NHL Draft 2016: Predicting Where Elite Talent Will Land in 1st-Round Mock Draft

With the NHL regular season winding to a close, it's time to reprise a spring tradition: the NHL mock draft.

For the purposes of this mock, I wasn't too concerned with team needs necessarily. Because the draft order will be different come draft day, it's much harder to project which players will actually fall to teams. Therefore, in my first mock, I was more interested in having teams select the best talent on the board.

Let's take a look at my first NHL mock draft for 2016:

Pick	Team	Selection
1	Edmonton Oilers	Auston Matthews, C, Zurich (SUI)
2	Toronto Maple Leafs	Patrik Laine, LW/RW, Tappara (FIN)
3	Columbus Blue Jackets	Jesse Puljujarvi, RW, Karpat (FIN)
4	Calgary Flames	Matthew Tkachuk, LW, London (OHL)
5	Vancouver Canucks	Jakob Chychrun, D, Sarnia (OHL)
6	Winnipeg Jets	Alexander Nylander, LW/RW, Mississauga (OHL)
7	Arizona Coyotes	Olli Juolevi, D, London (OHL)
8	Montreal Canadiens	Pierre-Luc Dubois, C/LW, Cape Breton (QMJHL)
9	Buffalo Sabres	Mikhail Sergachyov, D, Windsor (OHL)
10	Ottawa Senators	Mike McLeod, C, Mississauga (OHL)
11	New Jersey Devils	Clayton Keller, C, USA U-18 (USHL)
12	Colorado Avalanche	Jake Bean, D, Calgary (WHL)
13	Carolina Hurricanes	Tyson Jost, C, Penticton (BCHL)
14	Boston Bruins	Julien Gauthier, RW, Val-d’Or (QMJHL)
	END OF LOTTERY
15	Minnesota Wild	Kieffer Bellows, C/LW, USA U-18 (USHL)
16	Detroit Red Wings	Logan Brown, C, Windsor (OHL)
17	Philadelphia Flyers	Dante Fabbro, D, Penticton (BCHL)
18	Nashville Predators	Riley Tufte, LW, Fargo (USHL)
19	Tampa Bay Lightning	Max Jones, LW, London (OHL)
20	Boston Bruins (from SJ)	German Rubtsov, C, Team Russia U18 (MHL)
21	New York Islanders	Rasmus Asplund, C, Farjestad BK (SHL)
22	Arizona Coyotes (from NYR)	Luke Kunin, C, University of Wisconsin
23	Carolina Hurricanes (from LA)	Charlie McAvoy, D, Boston University (H-EAST)
24	Anaheim Ducks	Samuel Girard, D, Shawinigan (QMJHL)
25	Florida Panthers	Tage Thompson, C/RW, Univ. of Connecticut (NCAA)
26	Winnipeg Jets (from CHI)	Nathan Bastian, RW, Mississauga (OHL)
27	Toronto Maple Leafs (from PIT)	Logan Stanley, D, Windsor (OHL)
28	St. Louis Blues	Vitali Abramov, LW, Gatineau (QMJHL)
29	Dallas Stars	Alex DeBrincat, RW, Erie (OHL)
30	Washington Capitals	Pascal Laberge, C/RW, Victoriaville (QMJHL)

Auston Matthews is without a question the top prospect in this draft, and the sort of player who should have an immediate impact like Edmonton's Connor McDavid or Buffalo's Jack Eichel did in their rookie campaigns.

But you don't have to take my word for it.

“I really believe his talent will translate immediately,” Matthews' coach in Switzerland, Marc Crawford, told Craig Custance of ESPN. “I believe he will have immediate impact, and by that I mean he will be a top-six forward at the start.”

However, the top of the draft is strong in general. 

Dan Marr, the director of Central Scouting for the NHL, told Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star: “The spread isn’t large, but Matthews is a notch above [everyone else]."

Dennis MacInnis, chief scout of the Independent Scouting Service, elaborated, telling McGran: “We think the top three have clearly separated themselves. There’s a clear break after those top three [Matthews and Finnish forwards Jesse Puljujarvi and Patrik Laine] down to the next tier, which runs about a dozen deep—from No. 4 to No. 16.”

Marr compared Matthews to Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, the 2013 first-round pick who has notched 21 goals and 31 assists this season. McGran sees Puljujarvi as an Evgeni Malkin-esque player at the next level, while Laine boasts a sniper's shot and a ton of upside as a volume goal scorer. 

The next three players on the board are widely considered to be forwards Matthew Tkachuk, Alexander Nylander and blueliner Jakob Chychrun. Tkachuk and Nylander both have NHL ties; Tkachuk's father is former NHL power forward Keith Tkachuk, while Nylander's brother is William Nylander, who has notched five goals and five assists in 20 games during his rookie season with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Chychrun, meanwhile, looks like the real deal on the blue line, combining excellent size at the position with playmaking ability. He'll be the top defenseman on the board, and could be the one player out of the second tier of options who could slide into the first three picks given the value of blueliners and his upside.

Overall, it's a strong draft, at least early on, with a clear top pick, a few more elite options and a group of strong players filling out the rest of the round. As the draft order is set, it will be easier to break down which players make sense with each organization.

For now, however, it's obvious that teams selecting early in this year's draft will be getting excellent players.

 

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