Sergachyov is an excellent skater that can carry the puck through traffic and use his frame to protect the puck in close quarters. His head’s always up and looking for an outlet, though he’s just as content to carry the puck himself. He reminds me most of Alexander Edler, though one scout I spoke to felt Mattias Ohlund was a better match.
This isn’t to say Sergachyov is perfect, though. Not by any stretch. He can be reckless with the puck on occasion and could stand to work on his reads from the defensive zone. Luckily for Sergachyov and whichever team drafts him, these are fixable flaws.
Sergachyov is still an attractive defenceman, that could find himself taken anywhere in the 7-20 range of the draft. In all likelihood, his draft position will undersell his upside and the team that’s lucky enough to make the investment will reap huge rewards.

There’s a whole lot to like about Matthew Tkachuk, son of former NHLer Keith Tkachuk. He’s big, he’s tough, he’s got a great shot and impressive vision and playmaking ability. As the fifth ranked prospect on our list, he falls right into the wheelhouse of some Canadian teams, making the locals pay even closer attention.
But Tkachuk hasn’t been without his detractors, and while you certainly can’t claim that he isn’t incredibly talented, there is a case to be made that his numbers have been inflated a bit because of who he spent the 2015-16 season playing with.
Speculating on how much of Tkachuk’s success is due to Marner and Dvorak is just that – speculation. It isn’t exactly fair to him to assume that they’re the source of his success, when he hasn’t gotten a legitimate opportunity to sink or swim on his own. Qualitative analysis of Tkachuk’s play suggests that he is still worthy of a top five pick, and we don’t have much else to go on at this point. Even if Tkachuk had help getting to his impressive point totals, we can’t really hold it against him without seeing a large body of work in other situations.

Jesse Puljujarvi is almost undeniably deserving of the third overall ranking for this year’s draft. He’s an incredibly dynamic prospect: big and fast, with great hockey sense and a knack for big-moment performances. He put on a show at the World Juniors this winter, and was terrific in the playoffs for Karpat, putting up 4 goals and 5 assists in ten games.
That Puljujarvi was driving play so effectively at just 17 years old speaks to the completeness of his game. He has size, offensive upside, and two-way acumen. He has the ability to be a big-bodied, two-way, offense-generating first-line winger at the NHL level: a Blake Wheeler-type player.