2019 Entry Draft
As a meta-point, I need better scouts. I'm looking at the draft pool and I don't have nearly enough solid leads. I do have pretty much A's or A+'s for region familiarity, but their overall talent just isn't that great.
CENTRAL SCOUTING TOP 10- RW Viktor Kovalev (18, Ukraine) – 6’3”, 189 -- Franchise Med PLY
- D Ville Louhi (18, Finland) – 6’4”, 213 -- (unknown) DFD
- LW Topi Tuomanen (17, Finland) – 6’0”, 192 -- Top 6 High SNP
- C Mikael Oduya (18, Sweden) – 5’10”, 184 – (unknown) PLY
- LW Toni Haken (17, Finland) – 6’2”, 208 -- Elite Med PWF
- RW Matti Niinimaa (17, Finland) – 6’4”, 223 -- Elite Med PWF
- C Kirby Dach (18, Canada) – 6’3”, 175 -- Power Forward – Elite Med PWF
- C Raphael Lavoie (18, Canada) – 6’3”, 187 – Elite Med PWF
- LW Ali Nicholls (18, USA) – 6’0”, 193 – Top 6 Med TWF
- C Juha Viitanen (18, Finland) – 6’4”, 202 – Top 6 Med TWF
It's the Year of the Finns, as players from Finland occupy five of the top 10 picks. The top 10 picks unfold exactly per Central Scouting. Montreal gets the franchise kid, followed by Colorado (Louhi), NY Rangers (Toumanen), Calgary (Oduya), Philly (Haken), Vancouver (Niinimaa), Detroit (Dach), Vegas (Lavioe), Minnesota (Nicholls), and Viitanen to Washington.
As all this is happening, Atlanta explores some modest move-up deals into the mid-to-low teens, but nothing comes together. So we just do our draft au naturel. As mentioned above, in a lot of cases, I just had to rely on central scouting since my scouts really crapped the bed.
FIREBIRDS PICKS
1-25 – RW Matti Filppula (17, Finland) – 6’1”, 193 PLY – Elite Med, but not great scouting. I suppose it's also good to get in on that Year of the Finn action.
2-57 – D Michael Vukojevic (18, Canada) -- 6’3”, 205 TWD – His potential is Top 4, and he's fully scouted.
2-59 – LW Jakub Lauko (19, Czech Republic) – 6'1", 182 TWF – Top 9 TWF, Again, at least he's fully scouted.
2-61 – G Adam Forbes (18, Denmark) – 6’4” 200 HYB – he was the second-ranked goalie on the board, both had poor scouting, but he was showing Elite Med potential, which the other guy wasn't.
3-66 – D Thomas Harley (17, USA) – 6’3” 180 TWD – Well-scouted Top 4 Low (3 ticks) but not fully.
3-89 – LW Alexander Kondratiev (19, Belarus) – 5'11", 187 SNP -- Elite Low, but crappy scouting.
4-106 – C Brendan McMillan (18, Norway) – 6’2” 208 PWF – Top 6 PWF. This was a mild overreach since Central had him going in the 130s, but he was fully scouted as Top 6 Low talent, so why not?
5-153 – C Jan Jenik (18, Czech Republic) – 6’1”, 164 – Same story as McMillan, but Top 9 instead of Top 6.
6-185 - LW Reginald Silvester (19, USA) - 6'1", 192 PWF - From here on out, we're doing lottery tickets. Sort by potential, take someone who says Elite even if it's gray.
7-217 – D Jake Kustra (20, Canada) - 5'11" 172 OFD. OK I lied, this guy doesn't even have Elite potential, but I wanted an offensive defense prospect, and Central said this was the best guy left.
7-221 – LW Sergei Khabibulin (18, Russia) - 6'4" 211 PWF. As lottery tickets go, the thing I liked about this is his negatives were things that could be fixed like leadership or character. And that he's a big boi. But he's still a long shot.
To start, I only sign Filppula (3 years @ 925k) and Vukojevic (3 years @ 875k). I'll leave the rest at least until the main free agency period is over, possibly even training camp so I have a better idea of what I've got to work with.