WRITTEN BY- Liam
This article aims to target potential players the Sens could draft 10th overall on July 23.
In this article I will leave out some players I believe will already be drafted and focus attention on who I believe realistically the Sens could get, and who they should take, in this range. I will not be using my own personal rankings and instead will focus on the consensus players are that could go in this range.
Players like William Eklund, Matthew Beniers and Dylan Guenther will likely be gone by this point so I want to focus more on the realistic options. If a top 3 ranked player falls to 10 it goes without saying that the Sens should probably jump on that opportunity. I also believe it is unlikely one of the top 4 ranked defencemen will fall to 10 so I have left out Owen Power, Simon Edvinsson, Brandt Clarke or Luke Hughes.
With that being said let’s take a look at the forwards.
Fabian Lysell
Fabian Lysell may be one of the most controversial prospects in this draft. There have been rumors about potential character issues. I have no inside knowledge of these issues or rumours so I will not touch on that. If he drops in ranking on draft day that is one possible reason why. From an on ice perspective, Lysell is such an intriguing case. I noticed he has an interesting blend of high end skill and tenacious forward pressure. He has the ability to skate end to end and score a highlight reel goal but he has the two way ability to force mistakes by his opponents. He is able to use his stick to steal pucks and his speed to create space for himself or put pressure on the opposition to turn pucks over. I think with his two way ability, his offensive upside, and his skating ability Lysell is unquestionably worth a top 10 selection. He will likely be around at 10 and the fact he is a right shot right winger makes him a very appealing option for the Ottawa Senators.
Kent Johnson
Kent Johnson is one of three draft eligible players on the University of Michigan’s hockey team. Johnson is likely going to be the only player of the three available at the end of the top 10 with Owen Power likely going first overall and Matthew Beniers shortly after that. Kent Johnson went from the BCHL to the NCAA, a fairly massive jump in quality of competition, and succeeded fairly well scoring at just over a point per game in the NCAA (27 points in 26 games). He has high end skill, puck handling, skating ability and finishing ability. I have noticed he is able to use his puck handling to create space or protect the puck from the opposition and then make a play with that extra time and space. He is agile and shifty in the offensive zone. I did notice some questionable decision-making at times and this is probably my biggest concern with Johnson. While he put up slightly better numbers than teammate Matthew Beniers, Beniers seems to have the more projectable skillset. The reason Johnson may go a bit later in the top 10 is that he is a much higher risk higher reward type player in my opinion. If his skill can translate he will likely be a top 6 forward but if it does not I am not sure where his floor is. With all that being said, at 10, I absolutely believe Johnson is worth a gamble.
Mason McTavish
If Mason McTavish is around at 10 my gut tells me the Senators would take him. McTavish, the Ottawa area native, is a big, strong, goal scoring centre that finished this season playing in the Swiss pro league. Last year McTavish had a really strong underage season, scoring 29 goals for Peterborough in the OHL .His shot is very unique. It’s not pretty like Auston Matthews, however it’s effective. I notice a lot of his goals because he uses a short release or a short chip. The chip almost reminds me of a golf chip with a pitching wedge. He is able to generate so much power out of the short swing and it seems to be difficult for goalies to read. He has some edge, grit and bite to his game that most teams really like, especially around playoff time. McTavish can do many things well, for example one skill that should be very appealing to the Senators is that he can play that bumper spot on the powerplay. Throughout this year he played that bumper spot in the slot on the powerplay and was very effective there. He was able to generate traffic leading to goals, scoring himself or just generating scoring chances from there. That is one specific skill set the Senators could really use.
Chaz Lucius
These next two profiles I feel are more likely to be selected in this area than the previous three. Lucius is an interesting case for a number of reasons. In my viewings of Lucius’ games, he was invisible for large stretches of the game if not the entirety of it and at the end of the game he would still come away with 2 goals and an assist. He could play the whole game and it would be hard to come away with anything until he shows great flashes of finishing ability or generating a goal through an assist. It’s a dilemma about how this will translate to the NHL. This reminds me of Pierre Luc Dubois out of Winnipeg. I would really like to see more consistency out of Lucius as he develops over the next few years at the University of Minnesota. This year Lucius came back from a knee surgery to correct a lingering issue so it was somewhat expected it would take a little while to get back to 100%. The knee surgery does not seem to have affected his point totals where he scored a little over at a 1.5 point per game pace in the USHL (18 points 12 games) and the USDP (20 points in 13 games). In terms of his skill set he has high end offensive upside and this is the reason he would be worth a gamble at 10. His goal scoring ability is really impressive, he is able to use his stickhandling ability in tight to fool the goalie and still able to finish off the play with a goal. I found that very impressive, he was able to elevate the puck in high danger areas or pull the puck tight to his body and elevate it over the goalies pad to score. Similar to McTavish, Lucius is very effective at generating scoring chances in that bumper area in the slot. He also has solid playmaking ability, he was able a few times in 2 on 1 or 2 on 2 situations to thread a pass through to his teammate to finish a play. If he is able to become more consistent with his play he could be one of the best players out of this draft. From a Senators perspect Lucius would be able to develop in the NCAA as long as he needs, with the Senators being very deep in their prospect pool up front there is no rush to get him to the NHL. They would be able to give him the time he needs to improve his skating, become stronger, more confident and adapt to the difference in playing against bigger stronger players in college. I also think that working with the Senators skill and skating coaches will likely be able to get his skating to where it needs to be to be a top 6 forward in the NHL.
Cole Sillinger
Cole Sillingers draft year was very unique in that he was originally scheduled to play out his 2020-21 season with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the WHL. Going into this past season Silliinger was one of the top ranked prospects with scoring over a point per game (53 points in 48 games) in the WHL as an underager. Cole is also the son of ex NHLer Mike Sillinger.The Senators seem to value that as they have drafted numerous other former NHL players sons (Logan Brown, Brady Tkachuk, and Josh Norris to name a few). Sillingers goal scoring and shooting ability is what I would consider elite and probably at the top of this draft class. I know a lot of the prospect point projection models love Sillinger and rate his productions very highly. His release is fast, deceptive and beat goalies from different distances and angles over and over again this year. Like Lucius, he is able to elevate the puck in tight to beat goalies from the high danger areas but from outside the high danger areas Sillinger is still extremely dangerous. He can shoot it from anywhere at almost any time, off balance, one timers, in tight and he is almost always able to elevate and get velocity on the puck to beat goalies. I know there has been some criticism of his skating but as he grows and gets stronger I don’t really see skating being an issue for Cole at the NHL level. He also possesses that grit and edge to his game that most teams love and judging by the way the Sens have drafted the past few years, the Sens love that type of player. Cole is a similar story to a lot of the prospects in this range and this draft in general, the tools are there to be a really solid NHLer, he is a bit raw and needs development but if everything hits right he has the potential to be a high end goal scoring NHL winger and that in my opinion, is worth a gamble at 10.
Jesper Wallstedt
While Wallstedt is currently ranked 1st on most likely Cossa has gained some momentum and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Senators jumped on Cossa at 10. I feel more confident in my assessment of Wallstedt over Cossa. The fact Wallstedt played the entire year in the SHL (Swedish Hockey League) is a draft eligible season for the history books. A goalie in his draft year playing in the SHL is unheard of. He played for two games at this year’s World Juniors tournament and was solid. I felt he should have been the starter for Sweden, however, he was the younger option so Sweden stuck with Hugo Alnefelt. In terms of skillset Wallstedt is the most technically sound goalie I have ever seen in a prospect. His positioning is fantastic, his athletic ability is really good and he can read the plays very well. The pucks just seem to get sucked into him because of his size and positioning. He is calm and poised and at the NHL level, teams can feed off this. He’s a large goalie standing at 6’3” but I feel he looks bigger probably because he can take up so much of the net with his positioning. To get an elite number 1 goalie can be such a strong building block for an NHL franchise and I believe Wallstedt has all the tools to be that. I do think Cossa is more of a Sens type pick, he plays out of the WHL, he’s bigger standing at 6’6”, athletic and has great numbers. I have questions about his quality of competition, and that’s not one I have with Wallstedt, which is the big reason I have Wallstedt listed ahead of Cossa.
