2015 'Canes Draft Review

[Hanna Sniper]

'Canes Draft A Little Ruff

The word in the hockey world was that the 2015 CPHL Draft was a deep. Just the type of draft the Carolina Hurricanes needed, a struggling franchise that just can’t seem to find it’s way out of the CPHL basement. Having sold a huge part of their future before the season started in a fialed attempt to ensure the Hurricanes fans would see playoff hockey in spring the ‘Canes found themselves drafting 7th overall… far from the playoff birth they hped for

Not so bad, this is a deep draft right? If you are going to suck this is the year to do it they say. Well not in Carolina, the Hurricanes continued to trade off picks in hopes to better the organization in the long run… even till the last minute the Canes were desperately shopping their 7th overall in hopes to find that piece to the puzzled the franchise needed. At the expense of the Draft the Hurricanes fought and bettered their team to put themselves to be a contender for the post season in 2016.But with the sudden collapse of their Defensive core, Ladislav Smid and Jay Harrison regression to non NHL players and the future retirement of Robyn Regehr, added to that the uncertainty of the GRID’s The Hurricanes were now facing the reality that if they would have packed it in last season and rode it out ,rather then improving their team, they would be in a much better position and be drafting in one of the top 2 spots and a better team as well depth wise

The Draft broke down into 3 separate plans

A – 7th Overall
The Hurricanes were not able to move the pick for many different reason. Our value was too high in some, GRID’s in other and flat out differences in player evaluations.. at the end of the day, Smid and Harrison 5M cap were trying up too much wiggle room and the ‘Canes chose to hold the pick



With the 7th pick the Carolina Hurricanes select C, Mathew Barzal

“Strong with the puck and exudes a great confidence when he has it. He’s quick but never hurried in his approach and because of his patience and poise he can break down defences and create grade ‘A’ scoring chances. With an improved willingness to shoot, he becomes that much more dangerous.” TSN

B - Draft someone with our 3rd round pick
After having players cherry picked right off our list just as our pick came up the ‘Canes had the choice to pick blindly or just bump up our 5th rounder. Hindsight maybe we should have dumped it at that point for a pick next year


With the 78th pick the Carolina Hurricanes select RW Matt Luff
Not a very good pick but the truth is we wanted Luff and we wanted him in the ECHL for 3 years. I’m really not sure if he will be drafted in the NHL draft

C - Trade the 4th for multiple 5th's to draft a couple kids for me to cheer for and have fun watching

With the 125th pick the Carolina Hurricanes select C, Pius Suter
Blind pick, friggen overeager, just signed in Europe… very poor pick

With the 130th pick the Carolina Hurricanes select D Simon Bourque
With the 133rd pick the Carolina Hurricanes select D Justin Lemcke from the OHL
With the 139th pick the Carolina Hurricanes select G Connor Hicks from the OHL

133 Lemcke and G Hicks were just two guys I hope to watch over the next couple seasons and cheer for. I expect nothing out of them from this draft but I’ll get plenty of value myself having them in my squad (pretty much like Dylan Hunter and Brady Austin has had great careers in this organization)

Conclusion.

The Hurricanes sold out of this draft in hops of bettering our team, it didn’t work out but we would do it again if we had the chance. I had planed on having a new draft strategy for the 2016 draft and on and there’s zero way of implementing it now. I may have been wiser to flip the pick straight out to next season to help into that game plan rather then wasting them like I did. Odds are only my 1st pick gets picked into the NHL… but the truth is, I wasted a mid 3rd and a 4th found pick and in return I got 3 kids that will be on a local team (been 20 years since I’ve ever cheered on any local team) and whatever Simon Bourque ends up devolving int.. what did I waste really

[Caged Great]

I am cheering for Luff to become a top 6 forward.

[JiriHrdina]

Barzal was 7 on my list so clearly we both liked him. He's why I was trying to pry that pick from you