Now that the Leafs are back in the 1st round of the 2020 NHL draft, I wanted to go over options for the 15th overall draft slot, because there are a number of ways they could draft.
My top D list, overall, is as follows:
1 - Jamie Drysdale (RHD)
2- Jake Sanderson (LHD)
3- Kaiden Guhle (LHD) /Braden Schneider (RHD)
4 - Justin Barron (RHD)
I think that the hockey community in general believes the Leafs will draft out of need with their top pick, and not necessarily draft the best player available. It's why I've seen a ton of mock drafts with either Schneider or Guhle as the Leafs pick. Let's dive in a little.
My assumptions leading up to the Leaf's pick is that both Drysdale and Sanderson will for sure be unavailable, so we will start with Kaiden Guhle.
If the Leafs were trying to draft the best defender available and didn't care about handedness (which always seems to be a talking point in Toronto) or about ETA to the NHL, I think the Leafs would go with Kaiden Guhle. He's a good all-around defender with a bit of a nasty edge, top-4 potential at minimum, good skater (especially for his 6'3 frame), great size (which he will still need to work into) and surprising good offensively with above average hockey IQ. Like a lot of other scouts out there, I believe Guhle will at least need 1 more season in the WHL to work on his game, if not at least another 2 full years of developmental hockey.
The safe pick at the spot, provided he is still available, would be Braden Schneider. I call him safe because he plays a very solid defensive game, hits hard, plays rough and with an edge, and has a good shot, although he tends not to use it a lot. The kid is a good skater for his size (6'2), but could certainly improve his mobility (Guhle, in my mind, is the better skater). He is one of the oldest kids in this draft as well. A lot of scouts seem to agree with me that provided a team had the patience to work with him through an NHL season, he could potentially start the 2020-21 season as a full-time 3rd pairing NHL defenseman. Looking at the potential of a Sandin-Schneider 3rd pairing Leafs combo seems awfully good to me. The question will be, do the Leafs draft safe, do they shoot for the stars, or as I will get to in a second, will they move down in the 1st round and gain further assets?
My final defender thought here is Justin Barron. At one point, he was considered a top-10 pick in this draft, if not a top-5, but after he suffered a nasty injury this past year, in combination with other defenders improving, his stock has dropped quite a bit. There is also the issue of the fact that without a draft combine this year, a guy like Barron, who I still believe has high upside, is harder to judge without more post-injury looks and evaluation. I think at the 15th spot, Barron would for sure be available. He might have the best all-around upside of a defender in the draft , definitely better than Guhle (obviously, in my opinion), but his injury, which I believe was a blood clot, will definitely worry some teams. If the Leafs wanted to take their chances, they could look to dropping down the first round in a deal like the 15th overall pick and Andreas Johnsson to Ottawa for their 1st (22nd overall pick) and their 2nd (33rd overall), provided they were confident they could get Barron at either 22 (more likely) or 33 (less likely). I am pretty confident Barron will get drafted in the 1st round. For me, Barron has the most upside outside of Drysdale and Sanderson, but he is obviously comes with risk. I also think he will need another year or 2 in development hockey before any team considers him NHL-ready.
If the Leafs were to draft the best player available at the 15th overall, they might very well look at one of the high-end forwards. For the record, it is a lot harder to predict where these forwards will end up, but this is my list of forwards that may just be available at 15:
1 - Jack Quinn (I think he doesn't get past Edmonton at 14, but there's always a chance)
2 - Dawson Mercer
3 - Dylan Holloway
4 - Connor Zary
5 - Henrix Lapierre
6 - Jacob Perrault
Unlike the defenders, who I went into in far more detail, I will keep this more brief. I do think the Leafs look to a defenseman at 15 at the end of the day, but each of the 6 forwards mentioned offer varying levels of upside, depth center (which the Leafs lack after Matthews and Tavares), scoring potential, excellent skating and good to great levels of hockey IQ. From what I've seen and read, it sounds like each of these guys will need more time in development hockey and in the case of Holloway, he may be in the NCAA program for a number of years. In the cases of Lapierre and Perrault, both already have a great knack for playing 2-way hockey.
In the end, the Leafs should come out of this with a good prospect. However, considering the stop to minor league hockey plus no combine, it will be harder for all teams, including Toronto, to properly (or at least do it better) evaluate these prospects.
You named one of my top 5! (Sanderson may be like 4th or 5th, that group of d men is close imo, whether Roy want the extremely risky, but much higher ceiling guys in Jurmo or Wallinder, or the safer guy in Sanderson, or a few in between risk/reward guys) and i doubt more than 2 in my top 10
drafting for need is stupid, and even more stupid when the player won't be in the nhl for 3-5 years. Best player every time, and there are a lot of better players than the d that will be available after drysdale and Sanderson
Barron worries me as what happened to him this year is very similar to liligren and im not in the mood for another project
Sanderson is a LD and we dont need more of those
Ghule is also a LD which sucks cause projections have him playing like Parayko
Schneider i feel is the perfect choice. Plays a tonne of minutes, plays a physical game, blocks shots, sure needs to work on his offense but still could fight for an NHL job this year.
McDavid, Connor
$250,000)
LeafsFanForSomeReason liked this.
CapFriendly
CapFriendly