Isles Report Card from the THN Draft Issue--Click on the image for a larger view!

The Three...um...Musketeers

OK, so now all of the Long Island visits are over. Where do we stand with that first overall pick?

John Tavares tells Brian Compton of nhl.com that he had "...a lot of fun" visiting with GM Garth Snow. Here's the quote:

"I had a really good time and got to know them a lot more and what they're all about and their philosophy and see the way they do things. Long Island's a great city. Obviously, they've got a good organization and really have a good fan base when they have winning teams. They have a lot of tradition there from the Stanley Cups. I really enjoyed my time there."

Well, Long Island isn't a city but at least the kid got to see the area and now knows that there is more to the Islanders than the rink and the Marriott. We can look past this geography mistake.

Victor Hedman also visited and wowed the Islanders brass according to Chris Botta. One thing that would make me hesitate is that Hedman apparently asked about the women in New York right off the bat. To me, red flag. Look--I remember what it was like being an 18 year old kid and all but if I am talking to a guy that I ABSOLUTELY NEED to be a franchise cornerstone, I don't want him worrying about chasing women in bars when there are hockey games to play and win.

I am just throwing that out there...but yes, I know young men with money can do stupid things. We had that in spades in the mid-1990s when the team had Eric Brewer, Todd Bertuzzi, and Bryan McCabe. Oh yeah--and Crazy Mike Milbury was running the ship.

Matt Duchene's visit with the team was reportedly quite good and some rumors swirling are that the Islanders scouts and Snow are in love with what this kid brings with his game. I've read comparisons that run from Mike Richards to Steve Yzerman. Not too shabby.

All of this dovetails with reports that the Lightning ownership has ordered Brian Lawton to ship Vincent Lecavalier and his hefty contact somewhere/anywhere by June 1, when his no-move clause will kick in. Here's one for you: guess how much Vinny is slated to make for the upcoming season? 10 Million Dollars. US. Ouch.

So, of course, you know that other GMs in the league are talking to Lawton and thinking that they may like to have Vinny on the team and all but that price tag is way north of steep. Nobody is going to trade for that contract without doubts about what they just did. That's why you know someone is going to sweep in and get Lecavalier at a pittance--they'll be taking so much contract and they are not going to be forking over a whole heck of a lot to do it.

I don't know if Charles Wang wants to use a player like Vinny as a way to kick his fan base into warp speed but you know that the bounty is not going to be the #1 overall pick. It's can't be because the money just doesn't add up. You select a kid at the very top of the draft and pay him 800K and hope he develops at the NHL level these days. A guy like Vinny comes in and he'll be able to inspire the young and learning just by sheer star power.

So where does he end up? Well, it kind of makes sense with the Isles in a way...if maybe they can get him for the 26th overall pick that used to belong to San Jose and some sweeteners; but I don't think Charles wants to pour gas on the fire when he is losing money. Tavares will sell tickets--people are excited after all--at a tenth of what Lecavalier is on the hook for.

Some have speculated that the Kings are a good fit. I tend to agree with that. Getting a big-ticket star like Vinny will excite some lazy dorks in the media to write about hockey and we all saw last year that Los Angeles has a darn good up-and-coming defense but they just couldn't score goals.

Expect Toronto GM Brian Burke to sniff around Tampa, too, and not just for their second-overall pick. He's been threatening to go all JADAPINKETTSMITH on the entry draft so he can get Tavares and the bluster would be hilarious if he hadn't pulled off that magic act in Vancouver when he drafted the Sedin twins. If Lawton gets desperate and wants to take on some of Toronto's dead wood, Burke will be there. But you know that he will be kicking the tires anyway.

My guess is that Lecavalier ends up in Colorado and that the 'Lanche won't have to part with the third pick to do it. New regime in Colorado means they'll want to shake it up.

On The Clock...and our Stanley Cup Pick

Don't know about you, but I am ready for the draft to happen right now. The waiting is killing me and my copy of The Hockey News draft issue has been read so much that I feel like I can go in and make a pick late in the first round for the Isles. So I think I will.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson is another highly-rated defenseman from Sweden. He may not be the sure thing that a guy like Victor Hedman has been touted as, but Ekman-Larsson could be had at 26 in the first round. Is he the big guy who is going to clear the crease? No, but at 6-2 he should be able to add some heft to his frame rather easily through proper training.

Here's what they say in the THN Draft Issue about Oliver Ekman-Larsson:

..."some kids at this age have trouble making a 10-foot stretch pass...but this guy puts them tape-to-tape better than anyone in the draft. He has great lateral mobility and is able to find people."

Read that again: 10-foot stretch pass. Lateral mobility. Find people. Tape-to-Tape. Does any of this NOT READ like a perfect Scott Gordon-type of player? We found out this past season that Mark Streit can do that stuff too--way better than he was ever given credit for in Montreal. If Gordon's style is to push hard on the forecheck and force turnovers while going the other way, does this not sound like Ekman-Larsson would be a great fit and who knows, a potential replacement for Streit down the line? Who better to apprentice with than Mark Streit?

Oliver Ekman-Larsson is rated the #13 prospect by The Hockey News so there is no guarantee that he will be there at 26. But every draft has a yearly trend that the teams seem to mental for and with the need for scoring around the league, my guess that once the highest-rated defenseman are off the board that the GMs will be going for offense offense offense. That means a guy like Oliver Ekman-Larsson could slide down a little further than expected. Happens to kids every year. Maybe this is the year the Isles get lucky and have a chance at getting a top d-man after all--after they select John Tavares with the first pick.

******

Tomorrow night, the Penguins and Red Wings face off in a rematch from last year's finals. The Wings are beat up a little bit (Lidstrom will play; Datsyuk not so sure) and seem to be ripe for the Crosbies and their pickin'.

Huge laugh from me when I got home and saw the schedule. I knew that "the media" and fans would be bitching about it starting so soon after the Conference finals. Seriously, people. Why do we complain about something we say that we love?

Seriously, why would you want to wait longer? I like having the games right now. If the league had waited until next week to start the finals, you'd be whining that you had to wait too long for it to start.


What fuels this constant discourse? Is it just a pure anti-Bettman sort of thing? I guess I'll never understand it. I mean, for all of the people killing Gary about the Coyotes to Hamilton thing, they conveniently seem to forget that he helped save the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers years ago when they were in bad shape. He also saved the Penguins and the Sabres from bankruptcy.

Sure he comes off as a condescending clown some time. I don't particularly care for the guy either but to blame him for everything is a bit short-sighted. Just my two cents.

Anyway, Penguins in six. Sidney Crosby for Conn Smythe and good tidings to Billy Guerin.

From Newsday: The New Islanders

After trading down twice in the first round to take Windsor Spitfires center Josh Bailey at No. 9 on Friday night, the Islanders traded down once more in the third round yesterday with Chicago, adding another pick in the fourth round. That gave them a total of 13 picks in the NHL draft. Here's a look at the 12 chosen yesterday in rounds 2-6 to add to Bailey, including each player's overall draft number, position, height, weight, birthdate and junior team:

36. Corey Trivino

C, 6-1, 170, 1/12/90, OPJHL Stouffville: Scored 69 points in 39 games in the Ontario Provincial junior A league, had four goals to help Canada win the World under-18 Juniors in January.

40. Aaron Ness

D, 5-9½, 157, 5/18/90, Roseau, Minn. HS: Minnesota's Mr. Hockey in 2008 scored 72 points in 31 games (28-44-72) for high school team, member Team USA at under-18 Worlds, headed to University of Minnesota.

53. Travis Hamonic

D, 6-0, 192, 8/16/90, WHL Moose Jaw: Physical, stay-at-home D was 5-17-22 in 61 games in first season with Moose Jaw and was member of Canada's under-18 world champions.

66. David Toews

C, 5-10, 175, 6/7/90, Shattuck-St. Mary's, Minn. HS: Winnipeg native is younger brother of Chicago's Jonathan Toews. Had 100 points in 51 games (44-56-100) for Minnesota's elite high school program; speedy with good hands.

72. Jyri Niemi

D, 6-2, 192, 6/15/90, WHL Saskatoon: Finland native led WHL rookie defensemen in scoring with 34 points in 49 games (14-20-34), power-play QB shoots left and has slap shot clocked at 97 mph.

73. Kirill Petrov

RW, 6-3, 198, 4/13/90, RSL AK Kazan: No. 2-ranked European skater by NHL Central Scouting was 4-6-10 in scoring in 47 Russian Super League games; named top forward at under-18 worlds with 5-2-7 mark in six games.

96. Matt Donovan

D, 5-11, 185, 5/9/90, USHL Cedar Rapids: Oklahoma native was second-leading goal scorer among USHL defensemen with 12 and 18 assists for 30 points in 60 games with a plus-19 rating; headed for Denver University.

102. David Ullstrom

W, 6-3, 198, 4/22/89, Sweden HV 71-Jr.: Scored 54 points in 40 games (27-27-54) in his final junior season before move to Sweden's second tier; has strength, size, speed and finishing touch, but needs to improve defensively.

126. Kevin Poulin

G, 6-2, 210, 4/12/90, QMJHL Victoriaville: Seventh-rated North American goaltender had an 18-24 record with a 3.69 goals-against average and .887 save percentage that reflected his inconsistency.

148. Matthew Martin

LW, 6-2, 192, 5/8/89, OHL Sarnia: Rugged power forward scored 25 goals, 38 points and 155 penalty minutes in his second season with Sarnia and went 3-3-6 in nine playoff games.

156. Jared Spurgeon

D, 5-8, 175, 11/29/89, WHL Spokane: Had 43 points in 69 games (12-31-43) for WHL Spokane with a plus-36 rating. Helped lead Chiefs to the Memorial Cup championship.

175. Justin DiBenedetto

C, 6-1, 185, 5-11, 194, 8/25/88, OHL Sarnia: Scored 93 points (39-54-93) to finish just 12 behind teammate Steve Stamkos, who was drafted No. 1 overall. Had 10 points in nine playoff games.

Draft Lottery tonight at 8PM

Tonight for the second time, the NHL Entry Draft Lottery will be televised on Versus and the NHL Network. Based on a very difficult formula that I was up all night perfecting, the Islanders have about as much of a chance of landing the top pick as I do of being hit by lightning while sitting at my desk at work. Meaning, it could happen, but let's not hang our hats on the hope that it will.

Besides, if the NHL could fix the draft for any team out of the playoffs, wouldn't they do it for the Leafs? Ever hear the one about the NBA draft being fixed so that the long-suffering Knicks could win and land Patrick Ewing in the 1980s? The story goes that the card with the Knicks logo was held in dry ice for a while so that commissioner David Stern would wait and pick the cold card last and the Knicks would get the top pick. Not sure how that would work with the NHL Draft although I suppose the Leafs could freeze their balls and see what happens in the Lotto air-blowy machine.

What did we just learn right there? You are correct--I will go anywhere I need to for a cheap joke.

The NHL Network will be featuring all sorts of playoff-centric programming for your hockey needs tonight. Pierre McGuire's annual list of "Monsters" will be on at 7PM Eastern, followed by the Draft Lotteryand a Playoff Preview show afterward.

Versus will be airing the Draft Lottery and then we'll go back to our normal diet of guys fighting in cages and/or other dudes fishing or shooting something.

Tomorrow we will have our own nyiforlife.com Playoff Preview with my hopes and dreams for the next couple of months. Until then, let's all remember to root for ping pong balls tonight!

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.

Pre-draft Craziness

Anyone in Philadelphia reading this? If you are, can you call the proper authorities and get the water checked out there? Something is seriously wrong with the Flyers organization, yo. I mean, I just read that they traded a first-rounder (which they acquired from Nashville) to the Pre-dators for the two-week exclusive window to negotiate with defenseman Kimmo Timonen and forward Scott Hartnell.

Looks like a genius move on the surface...until you remember that their GM is former Hartford GM, Paul Holmgren. The Flyers then turned around and overpaid for both players on a seriously massive scale: both guys got six-year contracts that will pay them serious bucks (Timonen averages $6.7 million and Hartnell gets $4.2 a year) to wear the black and orange next year.

Bold move by Holmgren and Comcast to be sure but c'mon, dudes. We are talking about Timonen and Hartnell here! This is not an in-his-prime Denis Potvin here. Timonen is a time-eater and a good play to be sure...but is he is SIX-MILLION DOLLAR MAN? And Hartnell is a young guy on the rise but does he deserve FOUR-MILLION DOLLARS a year? What the hell is going on in Philadelphia? I mean, these are cap-cripplers just like the Yashin contract was thought to be? And if the Flyers are swirling around like the Tid-e-Bowl Man again this upcoming season, how long is it before the Flyer fans are giving those guys the old Santa Claus Treatment? I mean, there are moves you make to let the fans know that you're serious about turning the thing around and then there are moves you make that leave outsiders shaking their heads.

What does this mean for the Islanders? Well, for starters, it means that the free agents are sitting around waiting for July 1 because the bar has just been raised. A guy like Jason Blake has got to see these kind of numbers and think that someone is going to throw bundles of cash at him in a couple of weeks because he has proven to be a better player than Scott Hartnell. It also means that the top free agents like Ryan Smyth are going to be getting some serious offers from a lot of teams (not unlike the Islanders) who want to make a splash and buy themselves some credibility.

Yes, it's true. With these foolhardy moves, the trickle-down begins. And Ryan Smith just got harder to sign for Garth Snow and Charles Wang. Teams like the Maple Leafs see not only a full rink but a chance to buy themselves another big ticket Band-Aid. If they could land Smyth, the entire nation of Canada is going to stand up and applaud because the Leafs have brought Captain Canada home. And again, even though the rink is always full, the team will "do a Beckham" and sell so many #94 sweaters that whatever they pay Smyth would be worthwhile because the Ontario Teachers Pensioners would rake in even more money. And that is all that matters to the Toronto front office.

Now that I have typed that out and it makes so much sense for Smyth to go to Toronto, I think I will throw up in my mouth. If I think about it any longer, I can probably make a case for him to sign with any team in the league because every team in the league wants true character guys like Ryan Smyth.

Let's switch gears. We've all heard a lot about the Flyers wanting to sign Daniel Briere. Does this Hartnell nonsense price them out of the Briere sweepstakes? I'm thinking that it doesn't. The Flyers traded Peter Forsberg last season so they got that huge salary off the books. They played the last half of the season with a roster full of the AHL Phantoms and with young players, the team is probably not shelling out a ton of money. My best guess is that they'll take a run at Briere or Chris Drury; but logic tells us that the Sabres will be able to bring one of them back for next season.

The draft is Friday, of course, and we could be seeing a lot of movement as teams try to get ready to reload with free agents in July. The Islanders, of course, don't have a first-rounder this year but after the first shot has been fired by the Flyers, it looks like the draft could really be exciting this season with lots of teams moving assets before the calendar hits July 1st. Sit back and hold on.