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Our 2021 NHL Draft Black Book is now available for pre-purchase in our online store.

You may have heard a few reports recently from some media speculating that the 2021 NHL Draft date could be changed from it’s currently scheduled date in late July of 2021, to as far back as June 2022 and the NHL would hold two drafts at that time.

If that were to happen we want our customers to know that we have you covered. We are still business as usual and are going about our business planning on the draft taking place this July and we are working away on our 2021 NHL Draft Black Book so that we can release it in late June or early July of this year. 

If the draft date was pushed back, we will continue to update our 2021 NHL Draft Black Book right up until the new draft date. So if you purchase the 2021 book, you will still have an up to date book regardless of when the draft takes place. 

The 2021 NHL Draft Black Book will contain a document explaining how to update the book to the most recent edition. We’ll be uploading some sneak preview editions in the weeks ahead leading up to the initial release of our 2021 NHL Draft Black Book.

This current price won’t last forever so take advantage of this discounted price.

Platinum Members get the 2021 NHL Draft Black Book and all previous editions FREE!

Listen below for some more information.

 

 

HockeyProspect.com has released our Quebec 70-player watchlist ahead of the 2021 QMJHL Draft.  Our QMJHL Draft scouting group has been working since the month of August to cover the 2005-born crop of Quebec prospects, that saw action earlier this year when their pre-season was underway, from the month of August, up until the month of November, depending on restrictions in their respective regions.

The pre-season hockey that was played earlier this year, however, had a little bit of a different look than what you’d be used to.  Three ten-minute periods, two teams of ten skaters and one goalie (two forward lines and two defence pairings).  On top of that, no contact was allowed in these games, as any hit would result in a penalty, all this in an effort to contain any COVID outbreak during the games.

HockeyProspect scouts were allowed to attend the first few weeks of pre-season, until the arena doors were closed in another attempt to limit any COVID outbreak, which still didn’t stop our scouts from watching countless hours of tape and allowing us to put together this list, not only to use as a tool for once the regular season starts, whenever that may be, but also for our users to study ahead of this upcoming season and eventual 2021 QMJHL Draft.

The 70 players appearing on this list are broken into four groups: A-prospects (projected first rounders), B-prospects (projected second or third rounders), C-prospects (projected fourth to seventh rounders), with a small group of C+ players that separated themselves from the pack of C-prospects.

Top players that were recognized by our scouts during this first portion of the year were names you will find on our list (in no particular order) such as centremen Ethan Gauthier from the Magog Cantonniers, Mathieu Cataford, from the College Charles-Lemoyne Riverains and Vincent Collard, from the Jonquiere Elites.  Gauthier, the son of ex-NHLer Denis Gauthier, is a player that has great hockey IQ on top of very good skill and elusiveness, who also plays a responsible 200-foot game.  Cataford and Collard were also impressive, notably thanks to their skating (especially Cataford), size and goal scoring ability.  On defence, scouts liked the game of Tristan Dassylva, from the College Notre-Dame Albatros, Isaac Fecteau, from the Culver Academy Eagles (USA) and Beck Majdell, from the Laval-Montreal Rousseau Royal, among others.  All three mentioned are defencemen who skate very well and who can play both sides of the ice, but their offensive play obviously stood out for them to be rated as A-prospects.  It is difficult to single out players at this time, but these names were all players that were very much appreciated in all scouting meetings and conversations between our staff.

The HockeyProspect QMJHL Draft Quebec based scouts did their homework, which led to this watchlist.  It is an early watchlist, as mentioned, but it is one that was put together with hard work and attention to detail.  Grading this crop of 2005-born players has been a fun challenge, but by the next time we release a QMJHL Draft list, we hope that it will be based off of regular season action.  Not for our own sake, as we will always be able to scout, whether it is from the rink or from our homes thanks to the magic of video scouting, but for the sake of these young players who are just itching to get back out there, playing the game they love.

 

Rachel Halliwell speaks with HP Scout, Alex Pilote.

 

Some quick notes on a few players…

Isaac Fecteau – D – Culver Academy Eagles

Isaac Fecteau is an offensive defenceman from Trois-Rivières playing in Indiana for the Culver Academy Eagles who possesses great tools and attributes that he uses to his advantage.  He is a gifted skater that loves to skate with the puck and who can skate it out himself as a one-man breakout.  Fecteau is always very e

The 2021 NHL Draft season is off to a very interesting start. Scouts struggling to see games and travel plans getting cancelled too often. The scouting fraternity has been forced to watch video and plenty of it. While we are seeing some games in person, we also have been forced to turn to video.

For the purposes of our first NHL Draft ranking of the season, we were forced to include watching video of archived games for leagues who have yet to begin their 2020/2021 seasons. This includes prominent leagues like the WHL and OHL. It makes it difficult to rank the players from those leagues when we don’t get to see their transformation after an off season of workouts as compared to the players we’ve seen in games this fall.

HockeyProspect.com’s Mark Edwards on this unusual start to the 2021 draft season. “It’s obviously different, but we need to adapt to the restrictions this season presents and move forward. Everyone is in the same boat, so we are just trying to be as business as usual as possible. I’ve spoken to a lot of scouts in recent weeks and while everyone wants to be back in the rinks full time, they are watching video, most do not enjoy using it and find it much less effective, but nevertheless Covid is forcing scouts to use it. I’m happy we started using Instat last season, it’s been very helpful again this season during this Covid scouting era.”

The Michigan Wolverines are well represented in our first ranking of the season. The Big 10 school has three players amongst our top 10 ranked players, including our #1 and #2 ranked players. The 6’5” 215 lbs blueliner Owen Power is our top ranked player, followed closely by his teammate, Kent Johnson. Both players just played their first weekend of games as NCAA players. Not far behind them at 8th overall is Matthew Beniers, who played down the middle on the same line as Kent Johnson this past weekend.

There is another member of the Hughes family in this draft class. This time around it’s Luke Hughes and like Quinn, he plays defense. While his brothers Jack and Quinn were both under the 6’0” threshold, Luke is much taller and if he’s not 6’2”, he’s not very far off. It probably won’t surprise you that he is a strong skater and has offensive talent. Luke rounds out the top three players on our first ranking of the season. The draft is rich with defensemen. Six of the players in our top 10 are defensemen and it doesn’t stop there.

Our full top 64 2021 NHL Draft ranking is available to members and the top 32 is available for free. Please note that although we are scouting some players on the teams they have been loaned to (Logan Maillioux with SK Lejon as an example) the players are listed on our ranking with their original teams.

 

HockeyProspect.com 2021 NHL Draft Top 32 Ranking, November 16th, 2020

Our full top 64 2021 NHL Draft ranking is available to members

Goalies

We currently have Sebastian Cossa and Jesper Wallstedt as “A” rated goalies (1st round grades). We currently have Benjamin Gaudreau graded with a “B” grade. ( 2nd,3rd round grade)

























RANK

LAST

FIRST

TEAM

LEAGUE

POS

HEIGHT

WEIGHT





1

Cossa

Sebastian

Edmonton

WHL

G

6’06”

212





2

Wallstedt

Jesper

Lulea HF

SHL

G

6’03”

209





3

Gaudreau

Benjamin

Sarnia

OHL

G

6’02”

165

The second HP30 Show is finally here. For this show Rachel Halliwell spoke to Mark Hunter, GM of the London Knights and Logan Mailloux, who is one of the Knights players who is eligible in 2021 NHL Draft. Rachel asks Logan about his game and spoke to Mark Hunter about several Knights players who are eligible for the 2020 NHL Draft.

Rachel also interviewed Luke Evangelista back in April. You can check out that video here. 

HP30 Show Episode #2

 

Today we launch the debut episode of a new show we will include on our free HockeyProspect.com podcast. Our reporter Rachel Halliwell will host the podcast and try to produce an episode every two weeks. We’ll try to make the podcast somewhere in the 30 minute range, something we have already failed miserably at in this first episode, as it pushes 45 minutes in length.

In this first show, Rachel talks to HP Scouts, Mark Edwards, Jérôme Bérubé and Brad Allen about several prospects ranked in our first round.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

HP30 Show with Rachel Halliwell – Episode 1

 

Back in May decided to share the writeup for one of our player profiles included in the 2020 edition of our Black Book. The player is Tristen Robins and this week he was the player that our reporter Rachel Halliwell spoke to for our latest podcast. Rachel asked Tristen about this season and previous seasons leading up to this year, the off-season and much more.

Tristen Robins with Rachel Halliwell

Photo credit: Steve Hiscock / Saskatoon Blades