This year's draft may not be a particularly strong one for my native Finland, but I've had no such difficulty finding compelling prospects in the Swedish junior ranks – to one extent or another. 

That assessment of the two Nordic nations' offerings at this year's draft seems to align with the data I've manually tracked to this point in the season. Most of the first-time draft-eligible J20 Nationell skaters I've tracked have matched or bested their U20 SM-Saraja counterparts, even though it wouldn't be unfair to characterize their league as the more competitive one.

In this Scout's Notebook, I'll be presenting three draft-eligible prospects from the Swedish U20 circuit who've impressed me quite a bit this season.

Let's start with my favourite of the bunch.