Avalanche Pick Third in 2009 NHL Entry Draft - Colorado Avalanche Updates, News and Game Reviews at Avs Talk

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Avalanche Pick Third in 2009 NHL Entry Draft

Welcome to Colorado, Matt Duchene.

The draft lottery is over and the Avalanche maintained the #3 selection in the 2009 NHL entry draft. The New York Islanders won the Tavares sweepstakes while the Tampa Bay Lightning retained the #2 selection. In other words, nothing changed.

If you're not stoked about Matt Duchene. You might be after reading Bob McKenzie's comments:

...the scouts love everything about Duchene. They like his size, strength, speed, skill and smarts. They see him as a character player, as someone who can score goals, make plays and work as hard without the puck as with it. There’s nothing not to like about the Brampton Battalion forward. Tavares and Hedman are heavy favorites to go one-two in this draft, but if there’s one player who could upset that scenario, it’s probably Duchene. Not to give it away just yet, but when we release a revised Top 15 draft ranking tonight on the NHL Draft Lottery show on TSN at 8 p.m. eastern, Duchene will be a rock-solid No. 3 but at least one of the 10 scouts we surveyed had him at No. 2, ahead of Hedman.

Craig Billington, Vice-President of Hockey Operations, was in the TSN studios for the lottery drawing. He didn't say anything of substance, nor did any of the other representatives of the bottom 5 teams.

Ken Morrow, the Director of Pro Scouting for the Islanders, was non-commital on who they would choose with the first overall pick. If they don't take John Tavares, I would be very surprised.

Tavares and Victor Hedman looked totally stoked at the prospect of going to the New York Islanders. And by stoked I mean utterly non-caring. Hedman gave a nice, not entirely cliche answer. I think Tavares was reading off a teleprompter.

Is it wrong to both hate Sean Avery's antics and hate the emotionless robots that seem to be getting churned out these days? Can't they all be like Lappy?


Related Links
Islanders win lottery, Avs stand pat at third
TSN's Top 15 Prospects
Hello, Matt Duchene
Matt Duchene Tribute Video

2 Comments:

Jaye said...

i agree with your comment about the boring interviews that are coming out now a days, that's why i love ovie, his interviews are totally off the cuff, even if they are in broken english. If it's my one knock on a guy like crosby, much like tavares, he's much to scripted, all cliche, but when you've been doing it since you were what..14?

Shane Giroux said...

Yep, it's certainly not all on Crosby. He's been coached since day one to stick to the script. It's sad because it's stifling the person inside the athlete.

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