Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

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As a quick preface, this week's article builds off a piece I wrote back in December arguing that you should always consider trading first-round farm picks because of reduced timelines and greater overall value. I stand by what I wrote about this "Zero Picks" strategy even though I completely whiffed on Easton Cowan (TOR)—as this week's article digs into.

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Heading into fantasy draft season has me scheming and looking for angles on how to approach the drafts in each of my leagues.

Part of that involves assessing the 2024 draft class and developing my own rough, tiered rankings so that I can better understand what I am talking about when, say, a fourth-round pick in 2024 is offered to me as part of a deal. I am more writer than scout, so for me this list is an amalgamation of scouting reports, draft guides, various rankings with explanations from people I respect, model projections, and limited game footage.

It is constantly shifting, but here is what my Top 36 looks like at the moment. This ranking is for fantasy specifically, tiered out for a 12-team league so I can more easily visualize who might be available at different stages of the draft:

            First Round

1. Macklin Celebrini
2. Ivan Demidov
3. Cayden Lindstrom
4. Zayne Parekh
5. Zeev Buium
6. Berkly Catton
7. Tij Iginla
8. Artyom Levshunov
9. Konsta Helenius
10. Beckett Sennecke
11. Michael Brandsegg-Nygard
12. Cole Eiserman

            Second Round

1. Sam Dickinson
2. Igor Chernyshov
3. Carter Yakemchuk
4. Andrew Basha
5. Adam Jiricek
6. Michael Hage
7. Liam Greentree
8. Trevor Connelly
9. Yegor Surin
10. Teddy Stiga
11. Terik Parascak
12.  Anton Silayev

            Third Round

• Alfons Freij
• Nikita Artamonov
• Justin Poirier
• Aron Kiviharju
• Luke Misa
• Tanner Howe
• Leo Sahlin Wallenius
• Cole Hutson
• Max Plante
• Javon Moore
• Jett Luchanko
• Sacha Boisvert

If I have the seventh and eighth picks in the Third Round (31st & 32nd overall), now I can put a name to the space, so to speak: those picks could yield Leo Sahlin Wallenius and Cole Hutson if everyone drafts exactly as I would (which they won't, but it still provides a ballpark).

The other part of preparing for a draft is reminding myself again and again to avoid becoming a Smaug hoarding prospects in my Lonely Mountain. That involves the following systematic assessments, each of which I will dig into further:

1. Positional Strength
2. Number of Openings
3. NHL-Ready/High-End Prospects
4. Draft Needs

Positional Strength

First, I take a hard look at which players I have at each position. If I have no desire to trade a player, that usually puts them in my highest tier and means I imagine that position as filled and unavailable. If I have two, top-tier Left Wings and three LW slots, for instance, even if I have some lower-tier replacements currently, that means longer term I am looking for one LW. When I am assessing deals and draft options, I keep "One LW" in the back of my mind like a compass.

Number of Openings

Going through each position like that generates a list like: 1 LW, 1 C, 2 D, 1 G. These are my team's holes, areas of weakness.

High-End/NHL-Ready Prospects

Next is a scan of my farm team to see, again, which prospects I would not want to trade. Those are the top-tier farm players who I imagine being able to eventually strengthen one of those weak spots.

An interesting type of prospect to scan for at this stage beyond the high-end assets is an NHL-ready player like Liam Ohgren (MIN) or Alex Laferriere (LAK). They will likely put up decent-but-low-end point totals in 2024-25 and are likely destined for a middle-six role moving forward. In terms of fantasy value, this type might appeal more to contenders who need help now and appreciate their short timeline.

These assets carry additional value if they can clearly tilt a category like Shots, Hits, PIM, or PPP—someone like Kasper Halttunen (SJS), for instance, who is currently scoring goals a mile a minute for the London Knights in the Memorial Cup. He shoots, snipes, hits, and generates about a PIM per game, so while he might not be a high-end, top-line player at his peak, he offers enough fantasy intrigue to be a valuable asset in most leagues.

Kasper Halttunen, who could not stop scoring in the @OHLHockey playoffs. He hits as often per 60 as he shoots. His stock is rising. I'd acquire him if you can. https://t.co/Agk8DsScV9 pic.twitter.com/OEGRlT4Hq9

— Fantasy Hockey Doctor – Victor Nuño (@VictorNuno12) May 16, 2024

Draft Needs

While positional needs should play a role in draft decisions, many savvy managers ascribe more weight to the Best Player Available (BPA): in Ferengi terms, acquire the best asset to maximize your profits. Even if you don't need a goalie, take Jesper Wallstedt (MIN) at 20th overall because you know his trade value will be top-shelf.

Another thing to think about at this stage in both Head-to-Head and Rotisserie formats is how your team performed last year in each of your league's categories. This is such a critical post-mortem, even if you dominated. What were your strengths and weaknesses? Did you over- or underperform in any categories? Which categories need a boost, potentially from the draft?

(Accessing past season data in Fantrax can be tricky, so here are instructions in case that is helpful: click on either the Fantrax logo in the top left (PC) or the "All Leagues" button also in the top left (Mobile), then click on either "League Archive" (PC) or "Archive" (Mobile). Find the League and Year you are interested in, then go to Standings → Season Stats. There you can rank by each category to see how your team stacked up.)

This is a great resource to check on your team's performance throughout the season too, of course. But you should spend some time here at the end of the campaign regardless because these numbers are what matter in fantasy at the end of the day.

Hopefully that four-step process can help clarify your priorities going into a prospect draft, especially if your league permits using picks on either incoming draftees or established, free agent players and prospects.

My main takeaway in keeper and dynasty formats is that I usually don't have many openings on the pro roster as I thought and also have an elite prospect or three at each position already gunning for those openings.

Conclusion: I should trade draft picks more often, potentially even all of them.

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That conclusion leads to an interesting question: which prospects from past draft classes slipped through my fantasy drafts? If I had traded all five of my picks for the 2023 draft, for instance, who could I have snagged for free right after the draft in a five-round, twelve-team league?

Of course, most leagues have some form of waivers to regulate this process, so there is no guarantee a team with higher priority won't snake your guy after the draft. But if someone drops through, there is a chance they are sitting in the collective blind spot of your league mates for the time being and could be yours for free.

That potentially represents big-time value, especially when considering all the additional players and assets you could acquire by trading all of your draft picks. The value of picks spikes right before (and even during) drafts as everyone reads up on the incoming class and starts to claim favourites and identify sleepers. This process picks up speed as the real NHL draft approaches, because by then we know which teams' players were drafted by, which can impact perceived value and opportunity.

Draft picks can carry incredible value because they represent Pure Potential, the most exciting part of evaluating prospects. Moving them makes extra sense when you consider the incredibly consistent dip in value that most prospects experience between when they are drafted and when they finally hit their Breakout Threshold after 200 or even 400 NHL games. Even the best and brightest prospects often look a bit tarnished by the time they get their feet under them at the NHL level.

While retaining high-end draft picks (top five or ten) is a surefire way to add elite talent to your team, the pattern with prospects is clear: there is almost always a 3-4+ year wait between when a player is drafted and when they become fantasy relevant. Just look at Alexis Lafreniere (NYR), the first-overall selection in 2020. It took him over 300 NHL games and the better part of four years to recover (most of) the value and hype he had as the top pick four years ago.

That is a loooooong, nerve wracking time to sit on a young player in fantasy, especially given that you are presumably trying to win the whole time.

Back to the exercise at hand, here are the top 20 players who were available for free on the waiver wire after a five-round draft in a twelve-team dynasty league. They are ranked according to their perceived upside (out of 10) via the Dobber Prospects Organizational Rankings, a composite of the DP editing staff's individual rankings:

1. Easton Cowan (TOR), 6.7
2. Oliver Bonk (PHI), 6.6
3. Hunter Brzustewicz (CGY), 5.9
4. Carson Rehkopf (SEA), 5.8
5. Otto Stenberg (STL), 5.6
6. Theo Lindstein (STL), 5.5
7. Beau Akey (EDM), 5.4
8. Lenni Hameenaho (NJD), 5.4
9. Mathieu Cataford (VGK), 5.0
10. Kasper Halttunen (SJS), 4.7
11. Oscar Fisker Molgaard (SEA), 4.7
12. Felix Unger Sorum (CAR), 4.6
13. Aydar Suniev (CGY), 4.5
14. Luca Pinelli (CBJ), 4.2
15. Denver Barkey (PHI), 3.9
16. Juraj Pekarcik (STL), 3.8
17. Maxim Strbak (BUF), 3.8
18. Caden Price (SEA), 3.8
19. Anton Wahlberg (BUF), 3.7
20. Yegor Sidorov (ANA), 3.5

In terms of real-world draft slotting, these players represent:

• 4 first-rounders (Cowan, Bonk, Stenberg, Lindstein)
• 8 second-rounders (Halttunen, Wahlberg, Strbak, Rehkopf, Fisker Molgaard, Akey, Hameenaho, Unger Sorum)
• 6 third-rounders (Brzustewicz, Pekarcik, Cataford, Suniev, Price, Barkey).

It also does not include a scattering of players with fringe-but-intriguing fantasy potential who ended up lower on the DP rankings and also slipped through the draft:

• Florian Xhekaj (MTL), 3.4
• William Whitelaw (CBJ), 3.2
• Alexander Rykov (CAR), 2.9 (my ranking: 6.0)
• Roman Kantserov (CHI), NR (my ranking: 6.0)
• Aiden Fink (NAS), NR (my ranking: 5.0)

And while most of the top goalie prospects were scooped up over those five rounds (Trey Augustine, Michael Hrabal, Jacob Fowler, Damian Clara, Adam Jajan, Tomas Milic), a Russian tender named Ruslan Khazheyev (CAR) slipped through our draft who at the time outclassed the rest in the Hockey Prospecting statistical model.

Carolina Hurricanes get G Ruslan Khazheyev (the best model numbers goalie of the 2023 draft).

Somebody stop them! Anybody! Somebody?!

A drafting clinic year in year out. pic.twitter.com/DUAnsT4gCN

— Byron Bader (@ByronMBader) June 29, 2023

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While this is just one draft and one league, one takeaway is that I could have traded all five of my 2023 draft picks and still loaded up my farm team with Easton Cowan, Hunter Brzustewicz, Carson Rehkopf, Felix Unger Sorum, and Luca Pinelli, for instance. 

In Hockey Prospecting terms, that would have added 0.62 stars to my team's system for free. While that might not sound like a lot, that basically indicates a 60% chance of one of those players becoming a star-level NHL player, which means averaging roughly 56 points over their career. Not bad at all. Again, those five players would be in addition to the imagined return for five rounds worth of draft picks.

As the playoffs end and the draft approaches (which will be a very short gap this year), a first round pick will start to look pretty damn shiny to many managers—especially when compared to a less lustrous, post-hype player approaching their Breakout Threshold like Cam York (PHI), Cole Sillinger (CBJ), Yegor Chinakhov (CBJ), Timothy Liljegren (TOR), and Rasmus Sandin (WAS), for example.

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Which players landed on the waiver wire after your drafts?

In the league I wrote about here, all 20 of these players are owned now, as many sharply increased their value over the course of the year. This exercise had the benefit of one year of hindsight, of course, so the effectiveness of this "Zero Picks" strategy hinges on attentively monitoring PNHLe values and mid-season production in junior leagues, college, overseas, and in the AHL and taking swings on players who are producing early.

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Thanks for reading! Follow me on X @beegare for more prospect content and fantasy hockey analysis.