A year after jumping up 5 spots to win the top pick in the Season 11 EURO draft, the Gothenburg Frolunda did it again this season. Offensive defenseman Adam Fox is the prize this season.
Fox, who in his NHL career was a trade acquisition by the New York Rangers, enters the EURO League with a 90 PO rating. The Harvard grad was drafted by Calgary but became an instant success on Broadway, scoring 42 points in 70 games as a rookie.
In Sweden, Fox will be a fixture on the Frolunda blueline for a decade if they can keep him. Oscar Klefbom, a homegrown offensive-minded player who has scored 10 or more goals in each of the last 3 seasons, looks to be a defense partner for some of that time.
Someday soon, Fox will be starting offensive plays with young stars Andrei Svechnikov, Dylan Sikura and Jack Hughes, who was last year’s top draft pick. Either way, Gothenburg fans look to have an exciting offense on the horizon.
Ireland gets a good one in Alexis Lafreniere. The Canadian forward who many say will be in Auston Matthews-Jack Eichel territory in a few years will soon be working with Rookie of the Year Elias Pettersson and Kaapo Kakko to make one of the league’s most difficult lines to stop. It will remind longtime Irish fans of the days when Ryan Kesler, Phil Kessel and Bobby Ryan formed a line that tore up the league. Pierre-Luc Dubois, Calvin Thurkauf and William Nylander are also on the roster already in Dublin. Lafreniere has totaled more than 100 points the last two seasons in 61 games and 52 games with Rimouski in the Quebec league.
Take away the two Lisbon Legends (John Tavares and Steven Stamkos) and Lisbon has a pretty young roster, with almost everyone clumped up in the 24-26 age range. They also have at least two potential top 6 centers in the system in centers Trevor Zegras and Peyton Krebs. So John Marino joins a rather stealthy youth movement in Portugal. With bunches of good young forwards already on the roster, Lisbon saw a need for some good young defensemen and a goalie of the future. The 22-year-old Marino could use some weightlifting work, but he excels in all other areas and his outstanding attributes reflect that. He projects to be a fast offensive defenseman who could compete for an individual trophy in a half-dozen years. He should be able to step right into the starting lineup this season.
Over the last few years, Dennis Sullo has built a strong core of young defensemen in Quinn Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Neal Pionk and others. They are almost as loaded up front, with nine players 25 or younger with PO ratings of at least 81. Teenager Quinton Byfield will cart his 6-4, 215-pound body from Sudbury in the OHL to Switzerland in about a year to join them. The center will probably be slotted behind Brayden Point on the depth chart for the first part of his career, but look for his name to be in the box scores alongside names like Barrett Hayton and Jake Debrusk. It will be quite a chore for opposing defensemen if Byfield and hulk Lawson Crouse are on the same time in the near future.
The Geneva Generals opted for the most NHL-ready player available in defenseman Ryan Graves of the Colorado Avalanche. The 6-5 Canadian scored 26 points and 9 goals in 69 games this season. In Geneva, he should make a good partner for Colton Parayko in the future. In the near-term, the draft pick should mean either Jack Johnson or Jamie McBain – maybe both – are now expendable. The team also has Brandon Carlo and youngster Alexei Bereglazov expected to be part of the defense corps in the next few years and that would give them four young defensemen who are 6-4 or taller.
With 16 propects in the system already, Prague made it 17 with Ontario native Cole Perfetti. The Sparta might have to invest in a second team bus just for the prospects. Perfetti, a center who scores points in bus loads, will mature in the system with fellow Sparta prospects forwards Ryan Poehling, Arthur Kaliyev and Grigori Denisenko as well as defensemen Bowen Byram, Alexander Romanov and Alexander Alexeyev. Prague’s best young forwards already on the pro team are Matthew Tkachuk and Robert Thomas, and Perfetti would be a very nice fit between them. There are some scouts who expect Perfetti to be in NHL scoring races in the next five years. The future top defensive pair in Prague is Miro Heiskanen and Mikhail Sergachev or Byram.
Drafting prospects is a gamble. If they get pushed too early by their NHL clubs, they will be stuck with poor Websim attributes. Leon Draisaitl is the most recent example. He is an MVP in the NHL, but in the EURO League, he is 26, on his third team, and has just 11 games played and 2 assists on his resume. Edinburgh is waiting for Filip Zadina to come along. Luckily, the Detroit Red Wings are taking their time with him and have eased him into only 28 games so far. The winger looks like the real deal, but Capitals fans will have to keep waiting to see him with plaid on his jersey. Sidney Crosby is 35 now and Jamie Benn is 33. The new wave of Edinburgh forwards will soon sweep them away. That 23-and-under wave includes 3 centers of 84 or higher POs; 4 wingers between 79 and 85; and now the defense corps has its main building block in Jamie Drysdale, who isn’t big but can skate beautifully and really knows how to play the position. He projects to be a player who can play in all situations.
Many expected Tim Stutzle to go higher in the draft than the number 8 pick. Moscow wasted no time in announcing Stutzle’s name and the new Maniacs will start a rebuild with the 6-1, 185-pound German puck wizard as a focal point. He might have some talented company once he gets his attributes. Caul Caufield, Liam Foudy and Jake Oettinger are among the promising prospects in the Moscow system. But there isn’t much beyond them. Stutzle will have to do a lot of the work be himself until reinforcements arrive. He put together the best points-per-game season any U18 ever has in the German league and he was a headline grabber in the World Junior tourney.
Bern’s newest Interrailer Jack Quinn has decent size and a great shot. He scored 52 goals in 62 games with Ottawa in the OHL, as he improved from 32 to 89 points in one season. Scouts say he’s a quality two-way RW with good instincts. In Switzerland, he will join a prospect crop that includes Alex Turcotte and Maxime Comtois. Other young stars currently on the Bern pro team include Nico Hischier and Sebastian Aho, as well as Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin.
Quinn’s teammate in Ottawa – Marco Rossi – will end up in the same division, going to Munich at pick 10. Rossi is a good all-around player who put up a ton of points in Ottawa. He scored 65 points last season and improved to 120 this year, and 81 of those were assists. The center should evolve into a first- or second-line center with the Red Bulls and he is like to skate often with Clayton Keller, Jesper Bratt and Alexander Nylander. His family will be able to see him play often because Munich is just 220 kilometers from his hometown of Feldkirch, Austria.
St. Petersburg will have a high-flying Swede on one of its top lines in the near future. Raymond, a LW, is called a near-elite playmaker by scouts and he possesses great puck skills and instincts and he tends to dart all over the ice to give defenders fits. Dyan Cozens, a big Canadian center in the team’s prospect system, is really happy the Krasnyye Zvezdy picked Raymond.
Brendan Brisson will have to brush up on his English, because he’s headed for a career in England. Brisson is well-trained and his career has been guided by his dad, player agent extraordinaire Pat Brisson. On the ice, Brisson is known for his well-rounded, multi-faceted game. He is consistent and is projected to be a top 6 forward. The Fighting Royals’ offense is built around 21-year-old Dominik Lakatos, who is a once-in-a-generation kind of player. So if Brisson remains a center, it will be as a second-line center who gets a lot of special team shifts. But offense isn’t all there is in hockey and in a Trevor Grimm-built team, it isn’t even the most important part of the game. But back to offense for a minute … Mikko Rantanen, Martin Necas and Tyson Jost are the most promising wingers in the organization.
Minnesota native Ryan Lindgren had a solid first year with the New York Rangers in the NHL and that earned him the prestige that comes with being a first round draft pick in the EURO League. Lindgren is a lefthand shooting defenseman whose strength right now is defensive positioning and reading plays. He joins a crowd on the Athens blueline and will have to have a great training camp in order to get ice time. Erik Cernak and Derrick Pouliot are just above him on the depth chart and all three are in the low-salary group that could get them in the lineup is the cap crunch is an issue.
That noise you heard this morning came from Stockholm. When Eagles GM Mikko M called the name of the team’s first round pick, the entire city erupted in cheers. That’s because RW Alexander Holtz was born in Stockholm and that’s where he has played his junior hockey. Now that the big team was acquired him, he will become even more popular and will have a good chance of being mayor of the city in about 30 years. Stockholm’s far-off future is forming with a few key building blocks in place. We see Carter Hart as the franchise’s goalie once Braden Holtby departs, and up front, Jack Eichel leads the way with Filip Chytil and Denis Gurianov also ready to lead the way. Holtz has the potential to be among the league’s goal scoring leaders once he matures.
The league’s Spanish team has very little in the way of young talent. The current roster lists Filip Sveningsson (24) and Stephane Da Costa (22) but no one else they can count on to be helping the team 6 to 8 years from now. The Royals have some promising prospect wingers in the system, and GM Tony B has his fingers grossed that players like Matthew Boldy, Jordan Kyrou and others start their NHL careers with bangs. If any team can use an extra first round pick this year to build up its youth, Madrid is it. They pick in spots 15 and 19 this season thanks to a trade they made with Belfast in Season 9. With the first of those two picks, Madrid selected 22-year-old defenseman Ethan Bear who can really move and rarely stop doing so. Bear is a good passer and he might lock down a spot in Spain this season.
Minsk picked the best goalie available with the 16th pick of the draft. Many scouts say Yaroslav Askarov is closer to being the real deal than Spencer Knight was in the last draft. The Russian has had a 92 save percentage in the last two seasons. Askarov looks like he will compete with Erik Kallgren, a 26-year-old Swede who is the Hussars’ current backup goalie, once he joins the team. It will all depend on how he does with his first NHL team.
The Smurfs have made it to the EURO Cup Finals four times and they are always on the hunt for the piece of the puzzle that will carry them that one more long, long step. If nothing else, they should have a strong foundation for their blue line. Already in the system are talented trio of youngsters in defensemen Filip Hronek, Roger Karrer and Dante Fabbro. The latest addition is American Jake Sanderson, son of former NHL forward Geoff Sanderson. Unlike his dad, Jake has a good defensive sense. But like his dad, Jake can instantly turn on the jets and get opponents hurrying toward their own end. Nothing stops an opponent’s offense quicker than a fast guy with a puck going the other way. Sanderson will have a lot of learning to do before he breaks into the league and Berlin fans hope whatever NHL team drafts him doesn’t rush him into a bad stats season right off the back.
Like Madrid and Berlin, Bratislava can use many more young players. They opted today to add Victor Olofsson, a silky Swedish winger who is a slight injury risk but who has proven to be a powerplay specialist with the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres. Olofsson’s specialty is slamming in one-timers from the right faceoff circle, a little like Alexander Ovechkin does from the left side. Olofsson is likely to step right into the Eagles lineup and his $767,000 salary is potentially bad news for Nick Ritchie, a left wing on the Eagles who is looking for a new contract.
Five picks after picking a young NHL defenseman, Madrid picked another young NHL defenseman: Philadelphia’s Philippe Myer, who is a mobile, clever defender who can get the puck up ice well. With five veterans already signed and in the lineup, draftees Ethan Bear and Myers might have some waiting to do to get playing time, although Brenden Dillon was waived right after the Myers pick was made. Either way, it gives Madrid two nice pillars for the future on its blueline.
Dillon Dube isn’t going to lead the Outlaws in scoring – ever – but he will be a nice winger to plug in on the second or third line. Oslo is loaded at left wing at the moment so the young Canadian might have to spend some time on the farm club, but scouts expct him to become a good checker and sneaky opportunist who will poke in 15 or so goals a year. He is also the kind of player that has the chance to be a fan favorite. He was one of three players left with PO ratings of 80 or higher.
Seth Jarvis made a huge jump in production with Portland in the WHL – going from 39 to 98 points this year and Milan GM David Bell hope she can keep that going. Jarvis is versatile, shifty and has noteworthy acceleration, according to scouts. The 5-10 right wing joins 11 prospects including Owen Tippett, Evan Bouchard and Erik Brannstrom are already in the Milan system. The Guerriero also have some definite future stars under 25 already on the roster including Matthew Tkachuk, Alex Tuch, Aapeli Rasanen and defenseman Marcus Pettersson. Just above Pettersson on the team depth chart are 7 blueliners between the ages of 26 and 28, a pretty nice core that should be in place for 3 or more seasons.
Paris has virtually no reinforcements coming through the system to replace the current team members when they get too old. That’ll happen when you draft in the 20s year after year after year. Free agency might be the lone weapon in GM Donald Lockhart’s arsenal to keep the team strong. But on the back end, there is some real hope. Ivan Provorov has 4 seasons under his belt and he’s just 24. Sam Girard and Rasmus Andersson join him on the blue line of the future in Paris, and the team boasts 2 good young goalies in Tanner Jaillet and Ilya Samsonov and Thatcher Demko isn’t too bad either. That leaves the forward group. The cupboard is bare. Dylan Holloway plays college hockey for Wisconsin right now, but his hope is to play for Paris in the future. He is described as a grinder with skill who has impact on games very often. He will be one of the best net crashers in the game.
The champs added Anton Lundell in the draft. Lundell is a 6-1 center from Finland who scouts say is a sure-fire NHLer due to his all-around competence, although his ceiling isn’t expected to be too high. In Copenhagen’s prospects stable before the draft were 13 players including two goalies and defensemen K’Andre Miller and Phillip Broberg, who come highly recommended in the scouting world. Defensemen Noah Hanifin, Nikita Voles and Thomas Chabot are the best young players on the Tridents’ pro team roster behind 24-year-old Auston Matthews.
Center Connor Zary from Saskatoon has decent size and three seasons of junior hockey behind him, which is more experience than most draftees have. His point production steadily improved in that time, as did his plus-minus, although some scouts don’t like the way he plays in his own zone. For the Jokerits, Zary becomes prospect numebr 12, joining fellow forwards Joe Veleno, Jakob Pelletier, Aleksi Heponiemi and others. It is General Manager Jukka Tuominen’s hope that Zary will someday anchor a second or third line. Jesperi Kotkaniemi will be the top center there for a long, long time.
