We are back after quite a bit of a hiatus from written content due to various obligations and personal demands, as well as the season winding down meaning there were less events to cover/the dev league seasons all having already come to a close and all on-ice matters for the PWHL having concluded, therefore causing us to shift our attention to other media of analysis. The events that occurred after the last couple of days most certainly called for a return to the action on the article front. The 2024 NHL Entry Draft class was probably closer to standard than exemplary in the depth category. However, that is not to say that a fair number of slides to day two or very good sleepers occurred. NHL clubs were able to pluck up some strong additions to their pipeline across every round. Even as low as the final round, there were young talents who I can see having respectable NHL careers plucked up. In descending order of selection (for the sake of simplicity and to bear in mind that the quality of selections becomes increasingly relative as the draft goes on), I will take this time and space to analyze some of the later round selections I was particularly impressed by in the second day of proceedings.

#33 overall (SJS): LW Igor Chernyshov (KHL: Dynamo Moscow)

Mike Grier and the rest of the brain trust in San Jose didn’t waste any time going after one of the most touted Russian players in this class when he was available on day two. Chernyshov has been someone I thought was going to be underrated coming out of Russia ever since he made a decent impression in his five game cup of coffee in his D-1 year. His numbers at the KHL in a longer look this year with the incumbent Continental Cup champions were a bit modest (3g-1a-4p in 34 games played in the regular season and a blank slate in 10 postseason games) but you can see the tools he has as a guy with a tremendous work rate and a motor that goes equally hard both ways. He has a fair bit of dynamism, a pretty big frame at 6’3″, 203 pounds that he uses to intimidate while carrying the puck, and some surprising slickness at times. He pretty much has done everything he needs to do at the MHL level, regularly performing at a PPG pace, so now it becomes a matter of continuing to ply his trade in the pros and show progress. I have no doubt, though, that he will continue to climb, and we will see him on a standard three full season schedule for KHL-based prospects before coming over without many obstacles.

#38 overall (COL, from Utah): G Ilya Nabokov (KHL: Metallurg Magnitogorsk)

We know what sort of accomplishments he has to his name by now. He was an absolute standout in his rookie KHL season and it was never more apparent than in the playoffs. Him being the first goalie pick of the draft was wise. I definitely am an adherent to the Byron Bader mindset of “draft ‘standard age’ goalies who are proving themselves in junior leagues and have a lot of promise, draft overager goalies who have proven themselves in the pros”, and Nabokov has done the latter in spades. Stylistically, he’s a true hybrid goaltender who has some real aggression to him, while maintaining the necessary positioning and having the vision to make that approach work to great results and Metallurg were the beneficiaries of this. It definitely is a translatable style to the NHL and we will likely see it soon. With him already being 21, he is not far off from the age of being a standard starter and has been being cultivated in a proper environment. If the aim here from Sakic, MacFarland, and co. was to have someone more consistent and reliable than Alexandar Georgiev in the pipeline, I would say they will likely end up accomplishing their goal in the long run.

#41 overall (CGY): LW Andrew Basha (WHL: Medicine Hat Tigers)

To Byron Bader’s delight, Craig Conroy and the Flames’ draft team scooped up a local kid in the form of Calgarian Andrew Basha, and a pretty respectable one, at that. Basha comes from a solid dev environment in Willie Desjardins’ Medicine Hat Tigers (having also played in a Desjardins-cultivated environment in the form of the Southern Alberta Hockey Academy in the CSSHL) and has benefited greatly from this fantastic coaching situation. He plays with an edge to him despite being a relatively smaller guy at 6’0″, 187 lbs, and possesses exceptional stickhandling ability, explosiveness, lateral movement, and overall skating ability. He tallied 85 points in 63 games played this season, including 55 assists in a demonstration of his playmaking ability from the wing. He definitely had a first round worthy profile and it was quite a steal by his hometown club to have been able to scoop him up at this stage.

#43 overall (WSH, from Buffalo): D Cole Huston (USHL: US NTDP, committed to Boston University)

There isn’t much I can say about him that I haven’t said already, be it here or on the pod. Cole projects better in NHLe-based models than his brother Lane did, while also having a longer runway by way of being a younger member of his respective class, and that says a LOT considering we already have a feel for Lane’s pro potential via his initial couple of games with Montreal and his absolute dominance of the college environment on Comm Ave with the same institution that Cole is headed to. He was one of the best members of this class at his position and one of the best talents the US NTDP has ever produced. His future already looks bright and his time at BU will only shore up his already outstanding profile and capabilities further. I have to give my props to Brian MacLellan and co. on this one. This might have been the most impactful action the Washington front office took this weekend in the long run.

#50 overall (CAR, from NYI via Chicago): LW Nikita Artamonov (KHL: Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod)

He comes from a place that knows what they’re doing in terms of player dev, masterminded by an absolute wizard in the form of Igor Larionov. Appropriately enough, he was plucked up by a team with solid talent evaluation and a tendency towards selecting BPA, which I would very much say Artamonov was at this stage. Skaters proving their mettle in the pros at a young age is always an encouraging side and Artamonov did so in the KHL in his D0 year, tallying 23 points in 54 games with Torpedo. He did this via using exceptional processing skill and ability to make great offensive reads, combined with an ability to thread the needle that is quite impressive for his age. He also is cut from the same cloth as Basha in his ability to exhibit tenacity in puck battles that is surprising for a guy with a smaller frame (5’11”, 187 pounds). Debutant GM Eric Tulsky and the ever reliable assistant GM/head of amateur scouting Darren Yorke (the one who truly steers the ship in the draft process for Carolina and has for quite some time now) made a sensible, but very good value, selection on this one. It should be interesting to see how Artamonov grows his game as he bulks up and expands his physical tools as a player who already has exceptional hockey IQ, particularly in the offensive respect.

#67 overall (CHI): LW John Mustard (USHL: Waterloo Black Hawks, committed to Providence College)

Kyle Davidson and the rest of his staff have accumulated a fair number of defensemen to where my COO Christian and I pondered (heh, Christian Ponder): Who’s going to play alongside Connor Bedard in the forward group? This isn’t a bad partial answer to that question. Mustard, in a case for the validity of nominative determinism, is a phenomenal scorer and it has been evident that he has sniping ability all throughout his AA, AAA, and major junior careers. He has great acceleration ability and uses it well, but what seems to be his best attribute is finding soft ice and getting himself into position to find the best shooting lanes and exploiting them once he gets them. He rode those abilities to the tune of 29 goals in 60 regular season games for Waterloo this year. It should be intriguing to see what steps he takes forward in the Hockey East environment down in Rhode Island this coming season, with Tri-City Storm LW Trevor Connelly (#19 overall, VGK) joining him as part of a skilled recruiting class for the Friars.

#74 overall (CGY): D Henry Mews (OHL: Ottawa 67’s)

Calgary made some strong upward movement in climbing the ladder of prospects pools in the NHL and part of that was adding dynamic, offensive-minded blueliners (to complement some of the other great names they have on the back end in the pipeline such as Hunter Brzustewicz, Jeremie Poirier, Artyom Grushnikov, and Jeremie Poirier). Saginaw D Zayne Parekh was the first manifestation of that when he was taken by the Flames at ninth overall, but Conroy and co. struck again in round three by picking up another good product from the O. Mews’ facilitation abilities from the blue line shined through in his DY, picking up 46 assists in 65 games played with Ottawa this season. He is great at finding the lanes and using them to maximum efficiency, possesses outstanding positioning and spatial awareness, and is a solid lateral mover. He also isn’t afraid to get physical off the puck. Calgary seemed to make a good number of upgrades to the prospect pool this time around and this was one of them.

#83 overall (VGK, from NYI via Toronto and Washington): G Pavel Moisevich (KHL: SKA Saint Petersburg)

In another instance of picking proven pro overager goalies that I can smile upon, Kelly McCrimmon and co. plucked up someone who looked good when given a chance by one of Russia’s biggest clubs. Moisevich’s record wasn’t the most flattering at 3-2-2 in his brief looks at the absolute top of the Russian hockey pyramid (falling victim to SKA and Roman Rotenberg’s apparent lack of belief in giving meaningful minutes to young players), but it was not his fault at all, as he played exceptionally well behind a team that had a very slow and uneven beginning to their campaign that I documented very thoroughly in my KHL series which can be found under this folder. His statline was a 1.25 GAA and a .942 SV%, while also doing very well in the VHL, going 10-7-2 and posting a 2.31 against a .927. Needless to say, his MHL postseason was absolutely dominant, having already tested himself at the highest level. I will echo the sentiments of his scouting report: He is very much a positional goaltender, but that’s all he really needs to be. I would not be surprised if we see him as a reliable starter in the NHL in a handful of seasons, even if it is not in Vegas.

#122 overall (MIN, from Boston): D Aron Kiviharju (Liiga: HIFK)

It is pretty remarkable how rapidly things can change. When I first wrote about the undersized Finnish defenseman, he was in conversations as one of the best available players in the class based off of his D-2 and D-1 productivity. He already had an uphill battle ahead of him due to his stature, but things only got more difficult when he missed a huge chunk of time due to ACL surgery, not only denying him much of a look in the pros at the top level but robbing him of an opportunity to showcase his talents in international contexts to make one last impression. However, his skills aren’t going to go away, given they are in large part centered on unteachable/intangible things such as offensive processing ability and situational awareness. These combined with his facilitation abilities are the driving force for his success when healthy and they will continue to be such. I also have to commend Bill Guerin for the trade that made this happened that included bringing on Jakub Lauko and this selection in exchange for the 110th overall pick and Vinni Lettieri. This was a strong win for Guerin given Lauko’s bottom-six forward energy guy prowess and the fact that he acquired a higher ceiling prospect than Boston did with the 110th by way of D Elliott Groenewold (USHL: Cedar Rapids RoughRiders, committed to Quinnipiac University). This only serves to further contextualize the value of this selection.

#150 overall (CGY, from Los Angeles via Philadelphia): C Luke Misa (OHL: Misssissauga/Brampton Steelheads)

At long last, a center! This is yet another instance of someone who was touted as a first round talent by at least a fair number of voices dropping, except I really can’t comprehend why in this instance. The game doesn’t come quite as easily to the Oakville, ON native as it does for his younger brother (an exceptional status player and recent Memorial Cup champion very much worth keeping an eye on this coming year as a top prospect for the 2025 class) but he has a great work rate (which works in transition and on both ends of the ice, with the latter demonstrated by his +35 this season) and outstanding passing skills. His playmaking prowess allowed him to rack up 55 assists in 66 regular season games this year, making it seem easy but this is definitely the result of discipline. Calgary landed yet another “making the rest of the league regret passing up on him” selection on day two with this pick and it will likely go down as a memorable and very useful one as they took a step to shoring up the forward options they have to complement the already phenomenal existing defensive pipeline.

#156 overall (CAR): RW Justin Poirier (QMJHL: Baie-Comeau Drakkar)

Surprise, surprise! Darren Yorke was smarter than your favorite team’s executives yet again! As I profiled him briefly before, Poirier was perhaps the most terrifying goal scoring threat in the Q this year by way of exceptional shooting mechanics and positional awareness. The right wing racked up 51 goals in 68 regular season games this season, further complementing that with 18 goals in 17 postseason matches, as an important part of the offense of the Jean Rougeau Trophy winners/Eastern Conference champions. He has great offensive IQ and tools already as one of the youngest players in this class (born just 11 days shy of being eligible next year). I won’t be surprised if he ends up being more of a line three scorer in the NHL, but what more can you really ask for at this stage? He was one of my favorite sleeper picks going into this and I applaud Carolina for recognizing the potential in the later phases of the draft.

#207 overall (PIT): LW/C Mac Swanson (USHL: Fargo Force, committed to University of North Dakota)

I waited around all day for this one. I knew it was going to be a low selection as I prefaced in my compendium due to the height obsession, but it was taken to a great extent this year. As such, the historically great USHL standout was left undrafted until the very last round, with Kyle Dubas and co. finally knocking on his door at the last minute. In the skill set respect, especially relative to his size, Swanson has some Brad Marchand to him in how hard he is to move off the puck, his hands, his offensive IQ, and his playmaking prowess. He has had these on display all throughout his AA/AAA days with Team Alaska and in the USHL. He most certainly earned his recognition as both regular season and postseason MVP this year as Fargo had their greatest campaign in franchise history. As he departs for one of the most historic programs in the nation (with a committed, well-travelled fanbase), we have to expect that he will continue to fine tune himself and become even more of a little ball of terror that has more of a pro future than most anticipate.