I'm going to go ahead and post a catchall Draft thread for housekeeping purposes. We can get into the minutia of Carolina's draft as we get closer and things actually happen. We don't even have a final draft order until the Cup Finals wrap, but Carolina's position is sealed.
First off, the draft is in Vancouver this year. A lovely city to visit in the summer, so that's nice. Decent logo for the draft as well. Blue, green, snow-capped mountains in the background with the city skyline in front. Nice ... peaceful even. Thanks to their post season success, the Canes draft 28th in the 1st round, with New Jersey, New York Rangers, Chicago, Colorado (from Ottawa) and LA camping out in the first 5 spots. The top end of the draft largely seems to boil down to the slick American center Jack Hughes and the tricky Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko, who occupy the "can't miss" territory pretty much by themselves. From there the first round pool is well stocked with Americans and centers.
Most mocks seem to settle on a forward for the Canes, as befits the general impression of their pipeline as being defense heavy. Fair enough, but as we've noted here several times ... a goalie wouldn't go amiss, and Spencer Knight out of the US Development program looks like a possibility late in the first round. Others mentioned as likely for Carolina are Moncton center/wing Jakob Pelletier (who I support if only due to the weird local pronunciation of the NC coastal plains town by the same name ... pronounced "pell eh tear"), and London center Connor McMichael (obvious "the other Connor Mc" potential). Again, analysts seem to be leaning in to Carolina's lack of centers in the development program. As we all know, that's not actually how things work most of the time as pretty much every team takes a "best available" approach to the 1st round these days. And honestly, mock drafts are not terribly useful past around the 20th pick anyway ... if that far down the order.
In terms of the big draft picture, Carolina has once again stockpiled a pretty large bag full of picks in this draft. By round it's 1, 2, 2(Sabres), 2 (Rangers), 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Calgary), 7 (Boston). Those Rangers and Sabres 2nd rounders look pretty good right now and the Canes are in a position to either nab 4 prospects in the first 56 selections ... which would be fully 7% of the draft to that point ... or to offer one or more of those picks up as trade fodder. Note that Detroit and New Jersey have similar stockpiles and could also be looking to deal ... especially New Jersey. As I've said several times, with the way these picks line up, this might be a really good year to make a deal or two if the other two don't water down the possibilities.
And here's your annual advice from me that none of you will take ... don't fall in love with "your guy" to the point where you feel that the team failed if they select somebody else. This is even more true when you're picking in the high 20s. This thing is a crapshoot when you get past that second tier of guys and you never know ... a Nino Neiderreiter, who I recall as a board favorite back in the day, sometimes comes to you later on in a trade.
First off, the draft is in Vancouver this year. A lovely city to visit in the summer, so that's nice. Decent logo for the draft as well. Blue, green, snow-capped mountains in the background with the city skyline in front. Nice ... peaceful even. Thanks to their post season success, the Canes draft 28th in the 1st round, with New Jersey, New York Rangers, Chicago, Colorado (from Ottawa) and LA camping out in the first 5 spots. The top end of the draft largely seems to boil down to the slick American center Jack Hughes and the tricky Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko, who occupy the "can't miss" territory pretty much by themselves. From there the first round pool is well stocked with Americans and centers.
Most mocks seem to settle on a forward for the Canes, as befits the general impression of their pipeline as being defense heavy. Fair enough, but as we've noted here several times ... a goalie wouldn't go amiss, and Spencer Knight out of the US Development program looks like a possibility late in the first round. Others mentioned as likely for Carolina are Moncton center/wing Jakob Pelletier (who I support if only due to the weird local pronunciation of the NC coastal plains town by the same name ... pronounced "pell eh tear"), and London center Connor McMichael (obvious "the other Connor Mc" potential). Again, analysts seem to be leaning in to Carolina's lack of centers in the development program. As we all know, that's not actually how things work most of the time as pretty much every team takes a "best available" approach to the 1st round these days. And honestly, mock drafts are not terribly useful past around the 20th pick anyway ... if that far down the order.
In terms of the big draft picture, Carolina has once again stockpiled a pretty large bag full of picks in this draft. By round it's 1, 2, 2(Sabres), 2 (Rangers), 3, 4, 5, 6, 6 (Calgary), 7 (Boston). Those Rangers and Sabres 2nd rounders look pretty good right now and the Canes are in a position to either nab 4 prospects in the first 56 selections ... which would be fully 7% of the draft to that point ... or to offer one or more of those picks up as trade fodder. Note that Detroit and New Jersey have similar stockpiles and could also be looking to deal ... especially New Jersey. As I've said several times, with the way these picks line up, this might be a really good year to make a deal or two if the other two don't water down the possibilities.
And here's your annual advice from me that none of you will take ... don't fall in love with "your guy" to the point where you feel that the team failed if they select somebody else. This is even more true when you're picking in the high 20s. This thing is a crapshoot when you get past that second tier of guys and you never know ... a Nino Neiderreiter, who I recall as a board favorite back in the day, sometimes comes to you later on in a trade.
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