Ducks 2020 Draft Review

By Thomas Harrington

It’s time to take a look back at the 2020 NHL Entry Draft and see how the Ducks did. I believe that five years is enough time to evaluate a draft class. While sometimes it will take longer than this to properly determine if a player will someday make it to the NHL or become an impact NHL player, overall, most will clearly be NHL players or not within 5 years of a draft. That being said, Anaheim’s 2019 draft is a great example of five years not being long enough. A year ago, I gave the Ducks a B, primarily on how Trevor Zegras was looking; however, I thought the grade could rise if Jackson LaCombe stepped forward in the future. Well, LaCombe really stepped forward this past season. He was arguably Anaheim’s top defenseman and looks to be a staple on their top pair for years to come. If I reviewed that draft today, I’d raise the grade because of that. But, I’d also consider lowering it, given how Zegras has now struggled for two years in a row. 

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted players taken in the 2020 draft, and this made it that much more difficult for scouting staffs to properly evaluate players heading into the draft. It also had a big impact on player development after they were drafted. 

I’ll first go over the players who Anaheim selected and take a look at what they’ve done in the past five years, regardless of whether they stayed with the Ducks or not. I’ll then take a look at the rest of the players taken in the same round after Anaheim’s selection to see if the Ducks should have made a different choice. If a player is taken towards the end of a round, then I’ll go 10 picks into the next round as well. If the Ducks have another pick in that round or before I get through those 10 spots, then I’ll only look at players up to that point. Just because a team found a gem in the sixth round of the draft doesn’t mean Anaheim chose the wrong player a hundred picks earlier; it means that the entire league, including the team who eventually picked that player, missed on that player in the first five rounds of the draft. I’ll also be more critical of players chosen in the first three rounds of a draft than players chosen towards the end of a draft. If Anaheim finds an NHL player in the later rounds, that will also have a bigger impact than not finding an NHL player.

The New York Rangers held the first overall pick and they selected Alexis Lafreniere with the pick. The Rangers were awarded the top pick in what is the most bizarre draft lottery ever seen. As a result of the pandemic, all teams that did not make the playoffs were included, as were the teams who would lose in the Qualifying Round. The Qualifying Round was created because the season was cut short. The lottery took place before the playoffs, and featured the seven teams that missed the playoffs, as well as a placeholder representing the teams who would lose in the Qualifying Round. The placeholder won the draft lottery, and a second lottery was then held among the eight teams that lost. New York won that. After Lafreniere, Quinton Byfield went to Los Angeles second overall, Ottawa took Tim Stutzle third overall, Detroit chose Lucas Raymond fourth overall, and the Senators made their second pick of the first round by taking defenseman Jake Sanderson fifth overall. Ottawa walked away with arguably the top two players out of these five, as Stutzle leads all players from this draft in points while Sanderson leads all defensemen in games played and points.

Five years later, this isn’t looking like a great draft by the Ducks. Part of that can be attributed to the pandemic, but none of these players have lived up to where they were drafted. That doesn’t mean some won’t get there someday, but today this draft doesn’t look strong. Overall, the Ducks made eight picks in this draft, including two picks in the first, and then one pick in every round after that. Anaheim chose defenseman Jamie Drysdale sixth overall, forward Jacob Perreault 27th overall, forward Sam Colangelo 36th overall, defenseman Ian Moore 67th overall, defenseman Thimo Nickl 104th overall, forward Atyom Galimov 129th overall, forward Albin Sundsvik 160th overall, and forward Ethan Bowen 207th overall.

Drysdale was a player whose development was severely impacted by the pandemic. After being drafted, he should have gone back to the OHL. However, with that league shut down, he was allowed to play in the AHL. With the Gulls, he played in 14 games and scored four goals and 10 points. With the Ducks, he played in 24 games, scoring three goals and eight points. Drysdale also suited up for Team Canada at the World Juniors, recording two assists in seven games, helping them win silver in the tournament. The next season was Drysdale’s first full season in the NHL, where he played in 81 games and scored four goals and 32 points. It was a strong rookie season for him.

Unfortunately, the following season he suffered a major injury and only played in eight games. He was traded from Anaheim to Philadelphia in the 2023-2024 season as part of the Cutter Gauthier trade. Drysdale missed significant time with injury before the trade, only appearing in 10 games for the Ducks. With the Flyers, he played in 24 games to finish the season, and missed several games with an injury as well. This past season, he played in 70 games for Philadelphia, the second most of his career, but missed time with another injury early in the season.

Five years later, Drysdale looks like a solid pick for Anaheim, but they could have done better. Despite his lengthy injury history, Drysdale has surprisingly played the third-most games of any defensemen from this draft class, with 217 games. He’s fifth in goals, and third in both assists and points among all defensemen from the 2020 NHL Draft. Other players that Anaheim could have considered in the first round instead of Drysdale include Marco Rossi, Cole Perfetti, Yaroslav Askarov, Anton Lundell, or Dylan Holloway, but I think the big miss for the Ducks is Seth Jarvis. He’s third in goals, assists, and points among all players from this class and was taken 13th overall by the Carolina Hurricanes. I don’t think Drysdale was a bad choice by the Ducks, but the impact of the pandemic and the injury difficulties that he’s had mean he wasn’t as good of a choice as he could have been.

After being drafted, Perreault joined Drysdale in San Diego. While it was clear that he had a lot to work on in the AHL, he had a cannon of a shot. If he could develop properly, it looked like he’d be a strong pick. In his first season with San Diego, he scored three goals and 17 points in 27 games. The following season, the OHL was back to playing, but for players who had played in at least 20 AHL games, they were allowed to stay in the minor league. Perreault met that threshold, and his second season was even better as he scored 14 goals and 37 points in 55 games. He played so well that he was called up to Anaheim and played in one game for the Ducks. To date, that is his only NHL game.

Unfortunately, Perreault took a big step back the next season, as he only scored eight goals and 19 points in 48 games. In the 2023-2024 season, the Ducks decided to trade him to Montreal for Jan Mysak after scoring seven goals and 18 points in 37 games for the Gulls. With his new team the Laval Rocket, Perreault scored a goal and two points in 13 games to finish the year. This past season, he was scoreless in six games for Laval, and also played in five ECHL games where he scored a goal and five points. He was then traded again, this time to Edmonton for Noel Hoefenmayer, and spent the rest of the year in Bakersfield, playing for the Condors. He scored three goals and 14 points in 38 games to finish the season.

Five years later, Perreault looks like a bad pick by the Ducks. He had a lot of promise and potential at the end of the first round, but never lived up to it. Maybe it’s because things were so disrupted for him because of the pandemic, or maybe he was never going to live up to being a first round pick. The final four players picked in the first round have all played in more NHL games than he has, and Ridly Greig, the player picked immediately after Perreault, has 170 games of NHL experience to his credit.

After being drafted, Colangelo played four years of college hockey before turning pro. He played at Northeastern University for three years, but felt like he wasn’t getting enough of an opportunity. He made the decision to switch schools and played at Western Michigan University in his senior year. There, Colangelo set career highs across the board, scoring 24 goals and 43 points in 38 games. His 24 goals were tied for eighth in the NCAA. When his college career ended, Colangelo joined the San Diego Gulls and scored a goal and four points with them before signing his entry-level deal and joining the Ducks to end the season. Colangelo played in three games and scored one goal. This past season, he split time between the AHL and NHL, and got much better in the NHL as the season went on. Overall, he scored 22 goals and 40 points in 40 AHL games and 10 goals and 12 points in 32 NHL games.

Similar to LaCombe from the year prior, Colangelo is a second round pick who has taken a little while to get to the NHL. Right now, there are players picked later than him who have put up better numbers, but if he can become an NHL regular this coming year, this pick will look much better. That being said, there was a big miss by the Ducks, as Brock Faber was taken by Los Angeles 45th overall. He’s since been traded to Minnesota and become one of the top defensemen in the league. The only other players with more career goals than Colangelo but picked later in the second round are Will Cuylle and Luke Evangelista. Over time, Colangelo may match their goal-scoring output, or he may not. For now, they look like better picks as well.

After being drafted, Moore played in the USHL for the Chicago Steel. He then played college hockey starting in the 2021-2022 season. Moore spent four years at Harvard University, two of them as their captain, before turning pro at the end of this past season. Similar to Colangelo, he started out in the AHL, where he scored a goal and five points in nine games. Moore then signed his entry-level deal with the Ducks and joined them for the end of the season, picking up an assist in three games.

Moore is one of 12 players taken in the third round of the 2020 NHL Draft to appear in an NHL game, only one has played in more than 100 NHL games, and only two have played in more than 50 NHL games. Unfortunately, Alex Laferriere leads the third round in goals, assists, points, and games played, and was taken by Los Angeles, 83rd overall. Similar to Colangelo, I think Moore is a good pick, but there was clearly at least one player taken later in the round with substantially more upside than him.

After being drafted, Nickl played in several different European leagues for the next few years. He spent the most amount of time in the HockeyAllsvenskan, but also played in the SHL and J20 Nationell. Late in the 2022-2023 season, the Ducks traded Nickl to Pittsburgh for Judd Caulfield. Nickl came to North America in the 2023-2024 season, playing for the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL, scoring two goals and 21 points in 66 games. He then returned to Europe, playing in the ICEHL, where he scored two goals and 23 points in 47 games.

Only three players from the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft have made it to the NHL, and two of them, Mikael Pyyhtia and Sean Farrell, were drafted after Nickl. However, Pyyhtia leads the way with 66 games of NHL action spread out over three seasons and has scored four goals and 10 points. So while the Ducks missed some NHL experience by picking Nickl, they didn’t miss out on any NHL stars. And they were eventually able to trade him for a useful AHL player in Caulfield.

Since he was drafted, Galimov has primarily played in the KHL. In the four seasons after he was drafted, Galimov scored between 11 and 22 points. However, this past season he was given significantly more time in the team’s top six and responded with 35 goals and 59 points in 68 games. It remains to be seen if he ever comes to North America, but the Ducks own his rights indefinitely. So if he does decide to leave the KHL and come to the NHL, it will be with Anaheim, unless the Ducks decide to trade him.

Five skaters taken in the fifth round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft have made it to the NHL, but none of them have become impact players. Matthew Kessel leads the round with 70 NHL games and Isaak Phillips leads the round with 12 points. Goaltender Jakub Dobes was taken 136th overall by Montreal. He recently played in the first round when their starter was injured and has put up solid numbers in the AHL. Right now, it looks like Dobes would have been the better pick.

After being drafted, Sundsvik played primarily in the SHL, with only 19 games in the J20 SuperElit the year after he was drafted. Sundsvik has only topped 20 points once and hit the 10 goal mark twice. He was never known as an offensive force, but was instead more at home on a team’s third or fourth line. Sundsvik’s rights with Anaheim expired in June, 2024 after the Ducks did not sign him to an entry-level deal.

Only five players from the sixth round of the NHL Draft have made it to the NHL. Nils Aman leads the round with eight goals and 29 points in 130 games. He was taken seven picks after Sundsvik. All five players who have played in the NHL from this round were taken after Sundsvik, but none have become impact players. The most well known is Matt Rempe, but he only has 59 games of NHL experience to his credit.

After being drafted, Bowen played for the Chilliwack Chiefs for two seasons and was one of their alternate captains in the 2021-2022 season. He played in 39 games that year, and hasn’t played hockey since. Bowen’s rights have since expired and he is currently a free agent.

Five skaters taken in the seventh round of the 2020 NHL Draft have made it to the NHL, but all of them were picked before Bowen. However, goaltender Devon Levi was taken five picks later by Florida and he’s played in nine NHL games for Buffalo, while also putting up some very good numbers in the AHL. There’s no question that he would have been a better pick by the Ducks here instead of Bowen. That being said, the seventh round is often such a shot in the dark that I won’t ding the Ducks much for missing on this pick.

Final Grade

Overall, I’d give the Ducks a C- for this draft. Drysdale was a good pick whose development was hampered by injuries and a worldwide pandemic. He’s become an NHL regular but may never become the star defenseman many envisioned before the draft. Perreault is a miss, while both Colangelo and Moore look like good, solid picks but not great ones. For players picked in the fourth round and beyond, only Galimov has a chance of becoming an impact player in the NHL someday, and that’s only if he comes to North America.

In the future, I could raise Anaheim’s grade if Colangelo and/or Moore become NHL regulars or even impact players in the years to come. With eight picks, the Ducks chose one NHL player, one minor league player, two players who still could become NHL players, and four players who likely won’t ever make it to the AHL. Right now, Anaheim’s 2020 NHL Draft will go down as one of their weaker ones, but it still has the potential to become better in the years to come.

Related Article:

Zegras Traded, What’s Next?

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June 25th, 2025