Our New Home (Website)

As you might have noticed a while ago, we have moved to our new official website: www.draftineu.com.

That's where we will provide access to new rankings moving forward, like the Top 20 we released back in October:
https://www.draftineu.com/2017/10/2018-draft-october-top-20.html/

We will make this blog's contents available there in the near future as well.

As always, we are also available through our twitter.

Thank you for your interest!

- Draftin Europe

2018 first in-season ranking (top 5 primer)

This Top 5 is a ‘primer’ of the Top 20 ranking that we will release in the next few days. It will be our first ranking of the season and the first update since the list we released in June with the Blue Dispatch 2017 draft guide, when we had Rasmus Dahlin at #1, Jesperi Kotkaniemi at #2 and Filip Zadina at #3.

For those who are not familiar yet with our rankings, we point out once again that they pertain only to prospects playing in Europe. This means Zadina (and Zavgorodny) will not appear anymore in this season’s rankings.

The upcoming Top 20 will be the first one for the 2018 draft to provide an overall assessment for the ranked players. 
We can already disclose Swedish defenseman Rasmus Dahlin will receive a 1^st overall projection. That was probably easy to predict, even more so considering we had him ahead of Svechnikov already before the start of the 2016/2017 season (Early look at Europe's best for the 2018 NHL Draft), when the Russian winger was still playing in Europe.

Finnish forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi didn’t have a sparkling performance at the Hlinka Memorial, but his early play at the Liiga level this season confirmed our feelings about him being currently the most promising forward in this European class.

Adam Boqvist is one of the main risers of the start of the season. He has been on par with the high expectations with the puck on his stick and his early play has also been encouraging with reference to the shortcomings that were noticeable last season.

The last two spots of the top 5 remain a close affair between Russian forward Grigori Denisenko and Swedish center Jacob Olofsson.

Denisenko had the start of his season slowed down by an injury suffered at the end of the first Russia game at the Hlinka, but brings undeniable skills and we have been liking his development through 2017.

Olofsson is a solid pro prospect who recently scored his first goal at the senior level (Allsvenskan) for Timra after shining as an underager at the U18 World Championships back in April.

Rank	Name	Position	Nation
1.	Rasmus Dahlin	D	SWE
2.	Jesperi Kotkaniemi	W/C	FIN
3.	Adam Boqvist	D	SWE
4.	Grigori Denisenko	LW	RUS
5.	Jacob Olofsson	C	SWE

Blue Dispatch #2 - We got you covered

The Blue Dispatch second issue is available here https://www.draftineu.com/
It offers a closure on the 2016/17 season (our first one as Draftin Europe) and provides a bridge to the new one and future drafts.

The first aim of this new release is to cover all the prospects that were selected out of Europe at the 2017 NHL Draft in Chicago.
Not all of them were profiled on our draft guide, and this Review provides scouting reports especially for those drafted players that for whatever reasons didn’t find their way in the previous release. This Blue Dispatch issue No.2  is meant to be complementary to issue No.1 (the Draft Guide).

These are the contents that come available with it for just 11.90€:
- breakdown per country of the draft tendencies of the last few years
- write-ups on all the 67 prospects drafted out of Europe
- top 5 NHL teams at the 2017 draft
- a look into the 2017 Import Draft
- a whole section (INTO THE FEUTURE) dedicated to future drafts, offering:
         > Top 5 with prospects' profiles for the 2018 Entry Draft
         > Top 5 with prospects' profiles for the 2019 Entry Draft
         > Top 5 with prospects' profiles for the 2020 Entry Draft
         > A look into 2021 eligible prospects
         > Outlines of as many as 30 players for the 2019, 2020, 2021 drafts
         > Stats comparison with past prospects

Blue Dispatch draft guide release

Our first ever Blue Dispatch draft guide is available here: https://www.draftineu.com/order/

Provides Top 80 and Top 20 rankings of prospects playing in Europe for the 2017 and 2018 Entry Drafts, along with in-depth scouting reports.

All top 60 prospects for this year's draft have their dedicated page with, among other things, ratings on 7 categories we consider when projecting a player and statistics from the last couple of seasons, including time on ice (whenever available).

Breakdowns are also included for some prospects.

Player's profile page sample

With the free preview in April we anticipated the look of the player's profile pages in our upcoming draft guide, but as we move (not fast enough!) closer to the release it’s time to provide a little update on that. 

What follows is the enhanced final version that will be available for the top 60 prospects, to form the core of the publication.  

For each player that earned his dedicated page, along with his profile and 

in-Europe final ranking you will get (all in one place):

• a season rankings table to see how the player has been trending throughout his draft year
• our overall ranking assessment and draft day expectations
• info on the amount of viewings
• a small NHL projection sector
• the ratings we think he deserves in seven categories that we consider relevant when projecting a prospect's future success. Each category is comprehensive of different elements that go into it and is defined inside the guide
• the player’s stats from the last two seasons, including a comparative (in-league) rank and time on ice whenever available

 -- Draftin Europe

Draftin Europe's Blue Dispatch draft guide: FREE Preview

Below you can find available for download a free preview of the Blue Dispatch draft guide that we will release in June. This preview provides a glimpse of what the final release will look like. It also includes our new rankings: the 2017 list becomes a top 30 and the top 5 for 2018 is updated for the first time since September. Inside the preview you can also find a little guessing game (along with instructions), the winner of which will get a free copy of the final Blue Dispatch draft guide.

DOWNLOAD

Liljegren breakdown - part II

In part I of our breakdown we took a look at Liljegren's decision-making coming out of his zone and his defensive coverage. In part II we will now tackle his skating, transitions and offensive blueline play, which are some of the stronger points in his game.

SKATING AND TRANSITION

One of the assets in Liljegren's arsenal is obviously his skating. Liljegren uses his skating to be a factor all over the ice and combines it with quality puck-handling when moving the puck forward as well as when trying to pull off 1 on 1 moves. He can also use his skating in defensive situations, which is where we'll start off part II of our breakdown.

EXAMPLE 1

Example 1 shows off Liljegren's ability to quickly recover backwards and close gaps down in a hurry if/when necessary. We can see Liljegren starting on the offensive blueline facing forward, yet he manages to retreat backwards and recovers towards the middle of ice in time to close down the play. More impressively, a forward pass was made by opposition in frame II, but Liljegren still managed to catch up to the play with his skating. To top it all off, in the last frame, he is already positioned for a D-to-D pass, opening himself up as an option for his partner.