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.

Liljegren breakdown - part I

So far, it has been a complicated season for 2017 NHL Draft eligible defenseman Timothy Liljegren. He has appeared at three different levels of hockey: mostly in SHL with Rogle BK, but he has also seen time in Allsvenskan on a short loan to Timra and has (at the time of writing) logged 12 games at the J20 level again with Rogle. He has also been a regular for Sweden's U18 team internationally and has dealt with a case of mononucleosis earlier in the season that sidelined him for some time. Safe to say, he has seen a bit of everything in his draft eligible season.

We received some heat for placing Liljegren as the third best 2017 NHL Draft eligible prospect coming out of Europe (behind Nico Hischier and Elias Pettersson respectively) back in September and more recently still receive questions about his "stock" as a draft eligible prospect. That has prompted us to offer an extensive breakdown that should illuminate how we see Timothy Liljegren's game.

DECISION-MAKING

We will start this breakdown with what we feel is the biggest question-mark in Liljegren's game and also one of the main reasons for why we dropped him all the way back in September. His biggest flaw this season has been decision-making. With that said, let us continue with visual examples and their analysis.

EXAMPLE 1

This sequence starts with Liljegren actually doing a good job evading the forecheck, as he turns and loses the Canadian forward he is left with quite some time to make a decision on how to move the puck forward. In frame III, it becomes fairly obvious that the right option to take is to pass along the green arrow, that said there is still a less than ideal orange path to take which would serve more just as an outlet to get rid of the puck not necessarily move the play forward in a productive way. Seeing as Liljegren isn't under pressure, it's not a particularly good option in this scenario. While Liljegren does not pass immediately, he still has ample amount of time to execute the green option pass in frames IV and V. Yet, Liljegren fails to do so and eventually loses the puck to the forechecker. In this sequence, we see something that has been fairly common in our viewings this season and that is the failure to make decisions that use obvious positive passing lanes (and simple quality options in general).

2017 Draft - Midterm Ranking

It’s been a long time since we released our previous list for the 2017 NHL Draft on September 21st, part of the reason for that is simply the fact that we felt comfortable enough with our list for the past few months without feeling the urge to make major changes.

In the meantime a few things have happened. Scouts in North America have been able to appreciate how good our previous #1 Nico Hischier really is. Central Scouting has moved Elias Pettersson (our ensuing #1 since Nico started his North American season and therefore stopped being eligible for our list) from a B rate in October to the #2 spot in Europe.

Timothy Liljegren was diagnosed with mononucleosis the day after our September ranking was released, leaving him sidelined for some time, while big forwards Kristian Vesalainen and Klim Kostin have struggled to produce.

Even before their production issues, we didn’t have Vesalainen that high in our list nor as a top 10 pick overall and we didn’t have Kostin close to the top in the overall projection either. Similarly, we have also already dropped Liljegren from the top spot in Europe in September just before the news about mono came out. In light of that diagnosis, even if his level of play this season would suggest so, we’re now keen to wait a bit more before dropping Liljegren any further, especially when not many other prospects made a case to replace him in the 2nd spot of our list. Still, the Swede will probably need to pick up his game in the second part of the season to retain a spot that is basically the byproduct of what he showed last season.

Now, with the WJC in the books an updated ranking is definitely due, no matter if injuries and some performances have not really helped the process. Kostin is the other big name whose draft season has been a struggle and unlike Liljegren he won’t have any chance to redeem it after undergoing surgery last week on the shoulder that reportedly has been bothering him for a while. We still have him in the same tier as some of the prospects ranked ahead of him on our new list, but healthier players like Necas and Heiskanen who were already enjoying a much better season than him get the edge in the ranking.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for the chance to see Russian goalie Daniil Tarasov play this season, so the waiting game goes on with the hope to see him back 100% healthy at some point before the final part of the season.

Our #1 Elias Pettersson also missed time recently after a WJC where he didn’t have much luck in terms of production. He didn’t play the bronze medal game after his head hit the hard dash of the side boards as a result of a pretty hard bodycheck suffered in the 3rd period against Canada, and was then reportedly out with the flu for the first few Allsvenskan games played by Timra once he was back in Sweden. He has appeared in four games since getting back in action on January 20^th, producing at a point per game ratio like he did in the first part of the season.

Among the few guys that have improved their stock with us in recent months are Filip Chytil and Alexei Lipanov. The latter sat just out of our September ranking and had a strong WJAC in December. Chytil is a kid barely eligible for the 2017 NHL Draft who seems to be coming into his own lately and who has been able to get quality ice-time in the top Czech league.

Robin Salo who has also been playing well domestically was an unexpected cut from Finland’s WJC team. Just as surprisingly, in an underwhelming Finnish tournament performance, the coach was sacked midway through the event as it became obvious Finland would have to tackle Latvia to avoid relegation.

Rank	Player	Position	Nation	Ov. Rank Projection
1.	Elias Pettersson	C/W	SWE	top 5
2.	Timothy Liljegren	D	SWE	top 10
3.	Martin Necas	C	CZE	top 10
4.	Miro Heiskanen	D	FIN	mid 1st
5.	Marcus Davidsson	C/W	SWE	mid 1st
6.	Klim Kostin	RW	RUS	mid 1st
7.	Lias Andersson	C	SWE	1st
8.	Kristian Vesalainen	LW	FIN	1st
9.	Daniil Tarasov	G	RUS	1st
10.	Urho Vaakanainen	D	FIN	1st
11.	Ukko-P. Luukkonen	G	FIN	early 2nd
12.	Robin Salo	D	FIN	early 2nd
13.	Filip Chytil	C/W	CZE	2nd
14.	Alexei Lipanov	C	RUS	2nd
15.	Lukas Elvenes	RW	SWE	2nd
16.	Jesper Boqvist	C/W	SWE	2nd
17.	Jonas Rondbjerg	C/W	DEN	3rd
18.	Emil Bemstrom	C	SWE	3rd
19.	Joni Ikonen	C	FIN	4th
20.	Sebastian Walfridsson	D	SWE	4th

Starting points review

Since our last ranking was published almost two months ago, many other lists for the 2017 NHL Draft have come out, including Bob McKenzie’s first of the season and NHL Central Scouting's preliminary assessment of this year class.

Bob’s list came out the day after ours and provides a benchmark for what the supposed scouting consensus was at the start of the CHL season. 

You can find his preliminary ranking here. To the left you can see highlighted the players who were eligible for our ranking. When looking at those names the main thing that struck us was two players were missing from Bob's list: Nico Hischier and Elias Pettersson were right on top of our ranking but nowhere to be found there. Even more striking when considering K. Kostin, our #4 in Europe, sat at #3 overall, and K. Vesalainen, our #7 in Europe, sat 7th overall behind only T. Liljegren and K. Kostin among Euro-based prospects. Only two more of those made McKenzie’s list, M. Necas and L. Andersson, with our #5 M. Davidsson missing as well.

The future CSS lists for Europe will be particularly interesting and easy to compare since they’ll pertain to the same group of prospects, but at this stage CSS still has all the players together and only rated by A/B/C rather than ranked. Still, their initial ratings released on October 4th (as of now yet available here) definitely provided some food for thought as they even sharpened some of the differences mentioned above between our assessment and the seeming consensus.

As highlighted in the pictures below, they had Pettersson rated as 2nd/3rd material, together with M. Davidsson, D. Samorukov and H. Jokiharju. Our highest ranked goaltender, D. Tarasov, got a 4th to 6th round assessment, like S. Walfridsson and F. Zetterlund.

Almost two months later, and with the first international break in the books, it’s interesting to focus on the players recipient of the main differences.
Our September top ranked prospect Nico Hischier took some weeks to get comfortable on North American rinks, had no goals in his first 5 QMJHL regular season games, but has scored 19 times in his last 19 games, producing at a 2 points per game pace over that span, with a recent spurt of 19 points in his last 6 games. 

His current output (41 points in 24 games, 18 more than the next rookie) is good for second in the league; considering Nico is far from a one dimensional player, that is really encouraging and we would be indeed surprised if he is not going to make McKenzie’s top 15 at midterm.

2018 early top 5 update

Just like many prospects for the 2017 draft, some Europeans eligible for the 2018 draft are already leaving for North America and starting their official season overseas. This update is meant to see where we stand right before guys like A.Svechnikov leave Europe and our rankings as a result.  

After the Hlinka, not much has changed for us. Our appointed top 3 prospects only confirmed they deserve to remain up there and we don’t feel like someone else has really challenged their position so far. With two seasons to go before their NHL draft there is plenty of time for that to happen, but it might not be that easy to catch defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and contend for his #1 spot. In fact, at this time we believe the 16 years old Swede to be the most promising prospect in Europe for the next two NHL drafts.

To finish off our top 5 we still have Skarek and Alexeyev there, as the Czech goalie backstopped his national team to their first win at the home tournament and the Russian defenseman was a solid presence on the blue line for his country before leaving for the WHL. They mark the only change to our early August list as they flip the last two positions.

Rank	Player	Position	Nation
1.	Rasmus Dahlin	D	SWE
2.	Andrei Svechnikov	RW	RUS
3.	Filip Zadina	LW	CZE
4.	Alexander Alexeyev	D	RUS
5.	Jakub Skarek	G	CZE

2017 Draft - September Ranking

Timothy Liljegren is moving backwards in our updated top 20. 

Considering we already had him in the same tier with our next two prospects in early August (see previous ranking), the change is not as big as the drop in the rank might suggest, but so far this season Liljegren's play has nourished some concerns with his decision-making ability. That's an area of strength for both Hischier and Pettersson, and at this point in time we like their long term projection a bit better. Before the draft comes around Liljegren will have plenty of opportunities to address those concerns and to show he can use his obvious tools to his advantage without taking unnecessary risks too frequently. 

Nico Hischier didn't have a particularly successful Hlinka Memorial tourney, but had some impressive moments. He seems to have taken a step forward in his physical development and has been more willing to use his good shot than in the past, something that should help him in his transition to the QMJHL. The fact he is about to start his North American season means this is the last time he appears on our rankings, as they only pertain prospects playing for European clubs. In this pre CHL season update we have four prospects in the same situation, they're identifiable in grey in the ranking below.

Having Hischier, Pettersson and Liljegren in the same 'top 7' tier means we estimate right now there are four more prospects outside of Europe in the same (or higher) tier. It's an indication of where we feel the trio currently belong when adding to the mix the other eligible prospects, it is not an attempt to predict how the draft will unfold.

Rank	Player	Position	Nation	Ov. Rank Projection
1.	Nico Hischier	C	SUI	top 7
2.	Elias Pettersson	C/W	SWE	top 7
3.	Timothy Liljegren	D	SWE	top 7
4.	Klim Kostin	RW	RUS	top 15
5.	Marcus Davidsson	C	SWE	mid 1st
6.	Dmitri Samorukov	D	RUS	mid 1st
7.	Kristian Vesalainen	LW	FIN	mid 1st
8.	Lias Andersson	C	SWE	1st round
9.	Martin Necas	C	CZE	1st round
10.	Henri Jokiharju	D	FIN	1st round
11.	Miro Heiskanen	D	FIN	1st round
12.	Daniil Tarasov	G	RUS	1st round
13.	Urho Vaakanainen	D	FIN	1st round
14.	Adam Ruzicka	W/C	SVK	1st round
15.	Ukko-P. Luukkonen	G	FIN	early 2nd
16.	Lukas Elvenes	RW	SWE	2nd round
17.	Robin Salo	D	FIN	2nd round
18.	Sebastian Walfridsson	D	SWE	2nd round
19.	Jesper Boqvist	C/W	SWE	2nd round
20.	Fabian Zetterlund	RW	SWE	2nd round

Early look at Europe's best for the 2018 NHL Draft

Some promising 2018 eligible players will also get their season underway at the upcoming Hlinka Memorial. Below we list our five favourite prospects playing in Europe two seasons away from their draft.

Based on what we’ve seen last season, the top 3 was pretty easily done.

Dahlin is an all-around Swedish defenseman whose name we believe will become much more popular once Rasmus gets more international exposure, and that might start to happen as soon as next week.

Andrei Svechnikov is instead an already well hyped name, thanks to his ability to score in bunches against his peers.

Filip Zadina is a late ’99 born winger who plays at a very advanced level for his age, so much so that he already dressed for a couple of Extraliga games.

Speaking of playing at an advanced level, his countryman Jakub Skarek is a goalie who already enjoyed some success playing against men last season. Him and steady defenseman Alexander Alexeyev round out our early top 5, edging out a number of other interesting prospects.

Rank	Name	Position	Nation
1.	Rasmus Dahlin	D	SWE
2.	Andrei Svechnikov	RW	RUS
3.	Filip Zadina	LW	CZE
4.	Jakub Skarek	G	CZE
5.	Alexander Alexeyev	D	RUS

2017 Draft pre-season Rankings

The Hlinka Memorial Cup U18 tournament means the start of a new scouting season. With only three days left before the puck drops in Breclav and Bratislava it is time to set where we are at ahead of the first games of the 2017 Draft season, as they will bring a ton of new inputs into the evaluation of the 1999 class.

The ranking that follows is the result of the scouting we did in Europe throughout last season and only pertains to prospects who have been playing for European clubs in 2015/16 (which means players like Valimaki, Tolvanen and N.A. Popugayev do not get considered here).

However, to put things in perspective, we added an overall ranking appraisal. Even if we focus on prospects in Europe, we still have a grasp of how good the draft is supposed to be overall. At this stage, this year's North American crop seems to be a bit weaker than usual, allowing for more Europeans to potentially make their way into the 1st Round. 

Still, this should not be confused with a prediction. This is nothing like a Mock Draft, and the Overall Rank Projection column is just an indicator of where we currently feel these players belong overall. Should they confirm what we have seen so far, that's the range where we would recommend drafting them, which is different from suggesting where they'll eventually get drafted.

We think these players have shown the potential to be there for us next June, no matter where they are currently ranked by other resources. 

Obviously, like everyone else, we'll get a better handle as the season progresses and things will inevitably change, but here come our pre-Hlinka rankings for the 2017 Draft (which by the way are the first ever rankings we release as an independent source, under the "Draftin Europe" mark).

Rank	Player	Position	Nation	Ov. Rank Projection
1.	Timothy Liljegren	D	SWE	top 5
2.	Nico Hischier	C	SUI	top 5
3.	Elias Pettersson	C/W	SWE	top 5
4.	Klim Kostin	RW	RUS	top 15
5.	Marcus Davidsson	C	SWE	mid 1st
6.	Dmitri Samorukov	D	RUS	mid 1st
7.	Urho Vaakanainen	D	FIN	mid 1st
8.	Kristian Vesalainen	LW	FIN	1st round
9.	Lias Andersson	C/W	SWE	1st round
10.	Daniil Tarasov	G	RUS	1st round
11.	Henri Jokiharju	D	FIN	late 1st
12.	Martin Necas	C	CZE	late 1st
13.	Adam Ruzicka	C/W	SVK	late 1st
14.	Ukko-P. Luukkonen	G	FIN	early 2nd
15.	Miro Heiskanen	D	FIN	early 2nd
16.	Lukas Elvenes	RW	SWE	early 2nd
17.	Robin Salo	D	FIN	2nd round
18.	Fabian Zetterlund	RW	SWE	2nd round
19.	Jesper Boqvist	C/W	SWE	2nd round
20.	Maxim Zhukov	G	RUS	late 2nd