The NHL Draft order is officially set after the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Final.
Finally for the first time this offseason, the Philadelphia Flyers get lucky, as the Florida Panthers have won the Stanley Cup for the second straight year. Now why is that lucky for the Flyers? Well, because of the first-round trade with Edmonton last draft, the Flyers get their first round pick this year which is now locked in at #31 instead of picking #32 last year. We call that the Art of the Deal baby 😎.
Yes, the Flyers do have three first round picks thanks to the Sean Walker trade and that previously-mentioned Edmonton trade, but what’s truly important is what they do with their top-six pick. We’ll get into the later parts of the draft though, don’t worry.
Here is the final Flyers Nation First Round NHL Mock Draft
I’m not believing any of the smoke I’m seeing about James Hagens potentially being the first overall pick here. Yes, he is a Long Island kid who grew up an Islanders fan, and yes he did say he’d want to win a Stanley Cup as an Islander, but passing on a player like Schaefer would be insane unless the Islanders end up trading back.
Schaefer is the best player in this draft by far, I don’t think there’s a close second (and Michael Misa is really, really good).
The Sharks start the draft, I think. Yes, Misa is going to get taken here no matter what, but questioning who goes second is not what I meant. What I meant is the Sharks might end up trading this pick to a team desperate to make a jump for a player like Misa.
There have been some reports coming out that Misa’s compete level and drive aren’t the best, which could be smoke from teams trying to trade up to lessen the cost. If those concerns are real though, I can’t see a team taking a huge swing like that in a trade (unless you’re a team like the Buffalo Sabres). I think the Sharks hold and Misa becomes the Robin to Celebrini’s Batman.
I have no idea what is going to happen from 3-32. Even from 3-10 there are so many different possibilities that can happen. There is no clear-cut order here so I think the Blackhawks go best player available.
I think Frondell projects better as a wing in the NHL than as a center. With his natural talent, having him line up on Bedard’s wing, or even Bedard lining up on Frondell’s wing, could make this a good duo for the future. The analytics models all see him as a future superstar. We’ll see.
The first major “woah” moment in this draft as Brady Martin FLIES up the board here. Two weeks ago, if you told me Martin was a top 10 pick I would’ve laughed at you, but there has been an incredible amount of smoke coming out of Utah surrounding Martin over the past couple weeks to the point I don’t think it’s a smokescreen.
I don’t know why Martin is flying this high. I don’t see anything special in his game. To me he’s in the tier below the next group of guys (McQueen, Eklund, O’Brien). I get he played a lot of minutes this year, and I understand he had a solid World Juniors, but I just personally don’t see him being a top four prospect in this draft.
The best way I can describe him is that he seems like a guy the old Flyers regime would love and be all over: big, plays a lot of minutes, hits people. Obviously he has a decent amount of skill to even be in the early first round projections, but at four? No thanks. I’m not a Mammoth fan though, so you do you.
A lot of people have pinned Caleb Desnoyers here, but I don’t think that happens. Desnoyers has had a lot of talk around him the past couple months, mostly all of it positive, which scares me that it’s his team putting out as much good press as possible to raise his draft stock. He seems like he would fit the mold from past Preds teams on what they want. A 200-foot center with size. I don’t know if that’s the game plan anymore after this past season.
Now onto Hagens and why he’s a fit here. Nashville has a lot of older, bigger, slower, two-way forwards with scoring ability but no set up help. Ryan O’Reilly, Filip Forsberg, and Steven Stamkos all come to mind. Having Hagens be the guy who is the Robin to Batman will be perfect for them.
Now Hagens is an interesting prospect. For multiple years he was considered “the guy” in this draft. This year, after his season at Boston College, his NHL ready-ness was questioned. He’s turning out to be more of a project than originally thought, which I think the Predators are ok with. I know Hagens has fallen from his peak at one, but I don’t think his tumble gets past five. The Predators would be dumb to not take the perfect fit for their team.
*TRADE: PHI gets #9, Bowen Byram – BUF gets #6, Bobby Brink, Helge Grans
Yeah, I bet you didn’t expect THIS move huh? With Brady Martin jumping up the board to four, it now guarantees that the picks between six and nine will have one of the four available: Porter Martone, Jake O’Brien, Viktor Eklund, and Roger McQueen. I think Danny Brière would love to get help on the blue line, and with the report from The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz that the rumors surrounding Nic Hague and the Flyers aren’t true, the Flyers pivot here to a different defenseman that’s on the trading block.
Buffalo is probably going to need a replacement for Alex Tuch sooner rather than later and JJ Peterka is now gone to Utah. With Martone here Buffalo sprints to the podium to draft him (even though the draft isn’t centralized this year. Thanks Gary, you walking empty suit).
He would fit perfectly with Tage Thompson with his size and strength. Neither are great skaters either so they won’t be out sprinting each other on the ice. Martone has a great Hockey IQ and will be a great player to feed Thompson pucks for him to fire at the net.
I think this trade makes sense for both sides. The Flyers get a reclamation defenseman who can absolutely become a long term first pair defenseman with the right development while also staying in the top 10 of the draft, and the Sabres get a younger RW with middle six potential, a depth defenseman, and a top six pick in the draft.
Bruins fans will be jumping for joy when they see that one of the big four centers somehow falls into their lap here at pick seven. Yes, he is coming off a season that skyrocketed him up the draft boards, but there are questions about his wrist health. I know he’s projected as a top five pick at this point, but as I said earlier all the talk around Desnoyers the past couple months has pretty much been all positive.
I don’t know if the teams who are drafting top 10 are buying into these reports as much as the fans and reporters are, but I do think it’s a strange sign that the press is pumping out stories about how great a prospect he is. If he was really that great of a prospect there wouldn’t be this much of a need to inflate his draft stock. All the top guys are having their flaws shown (Misa has a low compete level, Hagens is too small raw right now, etc.) and Desnoyers is all positive press. Not a great sign to me.
Even after all that going back to the original team drafting, the Bruins have needed center help since Patrice Bergeron and David Krejčí both retired, and they finally get it here with Desnoyers.
I still have no idea what Seattle is doing, but after weeks of thinking I’ve finally come to a conclusion. They have a young forward group already, picking a defenseman here would make more sense than yet another forward. They traded away their older forwards in Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde, but they still have a lot of bigger contracts on the blue line in Vince Dunn, Brandon Montour, Adam Larsson, and Jamie Oleksiak (~$24.4M AAV combined!).
Mrtka is a big, strong, great skating, right-handed defensive prospect with an incredibly high ceiling. His problem is that he doesn’t always seem to give 100%, but that’s something an NHL team will take a chance on changing given his skillset. Plus he would be yet another monster on that blue line. The Kraken have a ways to go before they start competing for real, but Mrtka is a great building block for the future.
*TRADE: PHI gets #9, Bowen Byram – BUF gets #6, Bobby Brink, Helge Grans
Ok we’ve heard this story before. Extremely gifted center from the Brandon Wheat Kings is there for the Flyers to take, but there’s injury concerns. Yes, Roger McQueen has back problems, but there are reports that they were misdiagnosed at the time and he should be healthy and ready to go for next season wherever he is playing.
The Flyers have needed center help for as long as many can remember. What is interesting about McQueen is that he might have the highest ceiling in this draft, and if he did not have the back issues, he could’ve been picked anywhere between two and four. I also think Flyers fans who see him will just love that he’s MASSIVE. He probably will take time to develop, two to three years I would guess before he’s a real contributor, but when you have seven picks in the first two rounds of the draft, you can take a swing on a skyscraper ceiling/low floor prospect (especially after trading back and picking up a blue line piece that could develop as well).
Brière is great at throwing smokescreens around. When you hear names surrounding the Flyers, that’s not usually where they go. There’s a lot of buzz around Hagens, Martin, and even Jake O’Brien. I don’t know if it’s real, but if the past is any indication of what the Flyers’ plan is, they don’t take any of them.
Note: Okay, the Flyers had just traded for Trevor Zegras literally as I finished writing this section. They absolutely get McQueen here now for the size factor plus the high ceiling. Having a bit more of a cushion at center, even with Ryan Poehling shipped out, lets them swing here.
People are convinced that the Ducks take a forward here. I cannot fathom as to why though. Their forward group is rock solid. They’ve added vets such as Poehling and Chris Kreider to an already decent group. They drafted Beckett Sennecke last season. There are rumors they’re going to swing big on Mitch Marner, and their defense is still a little thin.
Jackson Smith is the best defensive player available here. I really don’t think they go for another forward here, it just seems redundant at this point.
It was between O’Brien and Victor Eklund here. In years past Eklund would be a guy that could line up on Sidney Crosby’s wing and put up 30 and 40 just by playing with Crosby – a Chris Kunitz or Bryan Rust-type player. But with Crosby and Evgeni Malkin getting older and at the end of their careers, the Penguins need to go center here. I think the player they would want most is McQueen, but with the Flyers grabbing him, a pivot to O’Brien is a great second option for them.
Well after I wrote my previous section, we learned that the Penguins will get back-to-back picks here due to Vancouver flipping the Rangers’ pick from the J.T. Miller trade to the Penguins in the Marcus Pettersson-Drew O’Connor trade. The Rangers had the choice to keep this year’s pick or keep next year’s pick; they chose to keep next year’s pick instead.
With a center taken, getting another forward to build up the front could be helpful but I don’t know. There is going to be a looooooong dark period in Pittsburgh (until Bettman gives them yet another generational player in Gavin McKenna next year so the fans don’t quit on the team again which would force them to threaten relocation for the 3rd time). But with all their players getting old and their prospect pool being underwhelming to say the least, taking the best player available is the play here.
MAYBE they go Kashawn Aitcheson here as a Letang and/or Karlsson replacement , but I don’t think you can justify passing on Eklund for Aitcheson. Eklund is the best player available at this point.
Speaking of Aitcheson, here he is going to the Red Wings. I think the Yzerplan has been a complete and utter failure, and I feel like it would be kind of dumb for them to not take a center here as Dylan Larkin insurance in case the relationship sours more. But their defense STINKS. They have Mo Seider and… well that’s about it. They need another defenseman to develop badly. They go Aitcheson here to build up a blue line that’s felt neglected the past couple of seasons.
*TRADE: PHI gets #14 – CBJ gets #22, #40
With the Flyers having so much ammo left over even after trading for Zegras, I think they make a jump here with a team Brière has worked with in the past. Vancouver seems to like Cootes a lot and making sure he doesn’t get to pick 15 pressures Brière into making this deal. I honestly think the Flyers and Blue Jackets have a pretty good relationship between franchises. Many trades have been made between the two teams over the years from many different GMs on both sides.
When you get to this point of the draft (mid-teens), it doesn’t take as much to jump eight spots. I think the Flyers keep 36, it feels more like a late first in this draft anyways with the talent pool left. 40 would be a great in-between pick for the Jackets, especially since the Flyers flipped the Jackets’ second-round pick this year in the Zegras trade. The Flyers jump and the Jackets get back into the second round, a win-win for both teams.
Now on to Cootes. The Flyers already took size with McQueen at nine, so the addition of a high hockey IQ here is what entices Brière. In his Zegras press conference, Brière made it clear he was not happy with the center depth the Flyers have right now. He already made a trade to get a top six guy, and now is going to draft another player who can hopefully push players like Noah Cates or Sean Couturier down the lineup (or even back to the wing in Cates’ case) in future years.
This could’ve honestly be who Vancouver planned to take here anyways before the Flyers jumped them for Cootes. I don’t think they’re really zeroed in one specific prospect. What we do know is they really need center help and taking Bear here is the right player for the right team. Even if he doesn’t pan out as a center, I don’t think it would be a problem for Vancouver if he ends up on Elias Pettersson’s wing.
The Canucks need a forward, and I don’t think going out and signing or trading for one is the right idea, especially if they are going to try to extend Quinn Hughes. Bear goes here.
The Canadiens are in the exact same spot as the Ducks right now where everyone thinks they are going to go forward. That makes no sense!! They need defensemen badly, and Reid is not a major reach at this point in the draft. With Caufield, and Laine, and Suzuki, and Demidov, and Slafkovský, and Newhook, and Dach, and – well, you get the point, the need for another forward is a little lost on me.
Hutson is really all they have besides Reinbacher, who seems a bit slow to develop. Reid is the pick here.
*TRADE: NYR gets #17 – MTL gets K’Andre Miller, #70
I honestly think that the Canadiens will trade this pick for a player that will help them compete next year. As previously stated they need help on the blue line. Miller is looking for a new home, and Montréal seems like the perfect fit. The Rangers gave up their 12th overall pick, but with how bad last season went for them, they need to get back in the first round and build up the system again.
Carbonneau is a great pick here for them given that they also just traded away Chris Kreider. I think him coming in and filling in that wing role in a couple years along with Gabe Perrault could be a a good second line tandem.
Calgary is in a super-weird spot. They were a BAD team last year and the only reason they were in playoff contention was because of Dustin Wolf. However, Wolf collapsing down the stretch showed how flawed this team really was when the goalie wasn’t carrying them. I had thoughts that they would try to trade this pick for a player who can help now, but I think this is a situation like the Flyers in 2023-2024 where they aggressively overachieved and are bound for regression next season.
I think Reschny feels like pick here. They have a couple forwards up front who can help out in Kadri, Huberdeau, Zary, and Backlund, but other than them their forward group is super weak. Reschny will come in and hopefully be a solid middle six center with skill. Calgary still has to find one of those.
St. Louis is in a much better position than many think. After Jim Montgomery took over last year they kicked it into gear and ran hot into the playoffs. The series against Winnipeg was insane as they gave the best in the West a run for their money. They might end up trading this pick and if they do I’m guessing it would be for scoring help, as their defense is pretty solid. If he hadn’t been dealt to Utah late last night, I could have seen the Blues exploring a Peterka trade here to pair with Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. I still see the Blues going forward, and Lakovic’s size and ability would mesh well with what they’re building in St. Louis.
The first of two picks in the next three for Columbus after their trade back with the Flyers. Columbus has a good foundation so far, but they definitely need to shore up the blue line in the future after trading away David Jiricek and having Ivan Provorov most likely walking this offseason. Hensler is a solid RHD prospect who I think would do well learning from Werenski. I think the forwards are more abundant in this draft so the Jackets take a defenseman while they can.
Ottawa right now screams 2013-2019 Flyers, a middling team with no real projection of major improvement, but some good pieces to build around. They also don’t have a lot of picks to work with to make those moves. Trading for a player with this pick would make a lot of sense, but after Peterka was traded from Buffalo to Utah, there really doesn’t seem to be a fit unless they put a bigger package together for Marco Rossi. I don’t think they do that, they’re already pretty small down the middle.
So using this first to grab a center makes the most sense. They are still deeper on defensemen than centers even after the Dylan Cozens trade, so I don’t think they go D here. Nesbitt is another big center they can have line up down the middle, meaning they’ll have two big centers behind Stutzle and Cozens in Pnto and Nesbit.
*TRADE: PHI gets #14 – CBJ gets #22, #40
The Jackets get a LHD and a RHD in this draft and walk away feeling really good. Middle six wingers are easier to find in trades and on the open market than top four defensemen are, so getting their defense stockpiled in the draft here feels like a solid game plan. Fiddler is huge too which helps them get some size on the blue line in the future.
*TRADE: PHI gets #23, Michael Bunting 50% retained ($2.25M) – NSH gets Cam York’s RFA Rights
Howie Rosema… I mean Danny Brière makes ANOTHER draft day trade this time shipping out Cam York after picking up Bowen Byram earlier. They add pick #23 and the last year of Bunting’s contract, a prove it type year to see if he can contribute to the top six at all in a different system. This season is the reclamation project year for the Flyers, get a bunch of cast off guys who have shown flashes of great hockey for a season or two in the past (Zegras, Byram, Bunting) and see what they can do in a different environment. Nashville also gets a younger defensemen who can fill in right away especially with the Roman Josi injury news.
The Flyers take the giant Russian here, as the organization continues their complete 180 from no Russians to all the Russians. Prokhorov has been flying up draft boards recently and I think Danny won’t sit on his hands and wait to see if he falls to 31. He makes his move up.
The Kings have a deep squad but no clear SUPERSTAR right now. They can’t get over the hump that is the Oilers. There isn’t a player that I think they’d trade this pick for to put them over the top. They pick the best defenseman available here in Boumedienne just to load up more depth on the blue line.
Potter, in my opinion, is one of the better players projected to go later in the first round. I wish he falls to 31 but there is not a chance that happens. The Blackhawks just signed Ryan Donato to an extension but there’s nothing wrong with having a deep center group. I think Chicago builds a nice little center group in the first round between Potter and Frondell earlier.
Spence is the prototypical Nashville middle six wing. Tough, hard working, and aggressive. With Marchessault looking to be moved, and the Flyers nabbing Bunting as well, a wing is what is needed. Hagens and Spence should be a solid first round for Nashville.
Washington might trade this pick to go all in one one to two more years of Ovi, but there really isn’t a glaring hole besides first or second line center (depending on what you think of Strome). Unfortunately for Washington, you really cant package a late first for a top six center unless you’re dumping more, so instead of doing that the Caps take center Shane Vansaghi here.
The Jets might lose Nikolaj Elhers this offseason, but their blue line is where most of their problems lie. Wang is a massive right handed defenseman who would look hilarious playing next to Logan Stanley if he’s still around in a couple years. If not, he is a good replacement for Stanley although on the opposite side (maybe even an upgrade in play as well if he pans out).
The Canes are all wings and no centers on offense. Their only real centers are Sebastian Aho and an aging Jordan Staal. Jesperi Kotkaniemi has been underwhelming in Carolina. This is a depth pick for when Staal eventually retires and they need to slot in a 3C. Gästrin can be that guy.
Brzustewicz (that name is so hard to spell) would be a PERFECT fit for the Sharks who will be looking for more blue line help after loading their forward group even more at pick two. Brzustewicz would actually also be perfect for the Sharks since he and Sam Dickinson (ninth overall pick last year) played on the London Knights together this past season. The Sharks finally have a deeeeeeep prospect pool. If even a couple of those guys pan out they could be good for a long time.
The Flyers and needing a goalie: a tale as old as time. We usually don’t see goalies go this early in the draft unless the prospect is a can’t miss player. Ravensbergen is a special goalie prospect. We will have to wait a bit for him to reach the NHL as it usually goes with most young goalies, but adding him to a goalie pipeline that is deep and competitive will be great for development.
On top of that, young goalies are valuable trade pieces at the deadline. Spencer Knight got Seth Jones for Florida this past year and he was a former first rounder who has had more downs than ups in his career (not even talking about hit brief stint in the player assistance program. I hope he got the help he needed and is better now). So even if it came to flipping Ravensbergen later, or even being able to move Kolosov, Zavragin, or Bjarnason, the Flyers will have options.
And with the last pick in the first round of the NHL draft the Flames take a center. When you really only have Kadri as a reliable center, you take swings on players even if you grabbed a center earlier. The Flames did not as I think Reschny is more of a wing than a center. Horcoff is a BIG dude and could be a formidable middle six center for Calgary.
Watch the first round of the NHL Draft on June 27th at 7 pm EST on ESPN
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