The lottery winners don't always come out of the draft with the best haul. We saw that again this year when the San Jose Sharks received arguably the best player out of the 2021 draft class at seventh overall, William Eklund. Of course, time will tell if our love for Eklund's game at EPRinkside is warranted, but we feel confident in our projection.

Eklund is not projected to be franchise talent, but he will be part of the foundation of the Sharks rebuild. It is still in its early stages, however. Years of Stanley Cup contention deprived the system of young talent. The Sharks will still need a significant influx of prospects to jump inside the top-10 of our prospect pool rankings, but they are on the right track. 

The 2022 draft could provide their pool the boost it needs to compete with some of the other, more advanced rebuilding teams around the league.