Happy Monday, Blackhawks fans. There was no hockey last night and it was Father’s Day, so there really isn’t much in the Blackhawks-centric or hockey-extended universe to talk about. But there are a few things on my mind, so let’s look at them for a minute.
The first thing I wanted to point out this morning is a really good, long article by Scott Wheeler in The Athletic. It’s a legitimately huge Q&A with scouts and a general manager about the players in this summer’s Draft, which begins in just 11 days.The main reason I open with this is that the opening jumps right into a discussion we’ve been having here for some time. His first question was: “Which of the six big Ds of the class (Artyom Levshunov, Zeev Buium, Zayne Parekh, Sam Dickinson, Anton Silayev and Carter Yakemchuk) Do you like the best and the least? The answers are everywhere. Interestingly, Yakemchuk received the most “least” comments, but it seems the consensus is that all six will come off the board in the top ten overall. Which would be historic.One more question he posed, and this was for players at the Scouting Combine, was about opponents. “Who is the most talented non-teammate you’ve played against in this class? Not necessarily the best player, but the most talented.” Here are the answers he received from the players (with the number of votes):1. Macklin Celebrini (23)
2. Berkly Catton (12)
3. Beckett Sennecke (8)
4. Cole Eiserman (5)
T5. Michael Hage, Trevor Connelly (4)
T7. Tij Iginla, Zayne Parekh, Konsta Helenius, Carter Yakemchuk (3)
T11. Ivan Demidov, Cayden Lindstrom, Artyom Levshunov, Zeev Buium, Sam Dickinson, Jett Luchanko (2)
T17. Maxim Massé, Alexander Zetterberg, Emil Hemming, Mac Swanson, Lucas Pettersson, Dominik Badinka, Kevin He (1)
Before anyone jumps on the “Demidov is a tramp! Nobody said it! grenade, remember the question was about the players the prospects had played against. Because Russia sucks and is excluded from international competition right now, not many prospects have played against them. So let’s not throw the kid out the door because he only got two votes…there’s no doubt he has talent. But almost none of the players on the team had the opportunity to name him.Considering there are rumors that teams picking 7th (Ottawa), 10th (New Jersey) and 11th (Buffalo) are supposedly buying their lottery picks in next week’s draft, I’m interested every time plus see how the draft develops. I think there are teams that see elite potential in the top six defensemen in this year’s draft and know that there is a LOT of value in being able to get a potential top pair of defensemen… and there are teams that don’t necessarily see that as a organizational need and we want to benefit from teams that desperately want to achieve that game changer for their back end. There’s a good chance some really good forwards will go down this year due to rushing defenders early…which is great news if you’re the Blackhawks at 18 years old.Question for those reading this: IF (huge IF) the Blackhawks could pull off a trade down to the 10-13 range, which forward do you want them to target when doing so? Let me know in the comments below! (Or on social media if that’s where you prefer to share your thoughts.)Panger strikes back! I missed this over the weekend while I was in Omaha, but I found it this morning and felt it was important to include it. When there was a previous report from the Chicago Sun-Times about alleged friction in the Blackhawks broadcast booth, I shared the link. I also noted that it was not my experience. Darren Pang let the world know that that wasn’t his experience either.This is a fascinating piece. You rarely see an assistant coach survive one change above him on the food chain, but to survive five coaching changes?!? There’s no doubt their systems are working (it sure helps a lot to have two of the four best (?) players in the game available today), but the fact that Glen Gulutzan has been running Edmonton’s PP for so long despite The chaos surrounding him in the training room is really interesting.Will the Florida Panthers win the Stanley Cup tomorrow night? I need this to be over so we can focus our attention on free agency and the draft.I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who reached out via text, comments, or direct messages yesterday on Father’s Day. It was a long day (my son’s team lost in the championship game in Omaha and we got home around 10:30) with a lot of emotions for me. It meant a lot to feel the love from the Blackhawks community.Finally, hooray for prospects who receive a promotion!For the Latest Sports News, Follow Keynote USA Sports on Twitter.