via Dimitri Filipovic of Sportsnet,
The biggest beneficiaries of teams going off the board and reaching for players early on were the Detroit Red Wings and New York Islanders.
The Red Wings arguably got the biggest steal of the draft in Filip Zadina, who was simply too skilled to pass up on at No. 6 despite the team presumably entering the draft expecting to come away with whichever defenceman out of the top ‘Non-Rasmus Dahlin’ tier fell to them. For whatever reason people started to overthink things with Zadina — after having him as the consensus third-highest ranked talent in the class for the majority of the season, draftniks began nitpicking various things about his game while elevating others as the pre-draft process dragged along.
He’s already on the record saying that he’s going to prove those people wrong, and it’s easy to believe him. Blessed with a skill set that not only translates to the next level, but should consistently make him a top flight scorer in a league that needs more of them, he’s positioned to do just that. With Zadina, and the combination of Joe Veleno and Jonatan Berggren falling past their draft slots, the Red Wings have a case for being the team that squeezed the most value out of the assets they had coming into the weekend.
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