Thoughts on the NHL Draft

Well, by now we have all read the armchair prognosticators who have weighed in on the draft from Friday. That always cracks me up. These kids are like 18 years old and all of a sudden they are picked apart by people on TV and are always told what they can't do versus what it is that they do well. Every team has a scout or GM who runs the draft table and they all say, "Wow, I can't believe that this kid was still around when we picked" or, "We got the guy we wanted blah blah blah" because pinning a career on a kid who is just out of high school is such an exact science.

And yet, I watched the entire first round of the draft on Friday even though the Islanders didn't even have a pick in the first two rounds. I was so tired that I was yawning Christmas songs AND thinking about the lyrics to Funkytown. That's rarefied air for me. (My wife can attest.) Please consider this my plea for an intervention. I am sick. I need help.

Did anyone notice that once the Blue Jackets picked, the stands really emptied out; kind of like when my buddies and I went to the '94 Entry Draft in Hartford and we bailed after the Islanders picked at 9 (Brett Lindros). The NHL draft is nothing like the NFL or NBA drafts. If anything is comparable, it's probably the baseball draft. For the most part, not feature a bunch of dudes you never have heard of and probably won't hear about for three or four years. There were no Crosbys or Malkins in this draft. Not even a Staal! The consensus was that these guys were pretty interchangeable from the top of the draft until the third round, and the TV coverage proved that. It was not glistening with awesomeness.

Funniest thing of the draft to me was when they'd show a kid in the crowd as he was picked and that hoser Bob McKenzie would talk about the guy's parents and family like he had met them for dinner the night before. He knew that names of some of the girlfriends and probably of their pets too. I think he spies on them or something for the weeks leading up to the draft. We need some high-ranking government official to follow Bob and Mel Kiper around from like December right up to the draft. These kids are our future, after all. We must protect them.

The second-funniest part to me was how everyone would get up there and thank the Columbus Blue Jackets and "Mr. McConnell" for their hospitality and whatnot before making their pick. So predictably hilarious. I guess the Blue Jackets' owner is either seriously sick of Barry McConnell (from "The Tournament") jokes or he has yet to see the show. Again, someone needs to mail him a copy of the DVD. Can we get someone on this?

There were not trades to speak of and I thought there would be quite a few going in, but I am betting that between today and July 1 (free agency starts) that there is going to be some significant movement. The Predators fire sale is on, that is for sure. Once they traded their goalie to Toronto, you can tell right there that they're going to field a bottom-line team this season. Not a great way to try and build confidence for the fans in Nashville that their team is staying. David Poile lied through his teeth to Gord Miller when asked if the organization was throwing in the towel on this season. His mouth said no but his hunchy shoulders and posture said otherwise. See you in Hamilton, Dave.