From Buffalo to Winnipeg: Marek's NHL Draft insights

The NHL Draft is just over two weeks away in Buffalo, New York. As part of our continuing coverage leading up to the event, I caught up with Jeff Marek, one of the most respected voices in the hockey world.

Marek is the host of The Sheet, which airs Monday through Friday at 12:00 PM CT on Daily Faceoff. With more than two decades of experience covering the NHL, junior hockey, prospects, and international competition, Marek has become a trusted source for hockey fans across North America. He is widely regarded for his extensive knowledge of player development and the NHL Draft, having covered countless draft classes throughout his broadcasting career.

In our conversation, Marek discussed the latest developments coming out of the NHL Scouting Combine, shared his thoughts on several of the top prospects available, and offered insight into what the Winnipeg Jets may do with their first-round selection later this month.

Before we get into all the things you saw and heard at the Scouting Combine, let’s get into what you think will happen with the Winnipeg Jets and the eighth overall selection?

Marek: Like it's almost like the trade talk about the picks becomes part of the marketing of the draft and part of the curiosity of the draft. Now, like I remember being in Nashville, and Barry Trotz had taken over as general manager of the Preds, and he wanted to make a big splash and trying to move up to number four, the San Jose Sharks, and he was offering (goaltender Yaroslav) Asakrov, who eventually ended up going to the to the San Jose Sharks. But they (the Preds) wanted Will Smith, right? And so, they tried, and teams will try, but I don't think managers are of the mind that it's necessarily wise to move their first-round draft picks. We’re dealing with green bananas. There's what the player is now at 17, and there's what he can become by the time he's 23. That frightens managers, and unless you are desperate and need something right now, or you have the owner breathing down your neck telling you to do it, I'm still very much of the mind that managers are going to do what they always do, they’ll go and make their pick.

Ok, there are multiple options for the Jets, and the pick is all over the place in each mock draft that you look at. There’s Viggo Bjorck, Daxon Rudolph, Keaton Verhoeff, Lawrence Tynan and even Alberts Smits. Whose name will be called out by Kevin Cheveldayoff?

Marek: The Jets are in a position where they will have to react to whatever’s happening around them right? There’s always one (player) that falls. Once upon a time that was Cam Fowler (drafted 12^th overall in 2010), once upon a time that was Jakob Chychrun (drafted 16^th overall in 2016), a couple years ago that was Zeev Buium (drafted 12^th overall in 2024). For some reason there’s like one defenceman that sort of tumbles and that’s sort of where even at eight, when you start to see a tumble, maybe that’s where you jump in a get a top four value a little bit later on. If they think that Tynan Lawrence is a better centre than Daxon Rudolph is a defenceman than you go with Tynan Lawrence. I think there's going to be a couple of wild cards in the top picks, there's a defenceman out of Sweden by the name of Malte Gustafsson. He's the new hotness, eh? Every year going in, like Beckett Sennecke, a couple of years ago, the new hotness, he ends up going third, and it turned out to be a great pick by the Anaheim Ducks. Malte Gustafson is very much that new hotness around NHL draft circles. Big (203 lbs), tall (6’4”), can skate, can shut down. If you look at teams that win the Stanley Cup, the one thing they all have in common, because everybody plays a different style, but the one thing that they all have in common, they can all defend, and they all have large defensemen that can do so, and Gustafsson fits that bill. Maybe if Gustafsson is there at eight, that's your pick.

Carson Carels who is from Cypress River, Manitoba made a comment recently about how he’s a country kid and that he’s not too used to big cities. I imagine that’s not going to be a reason for him to drop down in the draft.

Marek: If you are the New York Rangers, I don’t think you care. You’ll figure it out. ‘You want to be the small-town kid? Yeah, that's wonderful. That's what the summer is for.’ Listen, Brady Martin was last year's farm boy, right? It's like the last couple of years, we had a couple of farm boys, like legit honest farm boys in the draft, and Brady Martin ends up going to the Nashville Predators. We'll see where Carels ends up, but put it this way, I don't think the Rangers are going to look at that at fifth overall if he's available and say, ‘Well, he wants to play in a smaller market, let's look elsewhere where you want to play, kid, you're not, you're not a free agent, you're getting drafted.’

How much can the combine change teams minds about a player?

Marek: I love this conversation, for a couple of reasons. I find that some combines can cement what you feel about a prospect. They can give you a better snapshot of the person you're getting. Brian Burke was on my show last week, and he was talking about Thomas Vanek and when he was interviewing Vanek. Burkie's team was drafting like 25th or something like all, and Vanek was in the interview, and he's got his sunglasses on, the feathers blown back, and he's back in his chair. ‘I don't know why I'm here; I'm going like top five. What am I doing here?’ And Brian said, ‘Look here, you little so and so. You should do your research before these things, because of all the general managers, I'm the one that always trades up in the draft to get a player. Now take your sunglasses off and sit up straight.’ And he said Vanek, like snapped to it. So, you hear these things, right? I don't know that Alberts Smits, his personality rubbed everybody the right way at the combine, not that it's going to be a make or break, but you do get a better snapshot of the person that you're getting.

With all that in mind, players are so prepared nowadays, how hard is it for teams to catch them off guard?

Marek: I think it was St. Louis last year that would, for the prospects, hold up a picture, and the picture was of a young man sitting in a chair in an open field, and the prospect had to tell the story of how that kid came to be sitting in that chair in that field. I don't know what you were like when you were 17, Jamie, but my head would have exploded. There's a room full of adults who are staring at you with notebooks, and these like longtime hockey managers that are staring at you.  Just by being in the room, you'll be out of your comfort zone, because you are auditioning. It doesn't matter how much you prepare for this, it's a 17-year-old kid talking to talking to an NHL team. I'll tell you what I like what Nashville did with the golf balls, so for your audience that may not know, so what Nashville did was they had the prospects and hand them two golf balls, and they said stack these golf balls on top of each other, and the reason for it was like whether you could do it or not, and there were a couple of kids that could do it relatively quickly, but I don't know if you've ever tried to stack golf balls, Jamie. It's not easy. So, but the goal behind it for the Preds was they wanted to see how long a player would focus on a frustrating task before giving up. before they actually had to make them stop, right? You always want to be in a situation where the team makes you stop doing something.

Last one for you, from the start of the draft cycle to this very moment, who has jumped up your list the most?

Marek: Caleb Malhotra. I remember talking to (Brantford Bulldogs GM) Spencer Hyman at the (2025) draft as Jake O’Brien gets drafted in the first round, he was the eighth overall pick to Seattle Kraken last year and Pierre McGuire and I are on our draft show, and Spencer Hyman was on saying, and we're talking about Jake O'Brien. He said, ‘In one year I'm going to be sitting here talking about Caleb Malhotra, and that Caleb Malhotra is going to be as high, if not a higher draft pick than Jake O'Brien’. And we all kind of went, ‘Whoa’. A lot of people had Malhotra on the outside looking in on the first round, or as a late first rounder. One of the things that I've been quick to point out anytime anyone asked me about Caleb Malhotra throughout the season, you know, we get to the playoffs with the Brantford Bulldogs and Jett Luchanko, who they picked up by trade with the Guelph Storm, the first-round draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers. Caleb Malhotra was his center, not the other way around. And Caleb Malhotra is driving that line, is centering that line, and has distinguished himself in this traveling all-star team that was the Bulldogs, count the first rounders present and count the first rounders future, go all the way down the list, it’s impressive.