Jack Quinn (7.5)
One notable surprise for me is if the Devils acquire Buffalo’s eighth overall mentioned in recent trade rumours. I can see a combination of Holtz-Askarov, Askarov-Raymon, Askarov-Rossi, Askarov-Drysdale, depending on Buffalo’s draft day behaviour. Also, picks 4-6 hold the keys to Tom Fitzgerald and his staff pulling off New Jersey’s first pick in the Fitzgerald and MacKinnon Devils drafting era.