As it happens with basically any NHL draft over the years, we really won’t know who won tonight until we’re a couple years down the road, but that hasn’t stopped fans from sharing their opinions.
Funny enough, two teams that may have got the best players in the draft might not be viewed as the winners of the night, but instead it’s often who got the most value out of their placement in the draft. We say that because if you ask most people, Rasmus Dahlin and Andrei Svechnikov were far and away the best prospects in the draft.
However, there was never really a doubt that those teams would make those picks.
So with the variation in draft strategy and everything else that factors in for the order that players are drafted, how teams are evaluated is based on the value they can get based on who is available to them. Early on, Montreal and Arizona seem to be two teams who made picks that might have been a reach, but on the other end of the spectrum, two teams stood out as clear winners to fans.
The New York Islanders were able to draft Oliver Wahlstrom (11th) and Noah Dobson (12th) and the Red Wings drafted Filip Zadina (6th) and Joe Veleno (30th). Fans felt they did very well for themselves.
If you’re curious, here are the rest of the first-round picks.
