WWYDW: Picking Fourth

With ten games left in the regular season and, obviously, no playoffs to look forward to, your focus is probably moving towards the 2016 offseason and all of the fun that comes with it. Besides a potentially enormous dip into the free agent pool, the NHL Entry Draft is going to demand a lot of our attention. In fact, it already is.

We at TLN have already begun putting together consolidated draft rankings and updating them regularly, and we’ve also received a number of draft-related questions in recent weeks in our Monday Mailbags. It’s clear you guys want to talk about it, so let’s do that.

My favourute question I received in this Monday’s Mailbag was “who would you pick 4th overall?” My initial reaction was “Easy. Tkachuk,” but I decided I’d do some reading and watch some highlights and see if I felt any differently afterwards. I still lean Tkachuk, but it’s not as clear a decision as I originally thought. So many others – like Chychrun, Dunois, Juolevi, McLeod and Nylander – make it a really tough call.

So, let’s say the Leafs finish dead last in the NHL standings and have a poor showing on lottery night. Or maybe they actual leapfrog a couple teams and land their naturally. Let’s pretend that Toronto has their second-consecutive fourth overall selection in the 2016 Draft. Who would you take?