The NHL Entry Draft is scheduled to take place in Las Vegas on June 28th and 29th. It will be the final event under the current format, as the NHL has voted to decentralize the draft starting in 2025.
What that means is that there will still be an event where draft eligible prospects can show up, with a stage and podium etc, but GMs and scouts won’t be in attendance. The biggest complaint from GMs was that representatives from other teams could mingle and “hover” around their draft table, essentially gaining valuable information related to their draft strategy, which would allow them to run interference that won’t be possible moving forward.
I’m sure it will be refined for the sake of TV viewership, with the possibility of one of more team representatives being in attendance to present drafted players with a jersey, a handshake and the ability to welcome them to the organization. Some have even hinted at the possibility of a celebrity being in attendance to boost the popularity of the show. While that type of thing wouldn’t appeal to me because I’m old and grumpy, I can easily see the thrill it might be for a draft age player to be met on stage with a trio such as Justin Bieber, Auston Matthews and a Leafs alumni like Clark or Gilmour. I can also see how that type of thing might attract the attention of a younger audience and boost the popularity of the NHL moving forward. We’ll see how it plays out, but for one final year it will be held in-person.
For this series I’ll try to cover a large number of prospects. One of the common responses to any of the prospects highlighted on an array of sites is “this player won’t fall to the Leafs in their draft spot” or “that player is ranked low, they should wait to see if they can get him later.” That is usually a valid point of view, but the only consensus about this draft is that there simply isn’t a consensus.
What I mean by that is the only prospect that everybody seems to agree upon is projected #1 pick, Macklin Celebrini. The San Jose Sharks have the honour of selecting 1st overall this year and he’s most certainly going to go to their organization. Who gets selected at #2 is anybody’s guess, but the closer to the draft it gets the more it appears that Ivan Demidov could be the selection there. #3? Good luck locking it down.
Scouts often talk about drafts not from round to round, but from shelf to shelf. This could mean that you have 1-2 prospects vying to be picked 1st overall, as was the case with Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin or Nico Hischier and Nolan Patrick in their draft years. That “top shelf” will then see a drop off where another group of prospects could be selected randomly, before another drop off etc etc.
In the case of the 2024 draft Celebrini is on the highest shelf and it appears that he’s alone there. The next shelf down holds 4-6 prospects, including Demidov, Cayden Lindstrom, Artyom Levshunov and a few more. At about the 6th to 7th pick it steps down to another shelf, which runs to about the middle of the 1st round. At #23, the Leafs will find themselves within the final plateau of the 1st round, but that runs through to the middle of the 2nd round, which is why I’ll cover a ton of prospects. The Leafs could go so far off the board, it’s impossible to pinpoint who they’ll take. It’s also for this reason that I’m glad the Leafs kept their 1st round pick this year. Assuming they hit on it, they could get a player that will rank much higher than #23 when you look back 10 years from now.
Over their past 3 drafts their highest selections have been Easton Cowan (#28), Fraser Minten (#38) and Matthew Knies (#57), which has me gaining confidence in their ability to make good on late 1st and early 2nd round picks. Let’s hope they can do that again and, who knows, maybe they’ll make good on it by selecting…..
Dean Letourneau
Position: Centre
Shoots: Right
Height: 6’7″
Weight: 210lbs
Letourneau is committed to Boston College for the 2024/25 season, which is exactly where the behemoth of a kid belongs. He scored 61 goals in 56 games for St. Andrew’s of the U18 AAA league this year, where he was a man among boys. He pushed his way around that league with ease, but playing against older players at the college level will force him to develop his skill in other ways.
He’s said to be a natural shooter with good vision and solid skating abilities. It’s difficult to find players that are 6’7″ and ones that can skate well are very rare, which makes him a good prospect in and of itself. He plays with an edge, thrives in front of the net and plays a 200 foot game. He has the raw tools to be a fantastic NHL player.
The knock on him is that he didn’t play in the CHL or USHL, which is common for the higher end draft eligible prospects. It makes ranking him a little more difficult because he wasn’t playing against his peers. Terms like high risk/high reward are used, because he could develop into a #1 or #2 centre that scores plenty and plays both sides of the puck, but could also be a 3-4C with size that doesn’t provide much offense. Either way, it’s hard to find anybody that would suggest he doesn’t have a path to the NHL level. What is more common is the suggestion that he won’t make the NHL for a few years, as he’ll need time to catch up on the development he lost by playing a lower level of hockey this year.