Who won the draft?

A look at what teams gained in last Monday's draft

It's been a week since the 2021 Elite Series Draft, an exciting show that has been watched over 32,000 times to date. But what did teams gain in the draw? Oliver Hampson takes a look.

In a draft that would have been entertaining enough, it got even more entertaining when the Nottingham Panthers traded with the Manchester Storm, moving up to select first, and to the surprise of very few people, they grabbed Ben Bowns, who was the second most experienced goalie in the draft behind Stephen Murphy who the Storm would go on to pick 25th overall.

Panthers lead on goaltending

Bowns has over 500-games of experience under his belt and a staggering 34 shutouts in that time as well, and with the Panthers opting to protect Jackson Whistle as well, and pick up William Kerlin, Nottingham appear to have the strongest goaltending core at the moment.

Nottingham added a lot of experience in the draft through guys like Bowns, as well as Mark Garside with 762 games, but it was another team that added the most experience to their team.

Storm win on EIHL experience and goals

Manchester is the team to add the experience, with a total of 2864 games experience coming to Ryan Finnerty’s side. The leader there coming through Ben Davies, with 702 games, followed closely by Craig Peacock at 643 and Matt Haywood at 586. With experience, you get points too, they added the most games played, most goals at 525, assists at 780 and points with 1305.

The Storm added the most goals as a team, as well as adding the most goals by a player. Craig Peacock brings just under half of the team's total goals added of 525, bringing 208 goals from his days playing with Basingstoke, Belfast and Glasgow.

Myers boosts Steelers' production

Despite adding the most experience, it was Sheffield who added the player with the most experience as Matthew Myers, and his 982 games will swap the red of Cardiff for the orange of Sheffield. Myers also brings the most points in the draft with 541, making up well over half of the total points Sheffield added last Monday night, as well as the most assists at 345, nearly 100 more than the next man.

Blaze looking youthful

At the other end of the spectrum, you have the Coventry Blaze who went very young in the draft, with sections such as Cole Shudra, Sam Duggan and Toms Rutkis. They even selected a player with no EIHL experience in the seventh round, in Vanya Antonov, but given his record at EPL/NIHL level, that looks to be a very solid late pick for Danny Stewart.

Even with their protected players, the Blaze boast the youngest average age on the squad at just over 22.5 years old, with 27-year-old Paul Swindlehurst being the aged veteran on the team.