If we get some stupid luck and end up at the top of the draft what is Gavin McKenna? 1st overall on a winger is always a tough one.
Is he enough of a gap to the rest of the top 4-7 to not consider moving back for additional assets? I.e. we are 1st and Calgary is 5/6 could we extract the pick and Parekh.
I mean, if we're ranking the pantheon of #1 overall forwards based on their pre draft production over the last ~20 years
Legend Shit:
McDavid, Sid, Kane, Celebrini, Bedard
Perennial Stud Shit:
Matthews, Tavares, Stamkos, Hall, Lafreniere, Hughes
Ehhh, he'll do:
Mackinnon, Yakupov, Hischier, RNH
Fuck, why did we suck this year?:
Slafkovsky
McKenna is a weird one to handicap because his D-1 season in the WHL was below but in the same category as McDavid & Bedard's draft season...both of which are pretty fucking historic pre draft CHL production. But McKenna's draft season production is a big step down from Celebrini's (1.68ppg vs 1.46) and also a step down from Eichel's 1.76 & Fantilli's 1.81 (though both of them were October birthdays, which is a pretty significant advantage before you reach the pros)
Like, if we just look at CHL D-1 production of the #1 picks who played CHL (and birth month, because yeah, important):
McKenna 2.3 (Dec)
Sid 2.28 (Aug, very young for his draft class)
Tavares 2.0 (Sep...but just after the cutoff, so he was as old as his draft class allowed and was 19 to start his 1st NHL season)
McDavid 1.77 (Jan)
Lafreniere 1.71 (Oct)
Bedard 1.61 (July)
Yakupov 1.55 (Oct)
Stamkos 1.46 (Feb)
Hall 1,43 (Nov)
Mackinnon 1.33 (Sept...but before the cutoff, so celebrated his 18th birthday after the draft, right about the start of his first NHL training camp)
RNH .97 (Apr)
So yeah...what is McKenna? Dunno. He's not Sid though. Mitch Marner that can/will shoot the puck and apparently throw a punch? A slightly bigger version of Berard, Kane, Hughes that plays the wing?
Is there a big enough gap to not trade down. Probably.