On April 18, the NHL held the draft lottery to determine the order of this year’s draft pick. The 14 teams who did not make the Stanley Cup Playoffs all held their breath in anticipation to see which pick they would get.
This year, everyone wanted to be a top-two pick because there are two extremely talented prospects that are eligible to be drafted. The two players that scouts across the continent are raving about are Connor McDavid of the Erie Otters, and Jack Eichel of Boston University.
McDavid is 18 years old and is a scoring machine. This year he played in 47 games, had 44 goals and 76 assists. That’s a total of 120 points. For those of you who don’t know, that is an insane number of points. I couldn’t even do that in EA SPORTS NHL ‘15.
Eichel is also 18 years old and is completing his freshman year at Boston University. If you have Snapchat, you may have seen the Frozen Four story. The Frozen Four is the hockey equivalent to NCAA Basketball’s Final Four. Eichel led the Terriers to the Frozen Four as a freshman, but they lost in the championship. In 40 games, Eichel had 26 goals and 45 assists for a total of 71 points. There is no question that he is a world-class talent.
The projected order of the draft was Buffalo, Arizona and Edmonton, respectively. Luckily for Edmonton, they won the draft lottery and were awarded with the number one overall pick. This bumped Buffalo to number two and Arizona to number three.
Edmonton is excited, Buffalo is satisfied and Arizona is angry. Arizona desperately needs young offensive talent, but will likely be unable to find the game-changer they were hoping to get in either McDavid or Eichel.
I’ve got to say, as a relatively novice hockey fan, this is all very exciting to me. I am excited to see how these guys pan out and how everything unfolds a few years from now. Tune in on June 26 to see what happens.
Go Stars.
