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

Mock Drafting Mockery

Illegal Curve linked to a couple mock draft sites so I thought I'd take a look around for any others and you know what? I didn't find a lot.

Even within the three I found, two haven't been updated since the season end and therefore contain a nice little fail in them where they have the Avs drafting second overall, which is an impossibility.

But if you like speculating, here's some more fodder for you. And don't forget, we'll be able to make even more informed random speculation once the first 14 slots are determined after the draft lottery tonight at 6:00pm MT on TSN and VS.

Related links
NHL Draft Site 2009 Mock Draft
Total Pro Sports 2009 Mock Draft
MyNHLDraft 2009 Mock Draft

The night before the draft lottery

'Tis draft lottery eve and all is quiet on the Western front.

After Francois Giguere was unceremoniously "relieved of his duties", there was a collective sigh of relief as we all leaned back in our armchairs. Finally, we could relax. The dreadful season is over, the GM is gone and management is pissed. Good, good and good.

And tomorrow we will find out which pick the Avs will get in the first round which brings the "good" total to four.

The odds are that the Avs will get the #3 or #4 slot which should mean either Matt Duchene or Evander Kane. But for some reason I'm not counting out Magnus Svenssen-Paajarvi. It could be the wickedly hard to spell - yet still awesome - name but I could see the Avs going off the board with this one.

I hate stats
The New York Islanders secured the "worst team in the league" moniker but they most certainly haven't secured the #1 slot.

Of the 14 times the draft lottery has happened, the worst team in the league has won the right to draft first a total of 6 times. Which if you do the math is pretty close to the advertised odds of 48%.

So it's still conceivable that the Avalanche could win the Tavares sweepstakes. And then they'll go and do something stupid like draft Ryan Ellis.

TV viewing goodness
The draft lottery will be televised live on TSN and Versus at 6:00pm MT. And while that's happening, CBC will be hosting a show that breaks down each playoff series and features Paul Kukla, Greg Wyhsynski and Tom Benjamin.

Thank goodness for dual-tuner PVRs. Otherwise I'd have to do something like exercise or read or talk to someone.

Related Links
Top mid-season prospects