An expert redoes the 2022 NHL draft order with Juraj Slafkovsky, and there's a big surprise at the top
Even though the 2022 draft is only a year old, some people still enjoy revisiting the first-round session to see where the top prospects stand in their development.
Usually, experts revisit a draft class after several years, but as reported by Marco Normandin, from Habsolumentfan.com, a highly respected expert decided to undertake this exercise with last year's session.
Considered one of the best journalists in terms of top hockey prospects, Corey Pronman of The Athletic chose to revisit the first round of the 2022 draft held in Montreal, where a certain Juraj Slafkovsky was the first overall pick by the Canadiens.
However, I only had access to the first seven draft picks, which are:
1- Juraj Slafkovsky (Montreal)
2- Simon Nemec (New Jersey)
3- Logan Cooley (Arizona)
4- Shane Wright (Seattle)
5- Cutter Gauthier (Philadelphia)
6- David Jiricek (Columbus)
7- Kevin Korchinski (Chicago)
Here are the actual first seven picks, but for Pronman's famous re-draft, don't expect many changes since we're talking about last year's draft.
Here are the top seven choices of the 2022 draft revisited:
1- Juraj Slafkovsky (Montreal)
2- Logan Cooley (Arizona)
3- Shane Wright (Seattle)
4- David Jiricek (Columbus)
5- Kevin Korchinski (Chicago)
6- Cutter Gauthier (Philadelphia)
7- Simon Nemec (New Jersey)
As you can see, I only had to copy and paste, almost, to recreate the list since these are exactly the same players we find.
On a more serious note, it's encouraging to see that the young Slovakian winger from the Canadiens is still at the top of this list a year later, despite a tough first season in North America.
That's mainly what we wanted to show here. According to one of the world's top experts, Juraj Slafkovsky would still be the best player and the first overall pick, even ahead of Logan Cooley.
Yes, Slafkovsky had a difficult first season in North America, but he's not the only one, as Shane Wright also had a challenging rookie year, even being sent back to his junior team after the holidays.
However, if we redo this list in a few years, we may very well see some changes since few players from this draft class have played in the NHL, and anything can happen in the wonderful world of hockey.
To conclude on this new order, one surprise to note is that the second overall pick, Simon Nemec, falls to the 7th rank despite a strong 2022-23 season.
| POLL | ||
In your opinion, which of these players will find themselves at the top of the 2022 redraft list in a few years? | ||
| Logan Cooley | 130 | 34.2 % |
| Shane Wright | 59 | 15.5 % |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | 164 | 43.2 % |
| One of the players suggested | 27 | 7.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
