Edited Apr. 21, 2017 at 2:52 a.m.
As far as forwards go, people have been talking about Nolan Patrick for the longest time, so there's got to be something to all of that chatter and buzz, and he's top of the category for me. I think Nico Hischier's achievement's on the international stage as well as in major-junior trump Gabriel Vilardi's performance this year, even if the OHL is supposedly a better league than the QMJHL.
However, I'm still personally on the "Timothy Liljegren should be top 3" hype train. I know he's had mononucleosis for much of the year, and his numbers haven't been pretty, but my impression of him is that he's a skilled, mobile, puck-moving defender. RHDs are quite the commodity, and I think Liljegren would improve some of these lottery teams' prospect pools more than a forward would.
- I look at the Avalanche's forward depth chart, and I see some good, young forwards that can contribute to the team: Mikko Rantanen, Tyson Jost, J. T. Compher, and A. J. Greer, in addition to Nathan MacKinnon, Matt Duchene, and Gabriel Landeskog.
(This is mostly an aside, but I don't think they should trade Duchene away. It's difficult for me to make the argument of "he's not fitting in in the locker room" or arguments from chemistry as a fan, because I'm not there to see him interact with his teammates on and off the ice. I just look at his capability to produce points and shots and say, "y'know, he's pretty good, and a team that needs to get better could use good players to build around.")
Defensively, Nikita Zadorov, Erik Johnson, and Tyson Barrie seem to be (relatively speaking) pieces to build around, but Duncan Siemens and Chris Bigras are failing to live up to expectations, and Nicolas Meloche and Anton Lindholm look like their only worthwhile defensive prospects (especially since Joe Sakic is reportedly having trouble convincing Will Butcher to sign with the Avalanche).
- I'd buy the argument that the Canucks should draft a forward. They've got some strong defensive prospects in Jordan Subban, Olli Juolevi, and Guillaume Brisebois, but their forward group seems to be aging a little more. Of course, they have some good forward prospects; Brock Boeser and Nikolay Goldobin seem to be very good, and Alexandre Grenier's been fairly good in the AHL. Jake Virtanen's disappointed, though, and, overall, their forward crop is a little thinner.
- The Coyotes don't really need more forwards. They've already got a lot of good ones: Max Domi, Anthony Duclair (hypothetically), Brendan Perlini, Clayton Keller, Lawson Crouse, Dylan Strome, Nick Merkley, Ryan MacInnis, the list goes on and on. They really need RHDs, though; Kyle Wood's the only good one in the prospect pool.
- A lot of the Devils' defensive players are, frankly, mediocre, and they don't have any blue-chip defensive prospects to speak of. On the other hand, at forward, they've got the likes of Pavel Zacha, John Quenneville, Michael McLeod, and Nathan Bastian.
tl;dr: I don't think many of these teams can justify saying "we're going to go for the best player available" in selecting forwards in the early rounds, when that's what they've done in years past, and their defensive prospect pools are now lacking as a result. A lot of these teams *need* top-end defensive talent in their pipelines.