According to a source employed close to Montreal, the Habs are targeting Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl.

Ummm. Sure.

Now it’s no mystery what position the Montreal Canadiens are going to try and beef up this summer. Bob Stauffer on yesterday’s Oilers Now thought that they would be going after Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny and I think that would be a much better plan of attack than to try and pry Leon Draisaitl out of Edmonton.

For argument’s sake, what would it take for you to trade Draisaitl to Montreal? For me, I can tell you it’d have to include a package that included 4 of the following,

• 2018 1st rounder
• 2019 1st rounder
• Brendan Gallagher
• Victor Mete
• Noah Juulsen

That’s just me mind you. I won’t trade Leon Draisaitl for Erik Karlsson. So that should be enough to tell you how highly I value the big German.

A DIFFERENT OILERS/HABS PROPOSAL

On Lowetide’s show yesterday morning Pierre LeBrun said that the Habs were looking for a top-4 left-handed defenseman.

Oscar Klefbom, come on down!

Would you be willing to move Oscar Klefbom to the Habs for Victor Mete and Nikita Scherbak? Thus saving some space on the cap whilst adding young talent on D and on the wing creating a bit more depth.

OR

Would you prefer to move Klefbom for Brendan Gallager straight across?

I’m sure some smartass out there is going to say neither and that’s fine. I’m just trying to create some banter.

COMPARING DRAFT RANKINGS

In the last seven days, I’ve managed to purchase the draft guides from The Hockey News, ISS  (International Scouting Services), and HockeyProspects.com (The Black Book) and I can tell you that I like each and every one but for different reasons.

The Hockey News ($6.99) – I like it because it’s visually pleasing. It offers a lot of articles and the scouting reports aren’t too long. Also covers a few prospects from the next two drafts briefly. I’m a big fan of comparables and each player up to a certain number is given one be it an NHL player comp or a positional/depth comp. Only 100 profiles though…

ISS ($10) – This is my first year purchasing the ISS draft guide and what I noticed off the bat was it was quite easy to read. Meaning the words weren’t too small that I had to get up close to read them whereas The Hockey News’ guide, the words were a tad tiny to try and fit all the reports in. This guide included a 1st round mock draft, risers/sleepers, and a top-5 best/worst of different attributes like “stay-at-home dmen”, “puck protection”, “underrated/overrated”. I also liked how they graded different skills on every player. Things like competitiveness, hockey IQ, and physical play were shown on a scale from below-average to elite. The downside to this is that the reports only to 110 players including goalies but the rankings go to 200. They also go into team draft histories five years deep.

THE BLACK BOOK ($50) – This is THE most in-depth draft guide available. It’s not flashy by any means as it’s all text. No mock drafts, no top-5 lists, it’s straight to business but it’s huge. 667 pages deep to be more specific. The one thing that Hockey Prospects does that I find rad is they include the game reports at the end so you can read what the scouts had to say about a specific player in a specific game. Another thing that they give the reader is actual quotes from scouts be they Hockey Prospect scouts or NHL scouts. Lastly, there’s one thing that annoys me about this guide, the scouting reports go in alphabetical order instead of the order of their ranking.

So depending on what kind of draft nut you are and how much money you’re willing to spend, all three I’d recommend.

I just wanted to give you that preface before getting into what these publications have the Oilers taking with their draft picks. Now, McKenzie and The Hockey News only have up three rounds of players to view and ISS and the Black Book have all 7 rounds available. Therefore two out of the four guides will allow us to see a bit more than the other two.

So let’s get into this. 

The Oilers have the following selections in the upcoming draft,

• 10th
• 40th
• 71st
• 133rd
• 164th
• 195th

As you can see there’s a jump from 71st to 133rd, the 4th rounder belongs to Montreal due to the Al Montoya trade.

Below are the players that each of the draft guides above PLUS Bob McKenzie has in those spots where the Oilers will be drafting.

Selection	THN	Bob McKenzie	ISS	Hockey Prospects
10	Ty Smith (LD)	Adam Boqvist (RD)	Joe Veleno (C)	Evan Bouchard (RD)
40	Adam Ginning (LD)	Jacob Olofsson (C)	Danila Galenyuk (LD)	Jake Wise (C)
71	Egor Sokolov (LW)	Allan McShane (C)	Kody Clark (RW)	Milos Roman (C)
133			Billy Moskal (C)	Erik Portillo (G)
164			Dan Kowalczyk (LD)	Blade Jenkins (LW)
195			Linus Nyman (RW)	Isaac Johnson (RW)

How wide open is that? No overlap whatsoever eh? This draft is going to be a lot of fun!

If you had to pick one, which group would you go with?

Personally, I’m drawn to how McKenzie’s is starting. I’m real high on Boqvist and I hear good things about Olofsson. McShane is not a player I’m familiar with but Hockey Prospects have him as an undersized playmaker with a quick release and good anticipation defensively.

But that Hockey Prospects group has some nice names in there. I’d have no issues if the Oilers selected Bouchard at all. A right-handed dman who has been labeled as one of the best passers in the draft is fine with me. Jake Wise is a name that has climbed up the rankings over the year. He’s a guy with great vision and passing skills. A very hard worker and he’s a 200ft player. Milos Roman is a name I’ve read now and then online and from what I can gather his skating is deceptively good. He’s a very cerbral player and he’s a very responsible player at both ends of the ice.

Your thoughts?

We’ve got some pretty rad draft videos up at the Beer League Heroes YouTube page. Please, go check them out and if ya can, subscribe to our channel and that way you’ll be the first to know when a new video is up!