LA Draft Recap
LA Draft Recap
#11 – Roger McQueen. For bigger players, the very first thing that I look for is, can they skate? It doesn't matter how great someones hands are, if they can't keep up with pace. What feeds directly into that is, will his back injury be a problem? The combine says no. He didn't have an issue, and I'm glad that it was held right before our draft! Barring anything weird happening, this guy screams Getslaf, to me.
#36 – Ryker Lee. His core attributes aren't the sort that usually stands out in a high draft pick. Where he excels is hockey IQ, forechecking and a ridiculous dekeing ability. He wants the puck and can keep it when he gets it. A play driver and not a passenger. High risk high reward, but if he hits the reward part, I could see him going in the mid-first during a re-draft in five years.
#39 – Charlie Tretheway. The only thing keeping this player out of the conversation for being one of the top three available in the draft, is that his offense has not clicked at the level of some of the top draftees. He is very good at defense, coverage, transistion, everything that you would want, but the points weren't there. If he can lift that part of his game, this could be my best pick of the draft.
#53 – Theo Stockselius. Easily projectable high end 3rd line centre, or low end 2nd line centre. And there's nothing wrong with that. He reminds me of the way people describe Micheal Backlund.
#67 – Michel Pradel. One of the best goalies for Slovakia at the WJC. The knock against him is that he is too fiery of a personality, and needs to learn to be cool. So.... I guess he either grows up and becomes a great pick, or flips out at bad goals and gets in a lot of goalie fights.
This draft was all about potential for the Kings. We picked a lot of players that look to either raise their stock considerable in their D+1s, or crash and burn. I'm totally OK with hitting 50% under those circumstances.
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"By Grabthar's hammer ... what a savings."
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