Can you recall a year when there has been this much attention with the current draft class? Ten years ago, the NHL was treated to the Sidney Crosby draft, featuring a superstar player that most people probably know about by now. Skip to 2015, and yet again, we have a superstar in the waiting with Connor McDavid.
With the way social media is these days, it’s impossible to escape the NHL’s next great group of future phenoms. It’s a great thing, if you think about it. More than ever, people can follow along with the upcoming batch of youngsters throughout the year, not relying on limited resources to find out more about who’s coming up.
For this list, both I and Brendan Saunders, my TV co-host in Canada, we looked at hundreds of prospects that we had followed at some point over the past two years, either in person, through a stream or through reports from trusted sources. We both tend to follow the sleepers throughout the year, and thus we believe some players, such as Dante Salituro, deserve to have their name called much earlier than they actually are. In many cases, it’s likely a size issue, something that will likely impair smaller talent in an unfair way for a long time.
Most of the picks also came as a combination of what teams may be looking to upgrade with the draft or based off of previous draft history. Some teams tend to skip out on defensemen in the first round every year. Some teams do a good job with their European scouting department. Many factors played in to the picking the 211 players that *potentially* could be chosen this June.
Without further ado, here’s our contribution to the mock draft market.
For extended information on some of the players this year, check out these quick links:
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Photo credit of Mitch Marner: Aaron Bell – OHL Images
