PHILADELPHIA – Wiht the first round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft in the books, PHN’s Mock Draft is also in the books as well and the results are in. Mock drafts are always hard to pick and this year’s mock draft was no exception, but this mock draft might have gone down as one of PHN’s best ever.
The draft got off to a predictable start when Jack Hughes was taken first overall by the New Jersey Devils and Kaapo Kakko was taken second overall by the New York Rangers. At #3 the Chicago Blackhawks were expected to take either forward Alex Turcotte, an Illinois native, or defenseman Bowen Byram. The Hawks took neither and selected center Kirby Dach.
The Colorado Avalanche then pounced on the opportunity to select Byram fourth overall, followed by the Los Angeles Kings selection of Turcotte. Then the fun really began when mock drafts everywhere were blown away by the Detroit Red Wings selection of German defenseman Moritz Seider sixth overall.
From then on, the unpredictability of the draft became the norm, but PHN nailed their third pick in their mock draft when the Buffalo Sabres selected Dylan Cozens seventh overall. PHN then got the Arizona Coyotes 11th overall pick correctly via a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers, who swapped picks at 11 and 14. With the pick Arizona selected defenseman Victor Soderstrom.
PHN continued their success when the Dallas Stars selected defenseman Thomas Harley 18th overall and the Washington Capitals selected Connor McMichael 25th overall. PHN came close on back to back picks when the Winnipeg Jets selected defenseman Ville Heinola 20th overall where PHN predicted he’d go 21st overall to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Oddly enough Samuel Poulin was selected by Pittsburgh but PHN had predicted he would be selected a pick earlier.
Overall PHN had six selections correct and three predictions were off only by one selection. PHN had predicted Byram would be selected by the Kings at five. One other item of note was that PHN had only seven players not make the first round.
That in itself is an accomplishment considering that every year players rise and fall in each teams draft rankings. No mock draft gets every player they predicted to go in the first round and PHN is no exception but in the later part of the first round, picks 20-31, getting picks correctly is extremely difficult.
Not bad huh?
Brian Jennings covers the Philadelphia Flyers for prohockeynews.com and can be found on twitter at @Flyersfan22.
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