2017 NHL mock draft: Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier

No. 4 Colorado Avalanche

Gabriel Vilardi, Center/Right Wing, Windsor Spitfires (OHL)

The interesting topic of conversation at this point in the draft is, who do you take? When you take into the account that Colorado needs help in virtually every area of the ice, and you add it to the fact that after the top two the rest of the prospects are arguably even, it makes for a bit of a crap shoot in predicting who gets selected next.

Vilardi is undeniably a very promising prospect for the future, but is not an NHL ready player. With the Avalanche shopping some of their best forwards in Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene, a spot for the future face of the organization is going to be opening up. A versatile and talented young forward like Vilardi could arguably develop into just that.

Vilardi’s greatest strengths are his quickness and ability to play an end-to-end style of hockey. It’s because of this that any organization would be happy to have him in their prospect pool. Vilardi projects to be top six forward, but will likely spend another season with Windsor to continue to work on his weaknesses.

The major weaknesses of Vilardi is that, unlike the former three players mentioned here, he does not have elite skating ability. On top of that, he hasn’t proven to be an elite scorer, but this will likely change with maturity. His exceptional hockey IQ should quell any of these worries moving into the future with Vilardi.

While there are multiple other prospects that the Avalanche could take at fourth overall, Vilardi seems to be the best fit for the organization moving forward. A versatile forward who likely projects as a right wing, but can play center effectively, that has a willingness to work hard and play end-to-end will be too good to pass up at fourth overall.