Big day in Montreal
#2 Ivan Demidov- this pick was locked in since I owned the #2 pick after the regular season. Lucky for me I won the lottery because our original #2 pick slipped to #3 and that would have put Demidov out of reach. We feel he is a dynamic winger and we are hopeful he lands in Montreal in the NHL.
#4 Artyom Levshunov - this is the player we were expecting to acquire. I went back and forth with him and Lindstrom multiple times. I was actually hoping Lindstrom would fall and I could load up on forwards early as I knew D would fall.
#5 Tij Iginla- been the pick here for a while for me. I knew that only one of Levshunov and Lindstrom would fall to me. So Iginla was locked in as my #5. Another guy I wouldn’t mind seeing the Habs take.
#12 Anton Silayev - I decided this morning to aim at 3 forwards in the top 5 because I was expecting to take a D here. I honestly didn’t see it being Silayev as I thought he would be off the board. Yakemchuk was my original target. However after I took Levshunov Sennecke became my target. Would have been a tough call if Simmer didn’t take him at #11 as I am not sure I could have let Silayev slip further.
#18 Michael Brandsegg-Nygard - this was a guy who we viewed as a safe pick. I was hoping he would make it to the 18 pick. I think he will be a fan favourite type of player. Very gritty and good two player. We were happy to see him on the board at 18.
#22 Egor Surin - our first home run swing of the day. We see upside in this player and feel that if more scouts could see the Russians live that he would universally be viewed as a top 20 talent. Will be interesting to see where he falls in the NHL.
#28 Dean Letorneau - another guy we took a swing on. We had him in this range on our list and figured he would be an option. Will he be Tage Thompson or Logan Brown? I’m obviously hoping he reaches his potential.
#31 Sam O’Reilly - another safe pick who I think will be an NHLer. We took the advice of our old buddy Cheese on this one and rolled the dice on OReilly
#35 Marek Vanacker - happy to see him fall into our lap. Scorp was not so happy with this pick. A useful multi tool player who I feel would be ranked higher if he wasn’t injured. Looking forward to watching him develop.
#51 Aatos Koivu - sentimental pick. If I am grabbing Iggys son I may as well grab Sakus as well.
All in all we are very happy with how the draft shook out for us and very interested to see where these guys end up next week.
|