Day 5 of the SBNation Mock NHL Draft brings us our next pick trade, as we enter the part of the draft where this is fairly plausible in a real draft.

With so much disagreement over prospects outside the top 10, teams might decide that moving the pick gets them who that want and something else too.

Day 1 SBNation Mock Draft

NHL Mock Draft 2018: Buffalo Sabres select Rasmus Dahlin with No. 1 pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Carolina Hurricanes select Andrei Svechnikov with No. 2 pick

Day 2 SBNation Mock Draft

NHL Mock Draft 2018: Montreal Canadiens select Filip Zadina with No. 3 pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Ottawa Senators Select Quinn Hughes with No. 4 Pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Arizona Coyotes select Brady Tkachuk with No. 5 pick

Day 3 SBNation Mock Draft

NHL Mock Draft 2018: Red Wings select Adam Boqvist with No. 6 pick

The Vancouver Canucks site selected Noah Dobson with the number 7 pick.  They haven’t got an article yet, so here’s a scouting report from another site:

2018 NHL Draft prospect: Defenceman Noah Dobson has size, speed & skill - Eyes On The Prize
A dual-threat defender, Dobson would be a great addition to any NHL team.

NHL Mock Draft 2018: Chicago Blackhawks select Oliver Wahlstrom with No. 8 pick

Day 4 SBNation Mock Draft

NHL Mock Draft 2018: New York Rangers select Evan Bouchard with No. 9 pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018:  Edmonton Oilers Select Martin Kaut with No. 10 Pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Islanders trade picks with Capitals for a goalie
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Washington Capitals Select Jesperi Kotkaniemi with the No. 11 Pick

Day 5 SBNation Mock Draft

NHL Mock Draft: Islanders select Ty Smith with No. 12 pick
NHL Mock Draft 2018: Flyers move from pick No. 14 to No. 16 by way of two deals
NHL Mock Draft 2018: We have a trade to announce
NHL Mock Draft 2018: With the 13th pick, the Colorado Avalanche select Joe Veleno
Joel Farabee Picked 14th In The SBN 2018 NHL Mock Draft

Okay! This trade stuff is complex. But Lighthouse Hockey, after starting all this yesterday, just picked Ty Smith today with their second pick:

Like last year, we turned to LHH regulars North Dakota Red Eagle* and CanadianIslesLifer** for guidance. With the 11th and 12th picks looming, they endorsed my plan to engage the Capitals in a discussion of Grubauer.

Both advisers had their eyes on the trio of Finnish center Jesperi Kotkaniemi, U.S. hockey left winger Joel Farabee, and Spokane (WHL) defenseman Ty Smith.

I agreed to let our Capitals sibling site on SB Nation, Japers’ Rink, have first choice. They grabbed Kotkaniemi.

With that future center off the table, we decided to replenish the defensive pipeline with Smith, who is this year’s draft-eligible standout coming out of the WHL. He is a mobile blueliner with great vision, and his team gave him license to join the rush, which is how he finished second (73 points) in WHL scoring among defensemen to real-world Islanders prospect David Quenneville (80).

With that straightforward bit of business done, the trading started. Broad Street covers this very well, and delves into the ideas around pick value, so if you’re interested in that, read the full article:

Trade No. 1: Philadelphia trades the 14th pick in the 2018 draft and the restricted free agent rights of Petr Mrazek to the Dallas Stars for the 13th pick in the 2018 draft.

We were approached early on in the draft process about a possible move for Mrazek by the Dallas contingent over at Defending Big D, as they had heard that the Flyers were unlikely to retain Mrazek’s rights this summer. Ben Bishop’s first year in Dallas went reasonably well (lack of team success notwithstanding), but Dallas has no other legitimate NHL goalie under contract or in its system, and their reps in our network figured that Mrazek would make some sense in that role and wanted to get first dibs on signing him.

Trade No. 2: Philadelphia trades the 13th and 127th picks in the 2018 draft to Colorado for the 16th and 58th picks in the 2018 draft.

As we went on the clock with the 13th pick, the fine folks over at Mile High Hockey reached out to us to see if they could move up a few spots from their perch at the 16th pick. Clearly, there was someone they really liked at that pick, and (perhaps motivated by the potential to jump division-rival Dallas at No. 14) they were willing to pay to get there.

Mile High Hockey chose Jeo Velano:

That brings us to Joe Veleno. Drafted by the Saint John Sea Dogs first overall in 2015, Veleno has steadily improved over the course of his three seasons; 0.69 points per game in his rookie year, 0.88 as a 17-year-old in his second year, before putting up 31 points in 31 games as captain for the Sea Dogs in his final season with the club before he got traded at the deadline to Drummondville for a playoff run. 48 points in 33 regular season games and 11 points in 10 playoff games is how he ends his draft eligible season.

Defending Big D, picking at 14, tool Joel Farabee:

He has character. Nill likes to draft prospects that are known to be leaders on their teams. He looks for prospects that are going to be good for the organization both on and off the ice. When Nill traded for Stephen Johns several years ago, he said at the time (emphasis mine), “The other thing that I love about the young man is he’s a leader on and off the ice. He’s very respected. He works in the community. He’s a character guy through and through and you can’t have enough of those guys in your organization.”

I think Philly would make that deal to move up one spot any day. The rights to Mzazek don’t mean anything to them, and that’s the best kind of trade.

The second trade is more complex, in that Philly moved down two in the first round, which is a big drop, and swaps their 127th for the 58th, which is not much of a gap. I know that’s a somewhat contentious thing to say, nonetheless, it’s true.

Would you make that deal to swap mid-first-round picks?

Would you have made this pick swap trade?

If I was Philly, sure.102
Colorado won that.64
Depends on the players involved. 55