He likes to disturb, and on top of his size, it makes for a very impressive player on the ice."
Team scouts monitored Sokolovskii's progression closely.
"When you're huge, and you can skate, that's often all that you need for NHL scouts to perk up and start to pay attention," said Scott Wheeler of The Athletic.
Independent analysts highlighted the high upside and defensive focus of the towering blueliner.
"We saw him early in the season, we thought this could be a late pick for us, and then it seemed every month he just kept getting better and better, figuring out the game more and more," Brière said.
Philadelphia continued filling its roster on Saturday by selecting defenseman Brek Liske 53rd overall and goaltender Martin Psohlavec 62nd overall.
The draft also featured heavy representation from regional collegiate prospects, with four current or future Hockey East players taken on Friday night, including Caleb Malhotra at number three to Vancouver and Tynan Lawrence at number 11 to St. Louis.
"We know there's a lot of work to be done," Brière added. "But there's things that you can't teach.
He's still gonna be 6'7" two years from now, and the internal physicalness that he has as well is something you can't really teach.
That comes naturally to him, so that's a big plus."
Local draft selections continued into Saturday's later rounds as Xavier Villeneuve went 34th overall to Chicago, Casey Mutryn went 38th to Seattle, and Tobias Trejbal went 42nd to Calgary.
