Claimed:A Look Back at the VHL S41 Draft - Pt I [Final: 6/6]

[CoachReilly 688]

A LOOK BACK AT THE DRAFT
By: Jack Reilly

High Level Look

 

The S41 draft was certainly an exciting one, with a few trades to keep the patient listeners and watchers of VHL Radio and VHL TV on their toes.  At the end of the day, four teams primarily dominated the draft – with all of those teams being at different stages of the rebuilding phase – including, HC Davos, Seattle, Stockholm, and Toronto. 

As for the table above, this gives us a look at the Total Players drafted by each team, along with the Total TPE Gained since the beginning of S40, along with their cumulative Total TPE as a draft class.

Heading into the draft, most analysts would probably agree that Toronto was furthest along in their rebuild, with exciting prospects Sachimo Zoidberg and Jerrick Poole making the jump to the VHL this season to join Tyler Cote and Devin Sundberg.  Shadhu Rathod, Jr. also makes the jump to the VHL this year, giving the Legion a solid base on which to build.  Heading into the night, Toronto only had one first round pick at the very tail end of the draft. Notably missing from their prospect pool prior to the night was a franchise goaltender.  By the fifth selection, they had addressed that need.  Although Okranitz was probably not in the top five prospects in the draft pool, HC Davos likely would have taken him with the seventh or eighth pick as they are also in need of a goalie.  If the Dynamo hadn’t picked him up, the newly minted Stockholm Vikings likely would have used their selection on Okranitz with the ninth pick.  The point is, Toronto could not afford to wait until their tenth overall selection to make their move on a goalie.  This shake up really changed up the draft as we will see.

As noted above, Davos, Toronto, Seattle and Stockholm controlled much of the action throughout the night, drafting a combined 23 of the 30 players selected.  For that reason, we will focus on each of those team’s respective hauls as the vast majority of talent was taken by these teams.



HC Davos Dynamo

The Dynamo definitely had one of the stronger outlooks heading into the draft, with five picks in the first thirteen selections.  Considering the draft pool talent significantly dropped off around the fifteenth pick, this was a huge day for the franchise looking to make its way back to the top of the Victory Hockey League.  With their first selection, they were confident in selecting Gifford Shock, a player who has amassed more TPE than any other S41 draftee this season, and had the third most TPE of any player in the draft.  Shock also provides leadership alongside talent and will likely be considered for captaincy down the line.  Although the Dynamo were planning on picking up Okranitz with their 7^th/8^th picks, they were thrilled that Kingma and De Rossi fell into their hands and are comfortable taking the risk on picking up a goalie in the next draft class.  Looking at the table above, Kingma has earned the second most TPE in S40 out of the entire draft class – something Davos weighed very heavily in their prospect evaluations.  Other than De Rossi, the other prospect the Dynamo considered with the eighth selection was Dirk Firley (who ended up going 10^th to Toronto).

With picks twelve and thirteen, Davos was able to pick up two very highly-rated prospects heading into the draft in defender Jakub Ackerman and center AIM-11.  Both players were clearly undervalued on the draft board and Davos got away with two steals.  One scout commented, “Davos very well could have ended up with five first round value picks tonight.”

To wrap up the draft, Davos picked up right winger Yannik Zug who is not expected to be a huge contributor but undoubtedly has the potential.  Zug is close friends with wingers Kyle Kingma and Mario De Rossi. If they are able to inspire him and enhance his production, Davos could walk away happy with their third round selection.

Next time…

In the next review of the S41 draft, we’ll take a look at the other stellar draft classes from Seattle, Stockholm, and Toronto.  All three teams addressed big needs and started the growth of their foundation.  We’ll also make the call and wrap up on which teams drafted best.

 

[Victor 10,943]

I can't recall a time where four teams were building a core from pretty much the same drafts. Goes to show the strength of these drafts that there is enough talent to do so and should be some nice two-way battles in both conferences this decade. Plus, whoever builds a dynasty of the established powers.

[Knight 1,289]

I was truly shocked when I realized the number of new members in this draft with high TPE totals. It's very impressive

[Ninetyfourgoalie 168]

Poole was already in the VHL last season  But great article otherwise

[pxzero 65]

Content: 3/3

Very well written, nice in depth look.  I'm excited to see the next 2 parts. 

Grammar: 2/2

 

Nothing that stood out. 

Davos picked up right winger Yannik Zug, who is not expected - missing comma 

 

Appearance: 1/1
Very nice. Well formatted, and the charts add a lot.  

[Frank 5,211]

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