The NHL Entry Draft is in less than two weeks. We all know about the New York Rangers first pick, but who will they take with their second pick? Here are the players who definitely won’t be available at #20, but could be if the Rangers trade up.
Every year at the NHL Draft there are consensus top picks. This June, every single draft prognosticator has Jack Hughes as the top pick and Kaapo Kakko going at number two. Here are the others that the New York Rangers could pick with their second pick, but won’t. One thing is for sure, they will all be gone by the time the Rangers pick 20th.
Rangers fans are eternal optimists. They believe that the team will trade up and get a second top ten pick in the draft. The odds of that happening are slim to none since a draft day acquisition of a top ten pick hasn’t happened in years (except for the Derek Stepan deal with Arizona). Top picks are incredibly valuable in the current NHL. Could the Rangers could put together an attractive enough package to get one? Doubtful.
Blue Line Station will be providing previews of the NHL Entry Draft leading up to Friday, June 21st. To get as complete a picture as possible, we’ve surveyed 11 top draft rankings to come up with our lists. If you want to check out the rankings yourself, there will be a full list at the end of this article.
We start our coverage with a list of the 11 players who most believe will be selected in the top ten. These are the elite players in a very deep draft.
Notes on the top prospects
Some things worth noting about the top prospects. Five are members of the U.S. U-18 National Development Team, led by Jack Hughes. It’s a tribute to USA Hockey that so many top prospects are coming up through the development pipeline.
There is only one defenseman, Bowen Byram, on the list. This draft is deep at forward, but short on blueliners with most of the best defense prospects coming from Europe. Four defensemen went top ten in 2018.
Six of the top 11 players are centers. With NHL teams valuing center-ice men more than wingers, it is very possible that six of the top eight picks could be pivots.
There are three centers from WHL teams on the list. Dylan Cozens, Kirby Dach and Peyton Krebs all have similar backgrounds and it’s up to individual team assessments to determine who goes first.
There are only two players from Europe on the list. Finnish Kaapo Kakko is the top European player, but he is joined only by Vasili Podkolzin, from Russia. That’s a big change from last June when six of the top ten players selected were from Europe, including the top three (Rasmus Dahlin, Andrei Svechnikov and Jesperi Kotkaniemi)
Now, on to the top 11 players in the draft.