When it comes to the 2020 NHL draft, there is little to no debate about who is going to be selected No. 1. That would be winger Alexis Lafreniere. But when it comes to which defenseman will be first off the board, things get a lot more complicated.
For much of the past few months, Erie Otters blueliner Jamie Drysdale and U.S. National Under-18 Team rearguard Jake Sanderson have been compared and contrasted. Drysdale was more of the known quantity coming into the past season, and Sanderson's push caught many by surprise and forced more than a few scouts to suddenly consider which player was the better prospect. Opinions vary, but both project comfortably into the future top pairing of an NHL team's defensive ranks.
To better understand the differences between their games, we asked an anonymous NHL scout from an Eastern Conference team for scouting reports on each player. Then things got interesting. We gave Sanderson and Drysdale a chance to hear the assessments and provide their own commentary and, in a way, critique the critique. We also spoke to each player's coach from last season, and I provided my own analysis to round out the breakdowns. To close, we took one final look at the neck-and-neck race to be the first defenseman off the board in October and made a prediction. Let's get started.
Note: Ages are as of the Oct. 6 draft date.
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Sanderson | Drysdale | The debate
Jake Sanderson, USA U18 (NTDP)
Age: 18 | Ht: 6-2 | Wt: 185 | Shot: L
Stats: 47 GP, 7 G, 22 A
Anonymous scout on Sanderson: You knew he was a good player but didn't know he'd be this good. The size factor gives the edge to Sanderson because if you're going to have a minute-munching guy, you're going to lean toward the bigger guy.
Sanderson: That's very humbling. I think I'm somebody that can be put in all situations, on the penalty kill and the power play. I think I'm built for playoff hockey as well.
Peters: Sanderson has three inches and 10 pounds on Drysdale, which could be key. He has good physical strength and will initiate contact when he needs to.
Anonymous scout: You're kind of weighing those things and who would you rather have. But his skating, first-pass [ability] and compete [level] were always there.
Sanderson: I think skating is definitely my strongest asset as a player. I use it not just to jump in the rush and create offense, but in the D zone -- closing gaps, gapping up fast and closing efficiently on angles, like sweeping into guys down the wall.
Peters: His dad, Geoff, was a speedster in the NHL, too. Sanderson's north-south speed is as good as any defenseman in this draft, and maybe even in the past couple of years. He is so hard to beat wide because he's going to close faster than most forwards can anticipate.
Anonymous scout: He showed some bite and some jam that not everyone knew he had. Sanderson has the size and range where he can be smothering. He has great feet, and no one can get by him. You hope Sanderson can be more of a two-way guy and can contribute enough offensively.
Sanderson: I think our team played a hard, gritty, defensive style game. I loved how Coach [Seth] Appert taught us that because I think not a lot of people are willing to play hard on both sides of the puck. The unique part for me is that I can jump into the rush, but I'm a shutdown defenseman too.
Nick Fohr, U.S. National Team Development Program associate coach: The biggest thing I have to push back on with NHL guys is his lack of offense. People look at his numbers and ask how you justify him being a high pick? For me, when I push back on that, I have to say that our team didn't score a lot. We won 2-1, 3-1, 3-2. There weren't a lot of free points. He didn't have Jack Hughes or Cole Caufield or Trevor Zegras [all former teammates] on a team that was scoring eight or nine goals a game. As a defenseman, sometimes you can just get free points by outletting a puck. Our goals didn't come that way.
Peters: I'll say this, too. Sanderson has a great understanding of when to try to make plays. He looks to make them when they're available to him, but he won't get in trouble by forcing one. And because of that, he is rarely caught out of position.
Fohr: The big-moment goals, when we needed somebody to make that big play, he made the big play in the crucial moments. That was huge. There's plenty of offense there, but the good thing with Jake is he's not defined by his offense, he's defined by his defense. I don't know if you're going to find a better defender in this draft.
Anonymous scout: He was probably as fast a riser as we've seen this year in the second half. He showed us everything he could do.
Peters: A big factor in Sanderson's late-season rise was his performance in front of a lot of scouts and executives at the All-American Prospects Game, where he was the MVP, and the Under-18 Five Nations tournament in February, where he led the tournament in scoring. The offensive elements of his game really started to flourish in those spots.
Sanderson: At the start of the year, a lot of people were questioning if I could produce for my team, and I feel like I proved them wrong. That Five Nations tournament was some of the best hockey I've played. I probably could have had more offense at the start of the year, but then I started jumping into the rush and shooting more and felt more dominant.
Fohr: We had a conversation early in the year, right before a November international tournament. There were a lot of scouts watching. Jake was ready to take another step at that point, and he did, which went under the radar. Our conversations continued through the year. I told him, 'Listen Jake, it's time for you to put your teammates on your back. When it comes crunch time, take the puck, take charge of what's going on out there and will this team to victory if you have to. You're ready to put this team on your shoulders.' He had a huge goal at that tournament, which we won in November.
Then it continued at the All-American game. He was just starting to show it then. At the Five Nations, when it was crunch time, he got it done. He was ready and mature enough to handle the pressure. He was unreal at the Five Nations. ... When we needed something to happen, he was involved in it. That's what the special players do.
Peters: Sanderson is set to play for the University of North Dakota this season, where his game should flourish. He is already on campus, though the timeline remains cloudy for the coming season in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference. It currently has a target start date of Nov. 20.
Jamie Drysdale, Erie (OHL)
Age: 18 | Ht: 5-11 | Wt: 175 | Shot: R
Stats: 49 GP, 9 G, 38 A
Anonymous scout on Drysdale: Drysdale has elite mobility. He is an elite skater, can gain zones, moves the puck and provides a lot of offense.
Drysdale: I've been focusing on improving my top-end speed. I generate a lot of speed off of my crossovers. Just from start to stop speed, I can definitely work on that. I just want to be faster in a straight line. I focus a lot of my game on crossovers, edgework, turns and spins, so I just want to fully round out the skating package.
Peters: Drysdale's edge work is special. He creates so much space for himself by just taking that extra second to circle back and escape pressure. You see Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes do that a lot now to great effect, and I think Drysdale is on a similar track. As he admits, though, Drysdale relies a lot on his crossovers and edges, and less on his straight-ahead stride. That's not necessarily a weakness, but if he improves in that area, it will open up a lot more ice for him and allow him to better exploit gaps in the defense to maximize his offensive potential.
Anonymous scout: I don't know if it's going to be Erik Karlsson-type offense, but he might fit more into that secondary offensive group.
Drysdale: I think you're going to see offense. My goal is, I want to be a power-play guy, I want to be a guy to help produce for the team. That's what I want to be at the next level. I'm confident in my style and my play, and it all works. I think it will translate. I just need to take what I have and challenge myself to continue to make a difference on the ice in that offensive role and help be a producer on the back end.
Chris Hartsburg, Erie Otters head coach: The thing that comes up with him a lot is what's his ceiling going to be as a high-end offensive defenseman. He's almost over-the-top responsible because he wants to win so badly. I challenged him earlier in the year to be a difference-maker every time he's on the ice. I didn't want him to fall into the trap of being a safe player. There may have been a few games where he was a little quieter, but there were more where he completely took over the game in the last five or 10 minutes. He's just so competitive and wants to win so badly, he's willing to sacrifice for the team. It may have hurt his offensive totals a little bit because he won't cheat for his points, which a coach has to respect.
Anonymous scout: He has been a household name for a long time and a real good player, but what he did at the [World Junior Championship] was really impressive, especially at his age. He defended well and could really move the puck against top players.
Peters: Drysdale making the World Juniors as an under-ager at 17 years old was no small thing. It just doesn't happen very often -- he was only the fourth under-ager to make the Canadian defensive corps in the past 20 tournaments, and the first since Aaron Ekblad did so in 2014. And the fact he defended as well as he did at that tournament even surprised some of the Hockey Canada staff I spoke with after the tournament. That was a great chance for him to show more of his game, and it ended with a gold medal to boot.
Drysdale: People have always criticized my defensive game, especially last year. First of all, I think it's come a long way from my 16-year-old year. I'm much more confident in it, and I just continue to build off of that. I continue working on it every day. It's not like I'm not confident in my D game, I am confident, but I'll continue to work on it. I think that's one thing that's underrated or people don't realize as much: I think I can be trusted on the back end as well.
Peters: His defending is certainly adequate. He just needs to get stronger and show more consistent detail in his own end.
Hartsburg: I think the biggest thing this season I saw from him was his willingness to challenge guys, physically or not, and just feel more comfortable as a 17-year-old. He had a willingness every night to go up against the best players and compete against them. Doing it at the World Junior stage gave him more confidence.
Drysdale: Going into last year, I wasn't thinking too much about World Juniors, and when I got to camp, I think that's kind of when I thought I could actually compete with these guys. I wanted to show that I could play a different role than I played in Erie. If I wasn't going to be a go-to offensive guy, for myself, I just wanted to show I can be versatile. Being around those guys, the players on the back end, you definitely pick up a few things.
Anonymous scout: For me personally, I'm not sure how high-end his offense is going to be. Is he attractive just for his skating, and are we sure it's going to translate? Or is he going to be more of a secondary scorer? You assume the skating will allow it to translate. He also showed at the [World Juniors] he can play a simple puck-moving game, too.
Peters: This has been one of the hang-ups I've had with Drysdale, too. But I think the shot is there, and he does a nice job of getting pucks through. I think as he gets stronger, he's going to be able to get inside a little bit more. There is some game-breaker potential here. And as his coach notes, he has that competitive edge in him.
Hartsburg: He took some healthy runs at guys this year, which I didn't really expect from him. He just did it. His willingness to show that 'you may think I'm undersized, but my compete level is high and I want to show that night in and night out.' That will never be a strength of his, but it's something he has to do at the next level.
Peters: Drysdale is most likely headed back to Erie for another season in the OHL, where he averaged nearly a point per game last season.
So Sanderson or Drysdale?
Anonymous scout: I really didn't expect it to be a debate at the end of the year.
Peters: It's razor-thin because they do different things exceptionally well and have some different strengths but are both ultracompetitive and exceptional skaters, which I think will translate.
Anonymous scout: You have to give the clear edge on offensive production to Drysdale. When I think of the guy who I see playing big minutes, tough matchups and being able to play in all situations, there are similarities between the two, but I'd slightly lean toward Sanderson. When it comes to defending, it's Sanderson.
I think it's really apples and oranges, and there's really no right or wrong here, I'm just interested to see how it plays out. I think the top two to three forwards are set, but I think you have to start entertaining either one of these guys right around No. 4, 5 or 6. Both have top pairing potential.
Peters: Yeah, there are no two prospects I have flip-flopped on my personal board more this year than these two. Back in May, I had Drysdale at No. 9 and Sanderson at No. 10 in my rankings. By June, I had flipped them. While I have Sanderson one spot ahead of Drysdale on my personal board at the moment, I wouldn't knock a team that has them reversed.
They're both special players, and each deserves to be a top-10 pick. And I think both have a good chance to make a strong case to break through to the NHL by 2021-22 (though I'd more comfortably project a 2022-23 timeline given all of the uncertainty of the upcoming season).