The Capitals finished 9th in the Northern Conference and missed the playoffs in Season 12 but that miss paid off with a draft lottery win that saw Edinburgh move all the way up to the top pick in the draft, just ahead of their neighbors to the west in Dublin. The Scottish team has been stockpiling young forwards in recent years and they just got, um … stockpiley-er?

By taking Kirill Karpizov first in the draft, they now have eight Under 25 forwards with PO ratings over 80. They could put together “future lines” that include Dylan Strome (85) centering Kaprizov (89) and Filip Zadina (83); and Kirby Dach (86) centering Dominik Kubalik (85) and Joel Farrabee (84); with Nolan Patrick (84) and Jesse Puljujarvi (83) on the third line. Where they could use a boost long-term is on defense and in goal. Andong Song, Max Lajoie, Caleb Jones and Jake Bean will be regulars in the league at some point, but there is no potential head-turning, all-star caliber blueliner back there right now, although prospect Jamie Drysdale could be the eventual leader of the group. Free agency could be a good place to fill those positions once the current roster starts getting old.

In the meantime, expect Edinburgh games to be high-scoring affairs for a few years. Kaprizov will step right into the lineup this season and he seems a lock to someday take over the top LW spot that Jamie Benn has owned forever in Edinburgh. He scored 51 points in 55 games as an NHL rookie with the Minnesota Wild.

Picking second in this draft was a tough spot. The draft is loaded with young goalies but only 3 or 4 of them are good bets to be regular starters. The problem with the those top goalies is they are already in the final year of Type 2 contracts, meaning they will demand hefty pay increases before the start of Season 14. Ohio-born Alex Nedeljkovic is seen by most as the best of the rookie goalies and that’s who Dublin chose. He’s a very promising goalie; the kind you can build a team around. Dublin finished last in Season 12. Don’t expect them to stay at the bottom. Assuming player contracts can be worked out, the Guinness Chuggers could have a nice nucleus going with Hampus Lindholm and Rasmus Ristolainen leading the defense and mentoring Vince Dunn, with Nedeljkovic holding down the fort behind them. Up front, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Elias Pettersson, Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere are all 23 or younger and there is a solid group  just slightly older than them.

The Geneva Generals seemed to drop into a tail spin after goalie Frederik Andersen left town and young stars Dylan Larkin and Anthony Cirelli are likely to be the guys who will be expected to pull most of the load in a climb back up the standings. Adding Matty Beniers will help a lot. He projects to be an excellent two-way player who can contribute on the PP and in killing penalties. He’s a lot like Cirelli but could be better, depending on how his rookie NHL season goes. Geneva has already built a sound defensive foundation with Colton Parayko, Ryan Graves, Brandon Carlo and Alexei Bereglazov. 

Yegor Sarangovich is a Maniac. Suddenly. The forward from Belarus and the New Jersey Devils was picked fourth in the draft by Moscow. He’s a sneaky player. He doesn’t get physical very often, but all of a sudden he’ll show up at full speed near the puck. He likes to dart around the ice and has a good shot. Moscow GM Brett Warbeck went with an established rookie rather than a prospect and it’s no wonder he did. The top prospects in the draft are the ones picked by the worse teams, and if they get rushed into action, they might be saddled with poor Websim attributes. It’s a gamble for all of us. Moscow’s prospect store lists 11 players already, with Cole Caufield a definite EURO player in Season 14 and we would not be surprised to see 5 or 6 more Maniac prospects make the big time soon. When they get there, Muscovites will be chanting Tim Stutzle’s name. The German teen is the future centerpiece of the franchise. Moscow is set on the wings for a long time. That’s for sure.

Chris Driedger, 26, put up great goalie numbers for Florida in the NHL and he will be the main man in net for Bern in Season 13 and beyond once he lands a new contract. The Interrail have been weak in goal for a couple of years and before the draft, 24-year-old Australian Charle Smart was the only Bern goalie with a contract. General Manager Eigil Tennes’ pick should be an excellent one for this team. Bern’s top young players with attributes are very good ones: defenseman Rasmus Dahlin (92 PO rating), and forwards Nico Hischier (93), Sebastien Aho (89) and Maxime Comtois (86). And they should have at least four good prospects coming up through the system in forwards Alex Turcotte, Jack Quinn, Phil Tomasino and defenseman Thomas Harley.  A goalie is what they needed most.

Trudging up Nevsky Prospekt, guiding the youth movement in St. Petersburg, are Patrik Laine, 24, and Jakub Vrana, 25. Along with untried Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens, they are the lone young fellas on the team. But just wait a couple seasons. Nineteen. That’s how many prospects are in the St. Petersburg system. Today they added Owen Power to their collection. Power is the University of Michigan defenseman selected first overall over the weekend in the NHL draft. A big, 6-6 guy who has all the tools to excel is why Buffalo took him. But Buffalo took him. If the Sabres decide to play Power in the upcoming season, without Rasmus Ristolainen, Sam Reinhart, Linus Ullmark and probably without Jack Eichel, then Power’s Websim attributes could bomb. Krasnyye Zvezdy GM Ben Stuller will looking with interest across the Atlantic Ocean toward Western New York to see what’s happening to his important investment.

Simon Edvinsson, a tall Swedish defenseman in the Detroit Red Wings organization, was drafted by Madrid, where he will someday join Ethan Bear and Philippe Myers on the Royals’ blueline. Edvinsson is a big boy and a smooth skater who might be the best of Madrid’s promising young pieces. In addition to Bear and Myers, the Royals have Sandro Zurkirchen, although he’s still unsigned, in goal as well as right wingers Jordan Kyrou and Eeli Tolvanen. Throw LW Filip Sveningsson, another Swede, in there too. He’s 25 with an 81 PO rating. GM Tony B would love one or more of his seven prospects to come through too, but EURO League success is still up in the air for that group.

In Munich, fans are licking their chops because they see defenseman Moritz Seider and center Marco Rossi on the team’s prospects list. Keep those tongues out, Red Bull fans, because Munich just added William Eklund. The youngster has played against men in Sweden and he’s considered a very balanced player who can really dart around out there. In the NHL, he is with the San Jose Sharks. Patience will be required in Bavaria, though, because these guys won’t see the ice there this season. Maybe next season. When they arrive, they will be joining blueline stars Cale Makar and Alexis Vanier as well as forwards Clayton Keller, Jesper Bratt, Casey Mittelstadt and others. There should be some happy nights in Munich in a few years.

Mason McTavis, the thick center who went 3rd overall in the NHL draft to Anaheim, can now brag that he’s a Duck and a God. Athens GM Stephen R let out a groan of sorts when Chris Driedger was picked by Bern earlier in the draft, and we thought he was going to go for a goalie. Goaltending is in fact a concern in Greece these days. But the team certainly could use some young forwards and McTavish is a welcome addition to the Greek squad. Of the Under 25s on the team, big Erik Cernak and Ryan Lindgren are sure to be longtime fixtures on the blueline, but there is not much else there at the moment.

In a draft packed with young goalies, Prague went with the tallest and one of the youngest in Western Canadian Sebastian Cossa. The 6-6 teen has always had excellent save percentages and that’s a great quality to have when you have the kind of protection Cossa will eventually have in the Czech Republic. Like St. Petersburg, Prague is well stocked in prospects. They had 18 before the draft started and the group contains promising players Bowen Byram and Cole Perfetti. If you are one of those prospects and a defenseman, good luck getting prime ice time in Prague because Miro Heiskanen, Alexander Romanov and Mikhail Sergachev have already staked their claims to defense jobs. Cossa will learn the goaltending trade in the NHL with Detroit but he should get the call once Andrey Vasilevskiy is through.

To say Bratislava needs some young talent is putting it really, really mildly. Bratislava got lucky last NHL season when prospect Josh Norris of the Ottawa Senators got very good Websim attributes. If he hadn’t panned out, the Eagles would have exactly one player younger than 25 on the team. GM Chuck Massaro hopes all-offense defenseman Luke Hughes of the New Jersey Devils will join Norris in a few years in Slovakia. The youngest of the three Hughes brothers can really skate, and … well, just think Quinn Hughes. Bratislava actually had their sights set on forward Chaz Lucius but decided they couldn’t pass up Hughes at #12 in the draft. Massaro’s biggest draft disappointment ever is another defenseman: Brandan Guhle. The GM had high hopes for him. The Anaheim Duck has 59 NHL games under his belt over four NHL seasons, but he still hasn’t made it to Websim attributes territory.

Barrie Colt defenseman Brandt Clarke will be off to Sweden after he makes it with the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL. Clarke is supposed to have great hockey sense and excellent playmaking ability. Stockholm fans will see him quarterbacking their powerplay in the future. In the meantime, they’ll happily watch jack Eichel lead the charge. Looking far down the road, the Season 17 Stockholm team should feature Carter Hart in goal with Jeremy Lauzon and Clarke as at least top 4 defensemen. Up front, look for Eichel, Alexander Holtz and Nikolaj Ehlers to be there (assuming they sign contracts) with Filip Chytil, Denis Gurianov and Sam Steel in support.

London GM Mark Stefanski must like players who can put the puck in the net because he picked sniper Dylan Guenther at #14 in the draft. The Canadian teen has good size and scouts say he’s learning to use it more. He loves scoring, they say and he’s been good at it for a while. In 12 WHL games this season, he scored 12 times. London already has the best young player in the sport in Dominik Lakatos, a center who will help Guenther and Martin Necas when they break into the lineup. Both Lakatos and Necas are 22-year-old Czechs. They also have four good young defensemen in Will Butcher, Chris Martenet, Andreas Borgman and Logan Stanley. They should all look in place as top 4 Dmen once they mature. Goalie will soon be a problem for the English squad, though. Martin Jones has a year left on his contract and maybe 3 more good years left in his body.

American Tyler Boucher will never be as good a goalie as his father Brian was. But that’s fine with Milan GM David Bell because Tyler is a right wing. Scouts see him as a Wayne Simmonds or Tom Wilson type player. He has size and strength and is a good skater. He might be a bit of a gamble, but so are some other players Milan has drafted in the past. The Guerriero have made some nice picks that – fingers crossed – will turn into full-time players. Evan Bouchard and Erik Brannstrom and defensemen with real shots at playing in the EURO and Seth Jarvis is a shifty center who might also make it someday. If they do, they will join wunderkind Jason Robertson, a prospect gamble that paid off with a lofty 91 PO rating. Expect Robertson and Owen Tippett, a RW, to lead the team in scoring about 6-8 seasons from now. Defenseman Marcus Pettersson is the best of the remaining Under 25s on the Italian side.

Goalie Jesper Wallstedt grew up in Vasteras, which is fairly close to Stockholm, but he will be more than happy to hop into a car and drive 4 hours west to Gothenberg to meet Coach Rod Brind’Amour and GM Jason Haupt. All three men hope the youngster has a banner rookie year when he’s called up to play for Minnesota in the NHL. That’s when he will get his lifelong Websim attributes for the EURO League. Scouts like Wallstedt’s calm way of stopping pucks. If all goes according to plan, he and Russian Pyotr Kochetkov will be battling for games in goal while Jack Hughes, Andrei Svechnikov, Dylan Sikura, Oliver Wahlstrom and others are working magic up ice. Adam Fox will give the team a stud defenseman to work the puck up ice and to the talented skill forwards.

Cole Sillnger is Mike’s son and a 1st-round draft pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets this year. He is also is a shooter. Not poor in any area, other than perhaps physicality, Sillinger had a 21.2 shooting percentage in the USHL in a Covid-shortened season. He is one of 4 centers in the Moscow prospect system and he is the second of 3 first round picks in this draft.

American Chaz Lucius is another pure goal scorer and he is off to Finland. He has scored at nearly a goal-per-game pace over his last 85 games for U.S. national teams. In its climb to the top of the league standings, Helsinki sacrificed some draft picks. The Jokerit don’t have a 2nd round pick in the next two drafts, so they made up for that with a trade, acquiring Lisbon’s No. 20 overall pick for Brandon Montour. The Finnish club has 13 prospects in the system in addition to 5 very strong Under 25 players already on the pro/farm roster in Noah Dobson, Henri Jokiharju, Brock Boeser, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Alex Debrincat.

By accident, the champs added a versatile skill forward from Quebec to the organization. GM Guybrush Threepwood was trying to look up X-rated pictures and clicked too soon on Xavier. The 6-foot C/W was also picked by the Edmonton Oilers in the NHL. Berlin now has 12 prospects in the system, but Bourgault is the first who can play RW. The team that won the Cup has some good young defensemen like Roger Karrer and Filip Hronek, but not too much up front in terms of young talent. Threepwood will need Bourgault and the other prospect forwards to develop.

Nathan Bastian was Yegor Sharangovich’s teammate in New Jersey last season. After getting selected in the Seattle Kracken expansion draft, Bastian fled to Europe to be reunited with Sharangovich thanks to Moscow GM Brett Warbeck. Bastian is the 3rd first-rounder for Moscow this season and he will be a dependable option on the RW where he should use his size and smarts well. Bastian will not put a lot of points on the scoreboard, but he will dig pucks out from the boards and bust up opponent rushes. As things stand now, Bastian, 23, will have to move up the depth chart past Michael Amadio or Ryan Donato in order to get playing time on the Maniacs.

The San Jose Sharks are very happy with the development forward Thomas Bordeleau has shown since they picked him in the 2020 NHL draft. That – and his 30 points in 24 games with the University of Michigan last season – was enough to convince Olso GM Carl Choiniere to call Bordeleau’s name when he got to the podium for pick No. 23 of this year’s draft. Bordeleau joins four defensemen as prospects in the system. Oslo, once a very young team, has grown up and the only Under 25 forwards on the team right now are wingers Dillon Dube and Tage Thompson. Of course Connor McDavid, at 25, will be there ahead of Bordeleau on the depth chart for a long time.

There will be no more players added to this story.