The 2020 NHL draft has finally come to a close. It was a long road to this year’s virtual draft, but all 31 teams walk away with an injection of young talent for their respective pipelines and begin to look ahead to this week’s looming free agency. Surprises hit as early as the first round — well after the Rangers, as expected, took Alexis Lafreniere at No. 1 — and though each team has new prospects to develop in its system, some classes were better than others.
Let’s grade each team’s draft class. Which franchises had the best drafts? Which left a lot to be desired? Remember, we won’t know just how all 31 teams did over the course of the two-day draft for a few years. There’s a long way to go in player development, so view this not as a final evaluation but rather as an initial impression. Learn more about the class with our extensive draft content, including other reaction analysis:
Every pick | Takeaways | Day 1 recap
Here are my draft grades for every NHL team, listed from the best class to the worst (teams with the same grade are in alphabetical order).
Jump to a team:
ANA | ARI | BOS | BUF | CGY | CAR | CHI
COL | CBJ | DAL | DET | EDM | FLA
LA | MIN | MTL | NSH | NJ | NYI
NYR | OTT | PHI | PIT | SJ | STL
TB | TOR | VAN | VGS | WSH | WPG
Favorite pick: Jacob Perreault, No. 27 overall
The Ducks had early picks and made the most of them, filling their most urgent system need by selecting dynamic defenseman Jamie Drysdale at No. 6. He is a deceptive skater with strong puck-moving ability. With a second first-rounder, the Ducks then had the good fortune of Jacob Perreault slipping a little against consensus, giving them a higher-end goal scorer to add to the mix. Perreault’s shot, in particular, is elite.
Sam Colangelo is a highly skilled, big forward who is going to go develop for a few years in college. He has the ability to make defenders miss in the offensive zone. The team also went after upside on defense by going with Ian Moore, one of the top prep players available in this draft and a brilliant skater, and Thimo Nickl, who can really defend. Anaheim finished by taking calculated fliers on Artyom Galimov and Albin Sundsvik, whom the Ducks can allow to develop in Europe for a while.
Read more analysis on the Ducks’ first-rounders, Jamie Drysdale and Jacob Perreault.
