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Mika_Kandinsky · 04-06-2021, 04:47 PM

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Hello and welcome to another Siberia Sports article. Today we are going to be looking at the results of the S59 draft that just took place over the weekend. This is a draft that saw a lot of good prospects find new homes with SHL teams out of the SMJHL. Every franchise is hoping that they are picking the players that are going to make huge impacts on their franchises down the line and hopefully lead them to championships. Success all starts at the SHL draft and so deciding who to pick when you're on the clock is incredibly important in this league. Every team had their draft boards written up and the scouts had all weighed in this weekend in order to make the best decisions on who to draft as possible. Let's take a look at how the S59 draft shook out for each team that made a pick and give them a grade on their overall draft performance.

Stars

- The Toronto North Stars - I'm just going to come out and say it now, the Stars had the best draft and they are going to get an A+. It's almost like they cheated because they got a bit lucky and ended up with the first, second, and sixth overall pick in this draft. Quite frankly, this is absurd, and incredible. ML has done such a great job with asset management and the luck really finally came through with the lottery balls on this one. Toronto picks first, second and sixth and they chose Jay Sink, Dane Von Gucci and Ryuuji Kawashima respectively. What an incredible batch of young players Toronto was able to pick up here. Toronto chose to take two top defensive prospects with one and two, and then scooped up a center for the future in Kawashima with the sixth pick. Defenseman are always coveted come draft time and Toronto is now sitting with an embarrassment of riches in the prospect pipeline at the moment. Toronto is going to be a strong team for a long time given the strength of their current roster and now their prospect pool. Toronto did not make any other picks in the S59 draft, but let's be real, they did not need to. They were able to pick up three great earners and already talented players. It's going to be very exciting to see how this group impacts the team in the future when they eventually join the roster. It's going to create a lot of competition on the active roster as well and these three players are undoubtedly going to make Toronto a much better team.

Toronto North Stars Draft Grade: A+

The Minnesota Monarchs - The Monarchs had the 3rd overall pick in the draft as well as pick 27 and 30. With their 3rd overall pick, a pick that could alter the franchise's fortunes, they chose Sekai Wolker. Wollker is a high earning defenseman with a solid bank account. Wollker is a giant left defenseman out of Iceland who scored 28 points and average a little over 22 minutes of ice time a night. This is a solid pick for the Monarchs, able to grab one of the top earning defenseman at number 3. Wollker seems destined for a successful SHL career after a very promising rookie year. The sky is the limit with Wollker and he will solidify the Monarchs blue line for years to come. After Wollker, the Monarchs selected Aleksandrs Balcers, another defenseman who played for the Newfoundland Berserkers. Balcers is a high earner and he scored 32 points in his rookie season on a good Newfoundland team. Balcers has the talent to be an SHL star. There have been rumors floating around the league about his work ethic and whether it was SHL caliber. Only time will tell on that front, and Minnesota is going to have to hope that Balcers wants to be a part of turning the franchise around and stick to his development path as a top end defenseman. If he does, he'll be a steal at this position, but it's a big if at this point. With the 30th pick, Minnesota chose Samuel Savage a forward also from Newfoundland. Savage is a low earning player currently and he scored 6 points in 41 games. Savage projects as more of a depth piece in the future. Unless he gets more money and starts earning at a higher rate, he's not going to be a high impact player at the next level. Overall Minnesota had a decent draft, picking up a top defenseman with third overall and then taking a high risk, high reward player in Balcers. For the picks that they did have, they did a fine job trying to make the most of it.

Minnesota Monarchs Draft Grade: B

The Edmonton Blizzard - The Blizzard had 6 picks in this draft and three picks in the first round. They were able to stockpile a lot of great picks and decided to use them to start restocking the cupboards after being such a successful team for many seasons. They are trying to keep the dream alive by getting that pipeline of prospects going in full force. In the first round Edmonton selected fourth, tenth, and sixteenth overall. They also had the 22nd and 24th picks in round two and the 49th pick in round three. The sheer amount of picks taken in this draft by Edmonton gives them a boost in their grade by default. As they say, if you keep throwing darts, you are bound to hit a bullseye sooner or later. Edmonton has seemingly embraced this approach to drafting, except their hand is being guided towards that bullseye more than others by having three first round picks. In the first round Edmonton selected defenseman Sven Svechnikov, defenseman Pasta The Turtle, and forward Slavakov Vladimirashenko. You can see that a theme has emerged at the top of this draft and that was, get all the defenseman! Defenseman were picked with the first 4 picks of the draft. Svechnikov is one of the highest earners of the draft class and is destined to be a star at the SHL level. This was a great pickup by Edmonton. Svechnikov had 22 points in his rookie season. Pasta the Turtle, another defenseman is no slouch himself and is looking poised to have a solid career in the SHL, while not as highly rated as some of the other top defenseman of the draft, is a notable pick where Edmonton was able to snatch him up. They finished off the first round with a forward pick in Vladimirashenko who is also a solid earner. Vladimirashenko had 17 points in his rookie season. While there first round picks were all homeruns, their later round picks aren't going to live up to the hype of the first. Right now their highest earner picked out of the later rounds is Dara McQuick, taken with their last pick who is earning at a rate of 1.65 tpe per day. Edmonton took some risks with their later round picks, but the strength of their first round carries them to a great grade all around for this draft.

Edmonton Blizzard Draft Grade: A

The Seattle Argonauts - The bad news for Seattle is that they only had one pick in the S59 draft. The good news for Seattle is that they had the fifth overall pick. With the 5th overall pick Seattle picked Daud Ramza, the first forward picked of the draft. Ramza played for the Carolina Kraken in the SMJHL and he is a solid earner with a healthy bank account. He was among some of the top of his class with tpe earned and a rate of 1.66 per day. Ramza scored 23 points in his rookie season with the Kraken. Ramza is a Center who knows how to throw the body around tallying over 100 hits in his rookie season. Ramza had a decent season, but Seattle is going to want to see his possession numbers improve in his D+1 year. Once the rest of his game comes along, he's going to be a threat all over the ice. He's projected to be a first line center in this league and could be just what the doctor ordered for Seattle in a few years. Ramza has what it takes to make the big hit to jar a puck loose and then take it down the ice before passing off to a teammate to score or to snipe it in himself. Seeing as this was Seattle's only pick in the draft, it's good they picked up such a solid player. However, since they were picking a center from this position we think they missed out on a huge opportunity to draft Kawashima here. In our previous article we talked about why we are so high on Kawashima and we found it surprising that he was left on the board here in favor of Ramza. That's not saying the Ramza isn't a fantastic player, but it's our opinion Kawashima would have been the better pickup here.

Seattle Argonauts Draft Grade: B+

pride

The San Francisco Pride - The Pride had four picks in the S59 draft spread out throughout the draft. They had picks 7, 25, 43, and 48. With their first round pick, the Pride selected Miguel Hefeweizen, a center from the Maine Timber. Miguel Hefeweizen is a high rate earner and had above 300 tpe at the time of the draft. He's earning at a rate of 1.91 tpe per day which is great to see if you are the GM of San Francisco. Seeing as Kawashima and Ramza were already off the board at 7, the Pride made a really nice choice of picking Miguel Hefeweizen here at 7th overall. If he keeps earning the way he is, he's going to be a 2k+ player and a big time star for the Pride in the future. He had 21 points in his rookie year, and while his game is not fully yet rounded out, he'll have the development time he needs with the Timber before stepping up into a big role in the SHL. In the second round the Pride chose Fedor Sotakov at pick 25. Sotakov is a right wing with the Colorado Raptors who had 29 points in his rookie year. This is potentially the steal of the draft, folks. Sotakov has come out swinging after being drafted in the 2nd round. You think this kid has a chip on his shoulder? No, he's got an entire bag of Lay's on his shoulder. He came out publicly in the media about his disgust of being selected so late in the draft. We here at Siberia Sports kind of agree with the sentiment. Sotakov is earning at a rate of 2 tpe per day which is one of the top earning rates of the draft. He also has a 28 million bank account to support that rate going forward. The Pride really got away with one here and that's going to bump up their draft rating. We really think the Pride picked up the best value pick in the draft getting a potentially top 5 talent at pick 25. The Pride's later picks were not as strong, but it probably won't matter. This draft is a big success for them.

San Francisco Pride Draft Grade: A-

Aurora

The Winnipeg Aurora - The Winnipeg Aurora had four picks in the S59 draft and they had two back to back picks in the first round. They owned picks #8 and 9 in the first round. With those picks the Aurora selected Alexis Saint-Michele and Robot Sunfish. Winnipeg opted to use both of their first round picks on forwards here in the middle of the first round. Saint-Michele is a left winger who had a whopping 38 point rookie season with the Vancouver Whalers while having decent possession numbers for a rookie. Saint-Michele is a high earner in this draft class with a large bank account to fuel it. Saint-Michele is going to be a gem for the Aurora going into the future. Right behind him, they also have Robot Sunfish a right winger with 23 points in his first season. Sunfish has a high earning rate of 1.92 tpe per day. These are two extremely solid wing pickups for the Aurora. The Aurora also picked up Cormac Ponaire and Scooby Doo in the later rounds of the draft. Scooby Doo might end up being a big steal if he can keep up the earning rate of 2.13 tpe per day which is almost highest in the draft class. Aurora might have a late round steal on their hands here. We aren't quite as high on Ponaire, but them picking up Scooby Doo with their last pick in the draft is quite good for them. In a few seasons I think the league is going to look back on this draft for the Aurora with envy due to the potential three high end players that they were able to acquire here.

Winnipeg Aurora Draft Grade: A-

The New England Wolfpack - New England had three picks in the S59 draft. They had 11th, 35th and 40th overall. Not the strongest positioning, but a middle first rounder could still easily workout to being a star for the team. Let's see how they did. At #11 they chose defenseman Matej Winters. Winters has a low tpe count now, but is earning at a high rate of 1.85 tpe per day and has a massive bank account to go with that. Winters had 10 points in 50 games with Anaheim in his rookie season while playing 21 minutes per night. Winters isn't fully there yet in his development, but that's ok. At the rate he is going he'll be a great blue liner for years to come. Once his game starts to round out and he gets more comfortable at the professional level, we think he'll start to put it all together and have a great impact from the blue line. With the 35th and 40th pick, the Wolfpack took Jack Micro and Top Cheddar. Micro is a steal this deep in the draft. Micro is earning at a 2.19 tpe per day pace and already had over 300 tpe at time of drafting. If he continues on this development path he's going to be a stud and possibly a top steal of the draft. Micro had only 7 points, all of them assists in 66 games played with Anaheim. Due to depth issues, Micro was only seeing 8 minutes of ice per night. Watch him explode in the SMJHL really soon. Top Cheddar, is probably the best name in the draft so that gives New England some bonus points right there. Cheddar is a solid earner with a really strong bank account. While he only has about 240 tpe now, he could still be a top earner in the class. If New England struck gold with both of their depth picks, they are going to walk away from this draft extremely happy. We're more pumped up about their later round picks than their first rounder! That's always a good sign of solid scouting. New England did a great job here with what they had.

New England Wolfpack Draft Grade: A

Rage

The Manhattan Rage - The rage had the 12th, 19th and 66th overall picks in the S59 entry draft. They selected Robert E.O. Speedwagon, Robert Black and Shaq O'neal respectively with those picks. R.E.O. Speedwagon is a solid earner at 1.71 tpe per day and he's a left wing for Newfoundland with a penchant for racking up some helpers. He had 20 points in his rookie season with the Berserkers. He's a solid value pick in the middle of the first round. If he continues on his development path he should be able to make it as a first liner in the SHL in his prime. He's going to make a great setup guy who will need a high end finisher on his line. At 19th they chose Robert Black, a centerman with a nose for the net who had 26 points for Newfoundland in his rookie year. Keep these guys together and just benefit from the homegrown natural chemistry that could develop between these two. Black has a nose for the net already so playing with Speedwagon is going to be a big plus in the future for the Rage. Black is earning at a 1.96 tpe per day pace which is very good and this is a really nice pickup for the first pick of the 2nd round of the draft. While the Rage didn't pick up any bonafide top end talent in the draft, they did get two players that should fill out a top 6 nicely. Shaq O'neal is a long term project that the Rage is just hoping can become a depth piece in the future. Any more than that and they've really made out like bandits. O'neal probably won't have a great impact at the next level while earning less than a tpe per day.

Manhattan Rage Draft Grade: B+

The Tampa Bay Barracuda - Tampa Bay owned the 13th, 23rd, 31st and 41st picks in the S59 entry draft. Tampa Bay is still rebuilding their team and these picks are going to be very important for them and their future. In the first round at 13th overall they selected Ethan Bouchard a left defenseman out of St. Louis. Bouchard isn't earning at a very high rate at the moment with only 1.35 tpe per day, but he does have a huge bank account to use to help turn up those numbers. He was playing almost 20 minutes a night in St. Louis and put up 12 points in his rookie season. He still has a ways to go to round out his game, but he's already responsible in his own end and the coaches trust him in big time situations. Not a bad pickup for Tampa Bay here as we drift into the later parts of round #1. At #23 they selected Bob Duncan who is earning at a 2.13 tpe per day rate on a modest bank account. If he can keep that earning rate up, he's going to have been an excellent value pick in the second round. He's a right winger with Anaheim who had 9 goals as a rookie and 21 points. Tampa Bay is hoping they found a sniper in the draft that happened to fall to them in the second round. With their later picks they picked up Marco Barengurb, Janix Lux and Podan Podanavich who seems to be an off the board reach kind of pick here. The other two are fine players to choose in the later rounds and are earning tpe at pretty average to good rates. If they keep it up they will help fill out the depth for the Barracuda and help to bring the team back into contention. There is potential in these picks, but they didn't go out and find a world beater here. I think given the state Tampa Bay has been in for a while, they are going to need one of these players to really exceed expectations.

Tampa Bay Barracuda Draft Grade: B-

Specters

The New Orleans Spectors - Nola is starting to come down from many season of contention for the championship and they are going to need to nail some draft picks to make sure it is a quick rebuild. Nola had picks #14, 26, 37, 46, and 55 in this draft. That's a lot of picks, with most being in the later rounds. Nola is going to have to have nailed their picks in the later rounds to help bring in reinforcements for a team that is beginning to age out. At #14 they selected Ville Kurri a center playing for Anchorage. He put up 23 points in his rookie season and is going to be an offensive impact player for Nola if he can develop his game more. We like that Nola came out hunting for a center here in the latter part of the first round. Kurri is already responsible in his own end and that is a great sign for a young centerman. Kurri is only earning at an average kind of rate with 1.48 tpe per day, but he does have a big bank account to work with. Nola is going to want to see him become a max earner and to lead their team down the middle in a few years. Their next picked was used on Lebron Brady, a right winger out of St. Louis who had a fantastic 31 points in his rookie season. St. Louis is a breeding ground of great talent and Nola has their obvious ties there so it is no surprise to see them looking to St. Louis to feed them some more stars. This is a great pickup for Nola at 26th overall. He's earning 1.91 tpe per day so if he keeps that up he's going to be a future star for Nola. While their first two picks are looking great, the rest of their draft unfortunately looks pretty ho-hum. They might get a depth player, but it's not looking like anything significant will come from those later three picks.

New Orleans Draft Grade: B

The Los Angeles Panthers - The Panthers had three picks in the draft starting with pick #15 in the first round where they took center Shane Duffy Jr. of the Quebec Citadelles who put up an impressive 26 points in his rookie season while scoring 10 goals. He did all of that while averaging under 10 minutes per game. Not too shabby for a rookie center. Duffy Jr. is a solid earner at 1.85 tpe per day and quite honestly he should have gone a little earlier in this draft most likely. The Panthers walk away with a really nice pick here at#15. At #33 the Panthers picked up Aleks Blixstrom who is earning over 2 tpe per day but was drafted with under 300 tpe. Blixstrom is a sniper right wing playing for the Carolina Kraken. He put up 24 points in his rookie season and shot a very impressive 18% on the season scoring an incredible 15 goals. This is something you love to see in your second round pick. This is such an incredible pickup here for the Panthers and you know they had to feel good walking away from this draft with Blixstrom here. With their pick at #64 they nabbed Bloody Oath who we honestly can't find any information on and feel like you won't be seeing him around the SHL anytime soon or in any impactful way. So the Panthers picked up two solid players in the draft here.

Los Angeles Panthers Draft Grade: B+

Inferno

The Atlanta Inferno - The Inferno had pick #17, 20, 29, 34, and 47. With five picks in the draft, the Inferno were primed to pick up some good players and help their team keep the prospect pipeline flowing. With their first round pick they took Angus McFife XVIII, a great earning defenseman playing for the Colorado Raptors. Earning at 2.04 tpe per day with a gigantic bank account bodes well for the development of the young defenseman. The Inferno were able to get a lot of value out of this pick because Mcfife is on his way to being a top pairing defender in the SHL. In his rookie season with Colorado he had 20 points and logged an average of just under 19 minutes per game. Jack Nishimori, Salzberger Lillehammersson, Evgeni Petrov and Gino Lombardo made up their later round picks in the draft. Unfortunately it doesn't look like the Inferno were able to pick up any steals in the later round of the draft, but they did get a few solid earners who are probably going to be able to make the SHL team as middle six players. Mcfife could be a star for them, and they were able to pick up some depth in the later rounds, so overall a decent showing here by the Inferno. We would have liked to see them go for him high risk high rewards players with their abundance of picks, especially as there were some really great players taken in later rounds in this draft.

Atlanta Inferno Draft Grade: C+

No other teams selected in the first round of the draft, so we are going to give them all C- because in this league, you need first round picks to have a great draft.

That's our grades for the S59 draft, thanks for reading and see you next time!