Hello all and welcome to my 2nd Mock Draft! I had originally done one here, S82 Draft Primer, and it goes through each current SHL team, discussing needs, wants, current team outlook at the both the Majors and Minors level, and then eventually a very rough mock of where I think teams would go in the draft. 

Obviously, that is way out of date, as even today we saw a big trade shake-up the top 10 of the draft and shift things around. With that, I wanted to provide a new mock draft for the entirety of the first round, as well as compare what I had originally laid out in my first attempt at a mock and contrast between my perspective then and my perspective now. 

The biggest things that influenced a ton of these movements are scouting conversations and really, just a better understanding of the league. As with most sim league drafts, its almost always user over position. The best teams will always get the best user and work them into their systems to the best of their abilities. I think the really shifted my thoughts on the bottom 10 here. In my original mock, I had a ton of focus on forcing positional need over users (plus, we all were still getting to know one another in the class), so it's hard to accurately determine just how active someone is (which Pray did an excellent write-up on that earlier today, I highly recommend it).

Secondly, the draft has changed a fair bit. There are a few spots that didn't really move, shoutout SFP, but they also have traded that pick away and it belongs to TEX (which they had already done when I first did this mock), but that goes in hand in hand with having a better understanding of what moves had already been made, and trying to better predict how teams were going to approach such a large draft. That, coupled with the next draft also looking to be fairly large, it definitely changes potential priorities for teams that had already bailed on this class from prior seasons. 

Let me know what you all think, and tell me how wrong I am! I love a good mock discussion! 

*Toivo Jokinen is a RW, and my eyes are blind! I don't think this changes their placement in the mock, but wanted to clarify since I got it wrong both times for whatever reason! 

damn can't believe my draft stock fell that much smh

Kristaps Skalbergs | D | Thunder Bay Walleye | Minnesota Monarchs | Latvia | 364 TPE
---Draft History---
S81 SMJHL Draft | Selected 36OA by Thunder Bay
S82 SHL Draft | Selected 25OA by Minnesota
---Career Stats---
--SMJHL--
S81 | TBW | 7G | 37A | 44P | 66GP | 103HIT | 108SB | 82TA
S82 | TBW | ??G | ??A | ??P | ??GP | ??HIT | ??SB | ??TA
--WJC--
S81 | RAT | ??G | ??A | ??P | ??GP | ??HIT | ??SB | ??TA

Crushing @Ashes dreams of going to MON.

Also.. when did I become a defenseman? News to me.

damn can't believe my draft stock fell that much smh

if you or pasta go outside the top 10 we riot

if you or pasta go outside the top 10 we riot

i mean, objectively, if i go anywhere near the top 10 something has gone very wrong somewhere

Kristaps Skalbergs | D | Thunder Bay Walleye | Minnesota Monarchs | Latvia | 364 TPE
---Draft History---
S81 SMJHL Draft | Selected 36OA by Thunder Bay
S82 SHL Draft | Selected 25OA by Minnesota
---Career Stats---
--SMJHL--
S81 | TBW | 7G | 37A | 44P | 66GP | 103HIT | 108SB | 82TA
S82 | TBW | ??G | ??A | ??P | ??GP | ??HIT | ??SB | ??TA
--WJC--
S81 | RAT | ??G | ??A | ??P | ??GP | ??HIT | ??SB | ??TA

I dunno man, that Passarelli sounds like a bust