Florida, Carolina and Nashville all found gems a couple years ago. Plus NCAA Frozen Four bracket predictions, Seattle superstars and Sweden's 2024 NHL draft outlook.
Florida, Carolina and Nashville all found gems a couple years ago. Plus NCAA Frozen Four bracket predictions, Seattle superstars and Sweden's 2024 NHL draft outlook.
The NCAA's Frozen Four men's bracket is set, and regionals start Thursday, so the time is now for some college hockey talk.
While the city of Boston has dominated the chatter this year thanks to Mack Celebrini of B.U. and the Will Smith/Ryan Leonard/Gabe Perreault line at B.C., I wanted to throw the spotlight elsewhere for a minute and look at three players who have dramatically outkicked their draft slots recently.
So let's start off this column with a trio of NHL prospects who already look like draft steals, as they were all selected outside the top 100 but are playing pivotal roles on their teams - all of which qualified for the Frozen Four field of 16 teams.
Jack Devine, RW, Denver
A national champion as a freshman, Devine was still available in the seventh round when Florida grabbed the jack-of-all-trades forward 221st overall in 2022 that summer. Two years later, he's a Hobey Baker finalist and leading scorer on a Pioneers team that could go all the way again. Here's what one scout said back in Devine's draft year:
"Skating needs to improve but there are puck skills there and anyone who takes him will see a guy that puts up numbers at Denver. It's just a matter of his feet getting up to speed."
Jackson Blake, RW, North Dakota
Another Hobey Baker finalist, Blake split his draft year between USHL Chicago and Eden Prairie of the Minnesota High School League. He famously won the Eagles the state title on a goal in double OT, and his father, Jason Blake, is an NHL alumnus. But the future NoDak star didn't go until the fourth round (109th overall) of the 2021 draft, where Carolina was more than happy to grab him.
"The offensive hockey sense is big-time; his ability to score goals, how he reads the play off the puck and where to go," said a scout. "He'll go into a corner, come out bloody but come out with the puck and next shift he'll do the same. Goes to the front of the net, takes punishment and makes plays. When he's 185 pounds and a junior at NoDak, he's going to be a force."
Scary post-script: Blake is already a force, and he's only a sophomore (and only 173 pounds, at 5-foot-11).
Ryan Ufko, D, UMass
What a shocker, the Nashville Predators have an amazing blueline prospect in their system. It's all such a bore at this point, eh? Jokes aside, Ufko was a tremendous pick by the Preds, who got him 115th overall in the 2021 draft. An old teammate of Blake's with the USHL's Steel, Ufko was a finalist as Hockey East Player of the Year this month. So what was the scouting report back in 2021?
"You look at him - he's sub-six-feet and his skating is average - then you walk away from the game thinking this guy might have made the most plays on the ice," said one scout. "It's his transitional ability to get to open ice, move pucks, his lateral ability on the offensive blueline to pull guys in and manipulate defenders, put pucks to the open ice, get pucks on the net. Once in a while he'll get challenged defensively and his skating will show better than you think. This is a guy who performs every night."
Picks Or It Didn't Happen
OK, let's get it over with: I gotta make some predictions for the Frozen Four. I am a total coward when it comes to this bracket (pretty much every year) because I second-guess everything. I will say that RIT is a scary-looking underdog - but at the same time, would I truly bet against Mack Celebrini and Lane Hutson? You can see the bind I'm in.
But for the sake of posterity, my final four is Boston College, Michigan State, Minnesota (extra motivation to win it at Xcel Energy Center) and Denver. And just to be extra cowardly, I wouldn't be surprised if North Dakota and/or Cornell make a run instead.
My winner? Boston College. The Eagles have elite scorers (Cutter Gauthier, Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, Gabe Perreault), depth and goaltending in Jacob Fowler. See you in the Twin Cities.
Get Kraken
I've been very impressed with how Seattle has drafted in the franchise's short history, and while they haven't really used any of those prospects yet (outside of Matty Beniers and Ryker Evans), the pipeline is really filling out. The Kraken ranked 14th in Future Watch this year, and two of their prospects, OHL Sudbury's David Goyette and WHL Moose Jaw's Jagger Firkus, just clinched the scoring titles in their respective leagues. Goyette put up 117 points for the Wolves, while Firkus led the entire CHL with 126 points for the Warriors.
Swede or Sour?
The 2024 NHL draft doesn't seem like a big one for Swedish prospects, and in fact, the best prospect playing in the country is Norway's Michael Brandsegg-Nygaard, a definite first-rounder.
But are there any Swedish first-rounders? It feels like there may be a couple in the 25 to 40 range (which is a tier scouts prefer to first round/second round because really, is there a talent gap between pick No. 32 and 33? No. The only difference is the second kid has to wait 10 more hours to hear his name called).
"It's more 40 than 25, for sure," said one European scout. "In all fairness, after 20 (the draft is) gonna start going sideways where you run out of names. But I don't see them in the first round."
Two candidates to keep an eye on either way are Modo center Lucas Pettersson and Vaxjo defenseman Leo Sahlin Wallenius.
Another name I'm intrigued by is 6-foot-6, 192-pound HV71 defenseman Gabriel Eliasson.
"Great frame, really competitive," said the scout. "Plays hard, but to the point where he takes some really bad penalties. Why does he take these penalties all the time? Is it a lack of something? But he's big and competitive and moves pretty well."