Carolina Hurricanes NHL Mock Draft 2021: Rounds 1-3

26th Overall: D Carson Lambos

With the 26th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, I have the Carolina Hurricanes selecting Carson Lambos.

Now, if you follow me on Twitter (@matt_nid), you’d know that I’ve been on the Logan Stankoven hype train for several months now. I still very much am, but if the Canes are going to focus on building up their defensive prospect pool, there won’t be a better defenseman available at 26 than Carson Lambos.

I, personally, have Lambos going in the Top 15 this draft, but several scouts have him going much, much lower.

Eliteprospects.com, for example, have Lambos going at 30th overall, and have this to say about the young blueliner:

Lambos is a potent shooter with the skill and instincts to manipulate defenders and improve his shooting location. With and without the puck, he activates from the point, becoming a passing option and a scoring threat. He fakes shots and passes, waits for the defender to commit, then bursts into the space he created. Constant head fakes add another layer of deception. With hands in front, distance between his feet, and the top elbow elevated, Lambos drags the puck arounddefenders then fires in one smooth motion. What separates him from other crafty point threats is ability to chain together these moves, like taking the puck in motion to draw the defender wide, hitting the brakes, faking a pass, stepping inside, then firing a curl-and-drag wrister.

The defensemen that the Carolina Hurricanes do have in the pipeline at this point are mostly defensive defensemen; the aforementioned Alexander Nikishin comes immediately to mind.

Lambos’ stats this past season weren’t terrible by any means. In 13 games played with the JYP U20 team, Lambos had 2 goals and 9 assist for 11 total points. In 2019-20, Lambos had an incredibly solid year with the Winnipeg Ice, turning in 8 goals and 24 assists for 32 points in 57 WHL games played.

Lambos is clearly a lethal offensive threat, and given some time in the Canes’ defense-first system, he’d likely evolve into an incredibly solid two-way defenseman with absolutely filthy stickhandling and goalscoring capabilities. If I had to stylistically compare him to a current NHLer, I’d have to pick Alex Pietrangelo.

58th Overall: G Tristan Lennox

With the 58th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, I think the Carolina Hurricanes are going to pick goaltender Tristan Lennox.

Now, before I get started talking about Lennox, I’d like to go ahead and clarify that this selection may be a bit of a reach. Lennox is one of the few ‘boom-or-bust’ goalie prospects in this year’s draft, but I think he has a very high upside and I, personally, and leaning more toward ‘boom’ for this kid.

Lennox, in 2019-20 with the Saginaw Spirit, had a down year. He played 33 games in the shortened season, and turned in a less-than-stellar (read: dreadful) .876 SV%, and an even less impressive 3.63 GAA. His win/loss record (20-8-3) was solid, though that was more likely attributed to his team bailing him out on more than one occasion.

That same year, though, Lennox absolutely shone in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, playing 3 games and posting a tremendous .951 SV%, and a 0.95 GAA with 1 shutout alongside a 3-0-0 win/loss record.

Having watched Lennox for a couple years now, I can say with confidence that, despite his down year last season, he has shown all the signs of becoming a legitimate starting goalie at the NHL level in a much shorter time than normally takes for goaltenders to make a successful transition to the NHL.

Lennox has near-elite levels of puck handling skills, and is incredibly athletic. His technical game could use some work; he is good at getting in the way of the puck, and is incredibly agile in his own crease, but his game is very straightforward and lacks much nuance. His vision and tracking are good at his level, but would need some developing to be effective in the NHL.

At the end of the day, even though Lennox might look like a ‘boom-or-bust’ goaltending prospect, whichever team selects him and puts him through a solid development regimen will surely have a very capable starting goaltender at the NHL level on their hands within 2-3 years.

If I had to stylistically compare Lennox to a current NHLer, I’d probably pick a Mike Smith-type of goaltender.

90th Overall: C Theo Rochette

With the 90th overall pick in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft, I think the Carolina Hurricanes will select Theo Rochette.

Rochette, a center for the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL, is (on paper) the ultimate Rod Brind’Amour type of player.

Now, Rochette is a bit of an odd case. In my opinion, he should be going in the Top 50, but most outlets have him falling to the 3rd round and beyond, which I’m completely baffled by.

The 5’10”, 165lb. centerman might be a bit undersized, but players like Alex Debrincat are removing the stigma that comes along with ‘smaller’ hockey players with each passing day.

That being said, Rochette notched 12 goals and 18 assists for 30 points in 32 games played in 2020-21. In the QMJHL playoffs, Rochette notched a single goal and 5 assists in 6 games played.

According to Eliteprospects.com:

The centreman is a switchable defensive player. He rarely overcommits and identifies threats around him quite well. He consistently finds ways to reach teammates with the puck, bouncing it off the boards, lobbing it ahead into space, backhanding it, or threading it through opposing skates

Very much a playmaking two-way center, Rochette would be right at home in Rod Brind’amour’s ‘defense first’ system, and would have playmaking wizards in Teuvo Teravainen and Vincent Trocheck to learn from firsthand. Stylistically, Rochette reminds me of a William Karlsson/Phillip Danault type of player.

The first three rounds of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft are absolutely loaded with talent in virtually all positions; I still hold to my earlier prediction that the Carolina Hurricanes go for Logan Stankoven in the first round, but that all depends on whether they feel they need to focus of defensive depth or offensive depth.

Whatever the case may be, I wholeheartedly believe that whichever decision they make will almost assuredly be the right one. #PraiseTulsky.