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Zema · 09-13-2020, 10:15 AM

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2509 words, x2 draft media.

The Season 56 SHL entry draft is now complete. The New England Wolfpack ended up selecting 6 players that will enter our prospect ranks. I want to go through both the players, the person and the process we had for selecting these fine 6 players.

The Picks

4th Overall - Calvin Hobbes, C. Maine Timber. @krazko
Calvin is a responsible center from the Swedish west coast. An all-round with fantastic vision who can play any situation that the team needs him to do. From the 4th line of Maine he surprised many by actually getting a ton of powerplay time, and he did not disappoint the Maine faithful. He scored almost half of his 15 points with a man advantage and showed the world he can be relied upon. When you look at his stat line, there is nothing that stands out. There is nothing negative about his performance at all, and he showed he has been able to since day 1 to hang with the best in the league. New England saw great value in someone as mature and responsible as Calvin that they decided to select him 4th overall.

What Maine wants to see him improve in is taking more action and drive the play more as he looks to solidify himself as a top prospect in the league.

5th Overall - Grandmaster Funk, LD. Nevada Battleborn. @funk
Many people raised their eyebrows as NEWly appointed GM Kenvald stepped up to the podium and called out Funks' name. In reality, Grandmaster Funk was one of, if not the best, defensive player in this entire draft. He was on the same level or higher as extremely highly touted prospects such as Rikard Bjerg, Axel Foley, Ulrik Bergstrom and defensive monster Will Windsor. He was a shotblocking and takeaway machine, and his level of defensive play as a rookie should be remembered as a great feat. The 6ft tall Irish defenceman is already established as a premier defensive guy that you want to avoid putting your greats against. But that doesn't mean he still isn't terrible offensively. He still has some work to do to make sure his 9 points gets improved upon, but that is a problem that will sort itself out with more experience.
The Nevada Battleborn trusted him a lot and got repaid with some excellent level of play. But, that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. We touched on his offensive game a bit, but his 47 penalty minutes is slightly too high. His fighting also left somewhat to be desired, as he only managed to win 1 out of his 5 fights.

In reality, Grandmaster Funk is a great pick at 5 - as long as he doesn't slow down here.

14th Overall - Teylora Petrov, D. Quebec City Citadells. @"Panda"
Many people were surprised to see him drop out of the top 10. So were New England, as they very quickly went up to the podium to select Teylora "Panda" Petrov with their 3rd selection of this draft. Teylora is another one of the "defense first" defensemen of this draft, and had a really solid season with Quebec. His offensive numbers impressed a ton, getting 14 points in his 50 outings. What makes Teylora so good is not his size that many people otherwise cite as a reason. It's the way he reads the game. In terms of how physical he is, it's mostly his size that does the talking. Because when it comes to his defense, holy moly does he read the game well. A very clever player that has the reach to go extremely far.
We'd love to see him improve all aspects of his game however. Right now he is fairly incomplete, but with an immensely high ceiling. We know he'll be working on his game down in the J until the time comes when he is ready to step up. And oh boy will he be stepping up.

27th Overall - Alexis Vermette, RW. Nevada Battleborn. @treant
There is gotta be something about these expansion teams man. 3 of our top 4 picks comes from the newly introduced teams of the SMJHL. Apparently great at fostering talent, Mr. Vermette was another one high on our list. With a spectacular rookie season seeing him score 22 points he really showed everyone what a talent he is. Even more peculiar is that of his 22 points, only 4 of them were scored on the powerplay. With 18 5v5 points, he is establishing him as a future leading player of the Battleborns offense.
If you look at where Alexis is at his strongest, it doesn't come as a surprise. His vision is immense, and he has a sneaky shot that will hopefully be utilized more. But he's also a very well-rounded skater in terms of his physicals.
You can expect great things from Alexis for the rest of his J career.

45th Overall - Mikhail Petrov, RD. Kelowna Knights. @to12143
Mikhail did not play a huge role for the Kelowna Knights, but he was one of many fantastic players in a collective of awesomness. Mikhael Petrov is like the other two defenders selected in this draft, really strong defensively. This is a guy that has some really good room for improvement, and you will probably see him rise to the occasion as a late pick in this draft. He managed 11 points in his 50 games with Kelowna, and him not being solely relied upon as the go-to guy made his very solid output and performance fall under the radar for a lot of teams.
Kelowna wants him to continue the trajectory towards becoming a great two-way defenseman. Someone that will never doubt and never question, who always puts the team first with no care for where he plays.
And those values and attributes is what made the New England Wolfpack select him in the third round.

49th Overall - Adrian Ayers, RW. Carolina Kraken. @gordieboom
The last pick for the Wolfpack in this draft is Adrian Ayers. Ayers has had a tumultuous season where he announced his retirement in the middle of it before retracting it after talking with the Kraken leadership. Ayers did well despite this and very limited playingtime, scoring 15 points in 48 appearances with an average toi at 12.31. Really strong showing by the Carolina right winger. The Scottish born Ayers is a very team-first speedy guy with some decent offense. Like many of the players drafted by New England, he has a strong hockey IQ in both ends of the ice as he can help his team in many situations. His role with the team is probably gonna improve with some roster shenanigans happening in Carolina, and how he will tackle the responsibility will be interesting to see.
New England clearly saw someone who is an untamed beast, who they need to help reign in a bit to truly help him reach his full potential. Many teams passed on him, but the Wolfpack has taken a liking to what they see.

The Process
With 4 first rounders we set out on scouting to take a good look at what we could potentially get. We made our first move to trade up to 5th overall following the draft lottery, and this number 5 pick would see itself extremely valuable to us. From there on out, I am gonna explain the process and reasoning behind our picks, player for player.

Calvin Hobbes, Krazko
Krazko was the first person we scouted. He'd also end up being our first selection in this draft. I knew about him from sharing time in Maine, and I knew him as a great LR presence with dedication and curiosity. Despite him being away on a vacation to his homeland, he still tried his hardest to make sure to catch every TPE and chance to improve. After I recommended him, Kenvald was sent out to talk to him. They're both Swedes living abroad, so it was a good fit to have them talk. Following the draft lottery and trade for 5th overall, we started spawning and discussing what players we were all really high on. Krazko. We also knew that the issue of his bank being fairly small would be evaporated once his media and article-writing would get going, as I got a sneak peek of these due to, once again, our Maine connection.
Once we started really settling in, we knew what we wanted out of the 5th or 10th overall. A high end forward, preferably a center. We looked at the class, and like most, we had a center going number 1. But as we gathered it up and we started discussing how we thought the draft would play out, it became increasingly clear that Kraz was who we wanted at number 5. We were aware that San Fran were high on him even before it was revealed earlier this week. Both me and AgentSmith630 know about how great this guy is, and for us that just solidified our conviction to pick him up. For us it was a fairly well kept secret, only really starting to become a possibility around the final 24 hours that he may in fact come to us. I know I am speaking for all of New England when I say that this was an incredible pick for us.

Grandmaster Funk, funk
If Krazko was a well planned and early scouting pick up where we fairly early on in the scouting process pegged him for a spot, Funk was somewhat the opposite. He was scouted among a group of many other players, and even if he was obviously high up on our list he wasn't at the level we ended up taking him at. But as we kept talking, conversing and really understanding him, his player and what he would bring to not only the team but also the locker room, we were fully on board on the hype train. We figured we could get the steal of the draft at 10th overall with him. But when we really started putting together the pieces and place him on our list, we understood that we simply did not want to gamble at all with a talent such as this.
Another first gen pickup for us who is dedicated and a fantastic locker room guy that will look to cement himself as part of the core moving forward in New England. There isn't really much else to say more than that he really shows the value of thorough and dedicated scouting.

Teylora Petrov, Panda
This is my favourite pick of the draft, no offense to any of our other picks or any other players around the league. When we first started laying out the plan for the draft and look at the options we had, he was an obvious top tier guy for us. Early on-set he was someone we considered taking at 2nd overall if a trade with Toronto were to happen. But things change quickly and abruptly during the pre-draft process. We had 3 players in extremely close proximity of each other. On the same tier of our list, you could say, who we would be delighted at getting at either 4 or 5. We got two of them and readied ourselves to lose the third. But as the draft progressed, we understood that "hey, the fact that there even is a chance for this...". You know how it is. You don't want to get your hopes up. But as soon as pick 13 was confirmed to not be him, we were extremely quick in picking him. One of our top 4 guys just fell to 14. This is the obvious steal of the draft, or at the very least the first round. How he fell so far is beyond us really, but we couldn't be more exciting about getting him.

Speaking a bit of the player, he was on the radar very early on. We loved what he showed us and he's a really great guy. As things progressed, he remained a top tier pick for us due to his dedication. I feel like whatever I might end up saying will be underselling him and how much we truly value him, just because he dropped. We love you Panda, and we couldn't be more stoked about you joining us.

Alexis Vermette, treant
To actually nail down who we wanted at our 14th or our 27th pick was somewhat difficult. With us having a need for forwards in the future, that was what we were likely to end up picking. However. With Panda falling to 14, we had no point in picking a D at 27th. Instead, Alexis emerged. To truly make you understand how much we loved this draft over at New England, we have to put Alexis into perspective. He was someone we felt like would be a strong pick at 14th. treant made a huge impression on us in the scouting process. When he was followed up on, that impression grew, and if we needed a forward down to 14th we knew he'd be someone we would happily pick up. He fell 13 spots down to us at 27, where we happily picked him up.
I felt like we did some really good scouting towards this pick, and we had a number of players we felt like would be great picks here. Some went before, some went after. But when you get the chance to pick a player such as treant this late in the draft, that's just something you have to go for.
It made us really happy to know even beforehand that he would love to come here. To see it happen makes me honestly overjoyed.

Mikhael Petrov, to12143
Our 2nd Petrov of the draft! We were really happy to see Petrov fall into our lap at 45 in the third round. As the draft started dwindling down for us and many other teams, it's rare you can pick some good players out of it. He's someone that already had a connection to us in the war room, so this pick didn't take much time to execute. to is someone that we've only had good interactions with and looks to be another great fit in the LR. There isn't really much else to say, more than that we are extremely happy to have him.
Welcome to the Wolfpack my friend.

Adrian Ayers, gordieboom
With our last pick of our draft, we ended up selecting gordieboom. Now, this is probably a selection that most people already predicted due to the history he has with us. Gordie is a lovely person that comes from a season that went a bit weird. We scouted him out early on, but there wasn't really much to this process to explain about. We felt comfortable he would still be there by the end, and we became extremely happy that he wanted to re-join. Gordieboom would mark the end of our draft, and I don't think a better pick would see out this draft for us.

funk · 09-13-2020, 10:47 AM

Beautiful breakdown!
The kind words are much appreciated, and I can't wait to get on the ice and prove my worth.

NEW managed to come away with some excellent players in this draft, really solidifying an active prospect pipeline.

***Ace*** · 09-13-2020, 10:49 AM

Bayley · 09-13-2020, 11:14 AM

I appreciate the kind words @Zema

***bluesfan55*** · 09-13-2020, 11:49 AM

nice

Zema · 09-13-2020, 01:48 PM

09-13-2020, 10:47 AMfunk Wrote: Beautiful breakdown!
The kind words are much appreciated, and I can't wait to get on the ice and prove my worth.

NEW managed to come away with some excellent players in this draft, really solidifying an active prospect pipeline.

We're very happy to have you my man. Will be awesome to get to know you :D

09-13-2020, 11:14 AMPanda Wrote: I appreciate the kind words @Zema

You deserved them. Let's make great things happen together for the Wolfs!

krazko · 09-13-2020, 04:27 PM

Thanks for the kind words and trust in me!
Can't wait to suit up for NEW after the junior career and win some cups together!

Zema · 09-13-2020, 06:18 PM

09-13-2020, 04:27 PMkrazko Wrote: Thanks for the kind words and trust in me!
Can't wait to suit up for NEW after the junior career and win some cups together!

Love you Krazman

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