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The 2022 NHL draft, to be held at Montreal’s Bell Centre, is scheduled to begin Thursday night at 7 ET (ESPN), with plenty of intrigue from the very top down.
While Shane Wright of the Ontario Hockey League has been considered the most likely player to be taken by the Canadiens at No. 1, that isn’t a given. From there, we have the usual rumblings about potential swaps, teams moving up and players whose stock is on the rise.
We asked ESPN hockey reporters Greg Wyshynski and Kristen Shilton the biggest questions entering the draft, including an assessment of the overall class, names to know at the top of the draft, biggest wild cards and more.
What’s the overall league consensus on this draft year? Good class? Weak? Any particular strengths?
The quality of an NHL draft class is superficially established by the talent at the very top. For example, the 2017 draft was considered “weak” because neither Nico Hischier (New Jersey) nor Nolan Patrick (Philadelphia) were seen as “generational” talents on the level of Auston Matthews or Connor McDavid. Now it’s seen as the draft that bestowed Cale Makar, Elias Pettersson, Miro Heiskanen, Jason Robertson and Robert Thomas upon the NHL.
To that end, the 2022 draft could look a lot like that one. Center Shane Wright, the consensus No. 1 pick, is also not Matthews or McDavid.
“Generational players don’t come along very often. I don’t see Shane as generational,” said Craig Button, the venerable prospect analyst for TSN.
As in 2017, there’s been a lot of debate and speculation about who will actually go first overall to the Montreal Canadiens because there isn’t a “generational player” at the top. Could be Wright. Could be someone else.
But don’t let the top pick fool you.
“It’s a deep draft,” Seattle Kraken GM Ron Francis said recently. “There will be good talent available. We don’t have a McDavid or Matthews, but there will be good players in all rounds.”
The first round leans heavily toward centers, who could encompass half the first…
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Source : espn
