A look back at the 2018 draft.

The yearly series continues as I do a deep drive on past BRHL drafts to see who made the best and worst picks. Last years look of the 2017 draft can be found here.

http://new.brhl.net/article/view/941

Interestingly enough I got some critism for having Tage Thompson too high, and Jordan Kyrou too low. I think it's safe to say Thompson has earned himself a top 10 spot over Jakob Chychrun and Neal Pionk now. Perhaps Patrik Laine and Neal Pionk drop a bit while Jesper Bratt and Jordan Kyrou move up. Other fallers include Jesse Puljujarvi and Victor Mete to make way for Filip Gustavsson. One year can make a big difference.

Anyways, lets have a look at 2018. This was one of the more interesting drafts. It was clear how important the over-ager rule played here. We saw an influx of over-agers drafted with much success. An example of this was Bryce stealing Alex Iafallo and Vladislav Gavrikov's in the final few rounds. Both players made the list at 12th overall and 22nd overall. Other over-agers to get drafted were Alexander Georgiev (15th), Pavel Francouz (24th) and Tanner Jeannot (28th).

This was the draft that Bryce and Kevin both cleaned up. Of the top 32, Bryce's picks showed up 4 times while having 2 honorable mentions. Kevin showed up 5 times. The highest of both GMs picks was Kevin with his Drake Batherson selection. Batherson has cracked the top 10 for me and was an impressive pick. He was one of the biggest risers in the BRHL draft being drafted 75 spots above his NHL draft slot. Bryce's top pick was over-ager Alex Iafallo which I have slotted 12th. In fact, most of all of Bryce's top picks were over-agers, proving he has his scouting game down when players are over 24 years of age. Expect some of these over-agers to drop down this list as time goes on given the fact that some of the players below them are starting to hit their primes. We could see guys like Filip Chytil (13th overall), Jeremy Swayman (14th overall) and Stuart Skinner (19th overall) rise on this list as soon as next season.

Bryce had an effect on this draft in more ways then one, while he focused on over-agers in the late rounds, he also influenced the top of the draft. The Bryce-effect dropped Cale Makar (1st) in Leon's lap at pick 15. Leon was smart enough to see through the shit and pick the top player in the draft with a pick that usually lands you a top 6 forward to top 4 D. Leon also snagged Joshua Norris (11th) with the 34th pick in the draft and Morgan Frost (27th) with the 17th pick. While Bryce and Kevin cleaned up the draft numbers wise, Leon cleaned up talent wise.

Other big risers was Anthony's selection of Jason Robertson (2nd) with the 37th overall pick. He somehow ended up on Dan's team, probably a trade for Shayne Gostisbehere or something, and then was moved to Steph where he will spend the rest of his BRHL career in mediocrity. Other big risers came in the form of Drake Batherson (10th) coming with a pick from Kevin at 46th overall, as well as Jeremy Swayman (14th) from you guessed it, Rex, at 131st overall.

The big story at this draft was who would go first. Makar was never in question, the debate was between Nico Hischer (4th) and Elias Pettersson (3rd). In perhaps the most suprising move of the day, Rob did not think with his dick, and ignored his raging hard-on for Elias Pettersson and went with Nico Hischer 1st overall. Both players are great, but this was one of the times Rob could have taken a Canuck and not had to worry about the outcome too much.

Ryan Hicks, who lasted a half season in the BRHL made the list with a selection of Michael Rasmussen (30th) with the 25th overall pick. Eric F made the list with Maxime Comtois (29th) with the 39th overall selection. Comtois has strugged since his rookie season and could potentially drop off this list next season. A sneaky good pick was Eric D when he drafted Mario Ferraro (23rd) with the 55th overall pick. Players who could potentially drop off this list as soon as next season for some of the below honorable mentions are Tanner Jeannot (28th), Maxime Comtois (29th), Cody Glass (31st). I believe Noah Cates (32nd) might be safe and continue his upward trajectory.

Honorable mentions include Fabian Zetterlund (Bryce), Eetu Luostarinen (Bryce), Henri Jokiharju (Kirk), Morgan Geekie (Tyler B), Michael Anderson (Rex), Erik Brannstrom (Al), Jesper Boqvist (Garrett) and Klim Kostin (Tyler B).

Anyways, enough of what went right for teams. Let's have a look at some swings that didn't quite hit. Let's start with two players in the top 5. Casey Mittelstatdt (16th) and Eeli Tolvanen (20th) both went in the top 5. Mittelstatdt was a top 10 pick in the NHL draft, so it's too be expected he would most likely end up somewhere in the top 10 in the BRHL draft. At 3rd overall though, it was a tough pill to swallow. Mittelstatdt had his best NHL season this year so he could be on an upward trend. Even more egregious was Larry taking Eeli Tolvanen with the 5th overall pick. Tolvanen was the 30th overall pick in the NHL draft and Larry went all in on him. With that said, Tolvanen did have one of the more impressive D+1 seasons coming into our draft. He lit up the KHL as a rookie, and his NHL career got off to a good start. Somewhere in the middle, things were looking shaky, but he has bounced back this season and could also be on an upward trend.

In terms of absolute misses, this one is easy. Leon's first pick of Nolan Patrick at 4th overall was a bad one. His other picks more then make up for it though. Coming into this draft Patrick did have an injury history. The writing was on the wall. I believe most of the draft was willing to pass on him even though he was the 2nd overall pick in the NHL draft. Another bad pick was perhaps Kristian Vesalainen at 14th overall. It was a miss of a pick, which is something you don't want to do with a pick that high. Another Devon pick who failed to live up to expectations was Lias Andersson at 18th overall. Kirk had a swing and a miss with Alexander Volkov at 23rd overall.

Overall, this was a very deep draft. There are players as honorable mentions who would have cracked the bottom half of the 2017 NHL draft. I believe the same can be said for next years re-draft of the 2019 draft.

Good luck ahead of the upcoming BRHL 2022 draft.