5 NHL Draft winners and losers in 2024, starring the Canadiens, Ducks, and more nhl,draft,winners,and,losers,in,starring,the,canadiens,ducks,and,more,sbnation,com,front-page,nhl,nhl-draft


The 2024 NHL Draft is in the books and it’s consistently one of the most difficult drafts to try and parse. A mixture of extreme youth, paired with multi-national scouting, the majority of the players selected on Friday and Saturday won’t see the ice in the NHL for a few years — making it more of an exercise in strengthening a pipeline, rather than build a team directly.

While it can be difficult to evaluate classes immediately following a draft, the best we can do is look at a class based on how well each team did with its draft capital — and based on what scouting services through of these picks prior to the event itself. To this end we had some massive winners in 2024, and some absolute head-scratching picks.

Winner: San Jose Sharks

When you have the No. 1 pick and get the best player you’re going to be a winner by default, but there’s more to what the Sharks did than just Macklin Celebrini. This team got incredible value up and down their draft board, bolstering their defense with Sam Dickinson and nabbing Igor Chernyshov with the No. 33 pick (he was 17th on my big board).

This was a forward-heavy class for the Sharks who are in dire need of scoring. There’s a clear approach here to rebuild the team the right way, and we could very well be looking at this class as a turning point for the franchise that finally brings some teeth back to the shark tank.

Loser: Anaheim Ducks

Things weren’t so great for the Sharks’ northern neighbors, and yes a lot of this has to do with taking Beckett Sennecke with the No. 3 overall pick. It’s not that Sennecke is a bad player — in fact, he could be pretty good. The issue is a complete misunderstanding of draft capital and how to work the board.

Multiple teams wanted to move up into the Top 4 of this class where the elite NHL-ready players were. Not only did the Ducks manage to not take one of these top guys, but they also didn’t move back and get anything for it. When you shock everyone so much that even your top pick is stunned … well, it’s not a great sign.

Across their first three picks the Ducks were a -15 in their pick vs. consolidated rankings, meaning they consistently took players earlier than independent scouting projected. Now, this could mean they were right and everyone else is wrong — but that rarely plays out well.

Winner: Montreal Canadiens

The biggest benefactor of the Ducks going off script were the Canadiens, who got an absolute steal at No. 5 in Ivan Demidov. The No. 1 wing in this class, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see him go at No. 2 if the Blackhawks elected to go offense over defense.

Montreal really needed to find star-power in this class, and they did just that with both Demidov and Michael Hage. The Canadiens might need to wait a little while for Demidov to take the jump, but he’s going to be worth the weight. He’s been dominating the MHL as a true 18-year-old, finishing with 60 points in 30 games. If this can continue in the KHL we’re going to see a monster player in the pipeline who can finally turn this team’s fortunes around.

Winner: Carolina Hurricanes

The Canes consistently find a way to be competitive while also keeping their shelves stocked, and the 2024 NHL Draft was no different. While this will definitely be an offseason with a lot of change in Raleigh with Jake Guentzel set to sign with the Lightning, and Martin Necas being a wild card. Despite this the draft itself was a massive boon for the first test for the organizations since GM Don Waddell left to join the Blue Jackets.

Despite moving back in the draft multiple times, the Hurricanes still managed to be a +24 in their first three picks — getting massive value in their selections vs. consolidated rankings. This was really set up by selecting Nikita Artamonov with the No. 50 pick, despite being the 25th best player in ranking and the No. 29 on my board.

There was very real potential for Artamonov to be a Top 15 pick, and the Canes have the luxury to allow him to develop in Russia until it’s time to bring him over. A do-everything forward with legitimate 2nd line potential, we could see him being a future star.

Loser: TRADE ALERT

Having the NHL Draft in the Las Vegas Sphere made for some of the most incredible images in the history of the event. Unfortunately this also made for abject terror whenever a trade happened during the draft and the Sphere had a massive warning horn and the words “TRADE ALERT.”

It was enough to terrify everyone watching.

it was like aliens were invading with every trade. Please stop TRADE ALERT before it’s too late.

Jason Tatum and Matthew Tkachuk were high school friends, now they’re both champions jason,tatum,and,matthew,tkachuk,were,high,school,friends,now,they,re,both,champions,sbnation,com,front-page,nba,nhl,draftkings


The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup Champions, winning a hard-fought Game 7 against the Oilers to win their first title in team history. It comes just after the Boston Celtics won the NBA Championship — and at the center of both teams is a remarkable bond between friends.

Jason Tatum of the Celtics and Matthew Tkachuk of the Panthers are long-time friends, going back to their days at Chaminade Prep School in the suburbs of St. Louis. Tatum, a promising basketball player befriended Tkachuk, who wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps into the NHL (Matthew is the son of the legendary Keith Tkachuk).

The two spent time together, pushing each other, even making goofy videos together — as this assignment Tatum made for school stars Tkachuk briefly.

Tkachuk was drafted by the Flames with the 6th pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, Tatum was picked by the Celtics with the 3rd pick in 2017. Now less than a decade later they’ve both won titles in the same year.

Simply amazing.

Oilers drop incredible hype video ahead of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final oilers,drop,incredible,hype,video,ahead,of,game,of,the,stanley,cup,final,sbnation,com,front-page,nhl,stanley-cup-finals,nhl-playoffs


Social media hype videos are all the rages these days.

Over the years teams have made them the stuff of legend. During their run to a National Championship the social media department for the LSU Tigers crafted incredible videos, culminating in this appearance by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for their finale against Clemson.

Just this summer alone we have seen Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes in dueling hype videos for the NBA Finals, with Brady narrating a video put together by the Boston Celtics while Mahomes supplied the voiceover for the corresponding video released by the Dallas Mavericks.

That leads us to the Edmonton Oilers.

The Oilers are on the verge of making NHL history, as they look to become the first team since the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup Final after dropping the first three games of the series. The Oilers already made some history earlier in the series, as they became the first team in league history to force a Game 6 after going down 3-0 to start a series, while winning Game 5 on the road.

As you might expect, the Oilers dropped a hype video of their own Monday ahead of Game 7, but they kept it simple. No celebrity voiceover, just some tremendous instrumental music along with the calls from various moments of the series.

And it is perfect:

ame 7 is tonight. You might want to watch.

Because you might witness history.