The NHL Draft is usually a crazy night for all 30 of the teams involved, with teams trying to land franchise cornerstones, teams trying to trade veterans for picks or vice versa, some teams seek to rebuild or retool if it’s a good team already through drafting, others tank whole seasons away in order to end up with top talent, and others still attempting to win now trade away picks in the draft for veterans who are supposed to be “It” guys now versus down the road. Tonight, ironically much like the NBA Draft of the nights prior, the top two players in the draft were all but set into stone and the rest was a guess. Auston Matthews was taken first overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are seeking to rebuild a franchise that has been bad for a prolonged period of time (One playoff berth since the lockout of 2004-2005). An interesting fact about Matthews is he was born in raised in Phoenix, Arizona which shows despite awful attendance figures (largely due to an inaccessible arena) and an ownership carousel hockey in the desert has succeeded on some level.
Patrik Laine of Finland was selected number two overall by the Winnipeg Jets who after making the playoffs last year, stumbled this past season. This is where things got interesting as although Jesse Puljujarvi a winger from Finland was expected to go #3 the Columbus Blue Jackets instead selected Pierre-Luc Dubois, when asked about the perceived snub Puljujarvi threw some shade and said “I don’t mind. Edmonton [who selected him with the next pick] is a real hockey town.”. As an Oilers fan who is hoping to see the team break its ten year playoff drought, I can only hope his on ice game is as good as his quote game. Puljujarvi may not be an Oiler for long though as the biggest need for Edmonton is their defensive corps and he makes an interesting trade bait potentially. Other surprises of the evening include the St. Louis Blues trading goaltender Brian Elliot, who helped get them to the conference finals this year, to Calgary for a second round pick. Elliot has been outstanding for St Louis, going 104-46-16 with a 2.01 Goals Against Average., but his expiring contract and potentially large salary cap hit made him a prime candidate for a trade. Calgary also looked at acquiring Marc-Andre Fleury of Pittsburgh and Ben Bishop of Tampa Bay. Another interesting trade was made by the Chicago Blackhawks, who parted with Andrew Shaw for a second round draft pick courtesy of the Montreal Canadiens. With six rounds taking place tomorrow, more craziness will undoubtedly ensue. As Doc Emerick would say “What Chaos”.
