The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 180: Stories From The Green Room

Episode Date: June 29, 2017

Jeff Marek joins the show to discuss how last weekend's NHL entry draft unfolded, and share some stories from the green room. The topics include:  1:40 The Green Room 10:50 The hidden value of the Combine 22:10 Cale Makar, Miro Heiskanen, and drafting for need 26:50 Vegas' haul in the 1st Round 29:00 The safe pick vs. the high upside pick 32:25 Quality players falling into the laps of smart teams 42:30 The pros and cons of using comparables 45:30 Drafting defensive defensemen and goalies in Round 1 53:55 Kailer Yamamoto and personal stories 57:00 Looking ahead to the 2018 draft Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O.cast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich. And joining me is my co-host, Jeff Merrick. Jeff, what's going on, man? Hello, sir, how are you? How is everything in Vancouver these days? It's good. I was just telling you it's got a nice little heat wave going on. I mean, for Vancouver standards, of course, I'm sure compared to Toronto.

It's mild at best, but it's people here. Everyone here, I feel like is just like hitting the beach and calling in sick to work and acting like it's like the best thing that's ever happened. We've had the weirdest. I drove home two days ago from a sports net up here to Stowaville through hail. in June, hail. I think it looked like, you know, snow accumulation on my windshield. It was pretty gross.

And then two seconds later, it's like I'm in shorts and a dry fit out in the backyard, cutting the grass. We've had the most bizarre weather that I can remember for the past little while. Anyway, hockey. How's it going? I was going to say, I wonder if the listeners can tell that it's the off season already. We're like giving him a full weather report for... Exactly.

Meteorologist, Dimitri Filipovich here with your five-day forecast. So I thought it would be a good idea to have you on because you were working in the NHL draft And I haven't really had a chance to discuss it on the podcast yet And I've had a few people asking if I was going to do anything about it And yeah, you seem like the perfect guy to enlist your help And get some of your sort of anecdotes and takeaways from being there live in the building And interacting with all different people Can I ask you a question to start the podcast then?

Yes, yes, absolutely What did you think of the green room? Hmm the little area behind with the eight prospects and poor Clem Kostin's sweating bullets until pick number 31 when he finally went I'm I honestly I haven't really I haven't really thought about it um why was it did it get a negative reaction no I don't it just seemed like a very non-hockey thing to do I mean it seemed like a very hey why are we doing this other sports do this hockey's not supposed to do it um I'm not sure what where the idea came from.

It might have just been the NHL itself. I think the idea is they want to quicken the pace of the draft. They feel that it takes too long in between picks. It does a lot of dead area, a lot of dead zone. I don't know, man, because for me, I understand the idea of, you know, time is at a premium, and you ought to ultimately obey the clock. I understand that for network television.

I get how expensive it is. And so you want to move things along. And it does make the draft quicker. But what I've always liked about the draft is this. I like the idea that the kids get picked, the camera has to find them in the crowd. They do the hug to mom, you know, the hug to dad, the fist bump to the brothers, you know,

the handshake to the agent. And then they walk down out of the stands to the floor, you know, up the stairs, shake the commissioner's hand, meet the new GM, get the hat, get the jersey. The whole thing takes a little while. So what I like about it is for fans that are just casual observers in the draft and may know a couple of names.

This year, I think a casual hockey fan will know Nico Hescher and Nolan Patrick. After that, I mean, unless you're a hardcore, Kail Makar and Miro Heiskenen and Kesey Middlestat and Eurovacchanin, I'm guessing you probably don't know these names. But if you have a situation where the player is coming down from the stands and has to make that long walk.

The broadcasters have to talk about him. And the longer they have to talk about that player, by the time that player hits the stage, you've got the rap sheet on who the player is, you've seen some video highlights of who this guy is, they talked about his biography. You know a lot about this guy in that two, two and a half minutes, if that's what it is, by the time the pick is announced,

and the player hits the stage. So when they hit the stage, it's almost as if you know everything about them. It's that crash course in this player. And you generally don't get that when the guys just backstage, you know, Gabriel Vilardi, you know, a new member of the Los Angeles Kings, and he's out in two seconds. You don't get a chance to really get into and tell that big story because you just don't have the time.

So to me it's kind of a, I don't know, it's, it's, I understand the experience. And I understand you want to get these things over as quick as possible because this is network television you're dealing with. But I still like a long, drawn-out draft just because you can learn a lot about the prospects. I know I love that before I was involved in it. I loved, you know, when TSN had it, watching the broadcast and, you know, hearing the guys talk about all these players. And I found out that I learned a couple of things.

Even if I knew them, I found out something new about them by the time they hit the stage. I don't know if you get that if you have a green room scenario and the guys are just lickety-split out there on the stage. Now, mind you, it's only eight guys, but still, I don't know. There's some, I get it because it's time versus content and just probably a happy medium in there somewhere. I'm just selfish, Temeanor, like four or five hours. And I'm the guy that watches rounds two through seven as well. So, I don't know. This is my long-winded way of saying it was fun.

It was neat. I understand why they did it, but I like the big long walk for every single player. Yeah, you know, you could definitely tell that there was a concerted effort to speed up the process, and it really did feel like it flew by. I think it held also helped it, and no one really called for a timeout at any point, I don't believe. So it really accelerated the process. How did they pick the eight guys who sat in the green room? Great question.

Did you draw names? No, no one's asking me that. It's really, I don't think it's, I don't know if it's, I would imagine it's public. I don't think it's a secret. They're chosen by NHL Central scouting. It's that simple. So, like, Sportsnet doesn't do it. NBC doesn't do it.

Those players are chosen by NHL Central, which is curious because, you know, as I mentioned, Klim Koston was in there. And I think a lot of people going into the draft thought he could be a big dropper, you know, the shoulder injury, the quote unquote Russian factor, all of it. Meanwhile, you know, there's, you know, Kail Makar isn't in there. You know, Miro Heiskenen is. in there. Leas Anderson isn't in there.

None of the players that were going to go, Nick Suzuki wasn't in there, players that were going to go early. So it almost seemed as if, it's almost seemed as if, you know, NHL Central Scouting had Klim Koston as their number one European, so damn it, he's going to be in that room, as opposed to just,

here's how we think the draft order is going to be. Yeah, well, I mean, it worked out pretty well for the blues, flipping Ryan Reeves for the... Clim Koston? Yeah. It's not a bad little, upside gamble for them to take yeah they worked out okay i like uh i like robert thomas as well they took it uh they took a 20 from the london nights is a nice little player sort of a boat war bat

uh type players so yeah st louis san louis did all right they did uh they did pretty good even though uh i don't think they got the goaltender uh that they wanted uh in the draft this year that went to uh was jacottinger were you were you surprised that uh that we didn't see any like we saw a few of those moves towards the end of the first round. But, you know, obviously you hear the jams are talking on the floor and they're on their phones and all this and they're meeting up face to face, but nothing really came of it. And I kept kind of waiting for something big to happen. But I guess with, you know, all the expansion draft festivities and then some of the

trades that happened on Thursday and Friday before the draft, I guess it kind of took the wind out of it a little bit. And a lot of the conversations that you see at the draft, either in day one or day two, sort of lead to the trades that we see, I don't know, in first week of July, or, you know, that'll happen this week, next week, or whatever. I can still recall being at the draft a couple of years ago and, you know, leaving and all the tables had cleared off except for the, I thought it the story before, except for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Like, everybody at the Penguins table stayed and we were up in the stands and there was a very animated conversation. And you could tell that the table was completely split. some people were quite vocal, quite loud, quite, let's just say delicately, Dimitri, passionate about their point. And, you know, we figured out pretty quickly, they're talking about a potential Phil Kessel deal.

Right. And that's how divided, yeah, that's how divided the table was. But those conversations, you know, really hit a crescendo on the draft, even though the trade, you know, wasn't consummated until later, you know, some of the big seeds were planted at the draft that year. Yeah.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall to pick up stuff like that. I'm always so curious about... I'm way more interested in microphones on people at the draft table than microphones on players on the ice. Right. Which to me, you know, is, to be honest with you, kind of boring. Like, you know, I don't need to hear players swear with each other. I don't need to hear the mundane talk.

You know, sometimes, you know, a guy like Wes McColley's pretty entertaining to have a mic on. He's kind of a witty guy. Right. But I don't need to hear grunts and groans of hockey players. It doesn't interest me a whole lot. But putting microphone mics on general managers at the draft, oh yeah, I'll take that every day of the week. Yeah, I mean, I can see why they would be against that

because it just provides more, you know, ammunition for us to evaluate them and judge them on critically. Like I feel like, you know, there's that famous video of, The Bruins in their war room talking about trading Tyler Sagan, and obviously that has not, that has not aged very well and doesn't paint them in the brightest light. So it's, I can see why to be against it. It's not that it hasn't aged well. It was awful when it was uncorked. I can remember watching this. My first talk to myself is, wow, this is wonderful. Wow, what great access. Why the hell have the Bruins authorized the release? Yes. This is, did someone sign off on this? do people know that this is going to air? Like, what are you people thinking?

It was wonderful. You know, it's wonderful behind the scenes. I just can't believe that the blue and screenlighted it. It was their own broadcast. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. So the actual draft itself, I mean, I don't necessarily specifically want to get into like each pick by pick

because I'm sure that's already been done. We're a few days out now and by people much smarter than us. 24 and damn it we're going to talk about Vessel Linen to Winnipeg 24 What does that mean for the Winnipeg Jets depth chart four years from now?

I want to know exactly. They just heavied up on their right side the big guy had the horrible experience with Fralanda but then turned it around at the end was the best player in the U-18 tournament at the end of the season. There you go. There's the scout speak on Christian Vesselaina.

It definitely did there were a lot of Finns taken I felt like. Yeah. Six in the first round new record. And the thing about it, too, is a lot of defensemen, right? So you had, you know, Amiro Heiskenen, he goes, Yuso Valamaki, Yerho Vakanainen. This was Henry Yoko Haru to Shago Blackhawks.

Like, I understand where the influence comes from for Swedish defensemen, right? Whether it's the Borea Salomon generation, whether it's, you know, the Nikolidstrom generation. I mean, how many defensemen, you know, Lindholm or headman, all of them. Oh, yeah, Carlson now. Oh, yeah, I was influenced by Nicholas Liddstrom. Now all the kids are talking about how they're influenced by Eric Carlson.

But who's the Pied Piper of Finnish defense? You know, like, even once upon a time, you could say, like, Jan Suuci was like the Piper of, you know, Czechoslovakian defensemen. Yeah. But is Tepo Newman in that much of a big shot that everyone sort of had to, like, I don't know, it's funny because I asked Valamaki this. I asked Heisken in this at the, combine so we sit down and do two day two full days of interviews with all the kids just to get

background on a lot of them and they really had you know no no idea either why all of the sudden you know the world is full of elite level finished offenseman kind of a freak it's sort of popped up out of nowhere we were so used to fins producing elite level net minders right not defensemen i don't know maybe like chemo teeming or something i don't know that's you know that's an interesting one because Miro Heiskenen said when I asked him who his favorite defenseman was he said my favorite NHL defenseman no he said my favorite North American defenseman is Duncan Keith but he went out of his way to say my favorite finished defenseman was chemo team in it yeah I mean chemo was awesome you know

it's kind of a bummer it's easy to forget about him now because it's been a few years and he was playing in Carolina and he wasn't necessarily the the biggest name but I always, I was always partial towards the guy like Yoni Pitkinin, for example. I really enjoyed watching him play. And it's, it's just a bummer how he took that nasty fall into the boards with his heel and never really was able to get back to the NHL level. But he was always kind of one of my, one of my sneaky favorites to watch from the finish defenseman.

I had a hard time taking the hospital bracelet off, eh? Like there was so many times like, hey, guy, tough season. Do you even take the hospital bracelet off this year? Like, I know what you mean. And I can't help but thinking a player. Because I always do this game, like in my own little head. Like, you watch a game from 15 years ago. go and you spot the guy or the guys that would have excelled in the game right now,

how good would Yanni Pett can have been if he played right now with these rules, 2017, where you don't have to be overly physical and you're not going to be judged on it harshly either by the media or by your own teammates. I think that the next sort of big wave for us in hockey in terms of sort of better understanding the game and the cutting edge trying to find the market inefficiencies is going to be all the stuff related to health. Like I've had a few, uh,

a few different representatives from different teams tell me that they were very interested in all the sort of like biometric stuff and sort of monitoring the human body and trying to figure out what makes it tick. And if they can prevent injuries better and maybe try and figure out which guys are, uh, more likely to be injury prone than others because, you know, you're right.

A guy like Yoni Pitkinin missed a bunch of time throughout his career. Yeah. I wonder if, uh, like if we had this discussion about a guy like Andre Markov five or six years ago, we'd be saying the same thing. And then now, like, he's in his mid to late 30s and he's pretty much, he's the, I mean, he missed 20 games this year, I guess, but pretty much other than that, he'd, he'd been playing like 81, 81, 82 just for years on end. And it's just remarkable how he was able to turn that around. So, you know, guys get that label of being injury prone. And for sure,

I think that, especially like with soft tissue injuries, for example, it probably makes you more likely to suffer that type of an injury again. But sometimes guys just have a really unfortunate string of luck and maybe we shouldn't write him off for it. I had an interesting conversation with a trainer. This was two years ago at the combine, and I was talking to him, and he had worked previously with one, two, three different NHL teams. And I said, you know, this is kind of, this is interesting, but I look at the combine, and from my point of view, it's nothing more than marketing for the draft.

It's an exercise in marketing. It's an exercise in getting to know the prospects. I don't know how much of what we're seeing here today or on the weekend is going to necessarily translate at all to what we see on the ice. You know, from your perch as a trainer, where's the value in the combine? And he said, I understand your concerns. I understand what you're saying. And it makes 100% sense.

But from my perch, you know, what I would take away from a week at the combine watching the kids go through the testing, what I would take away and present to my NHLT, team is this. Can I spot the place where the player is predisposed to injury? Like is there something when you run them through this, you know, gauntlet of exercises that I can glean and say, you know, he's predisposed to a shoulder injury. He's predisposed to a knee injury. Just judging on how he works, just on the mechanics of his body and how it works. And when you consider that, you know, teams are investing millions and millions of dollars on these athletes. athletes, something like the combine where you may look at it and say, well, all these events to guys who do, and that translates more to football than it does to hockey.

That may be true, but he said, my takeaway is more where these guys might get injured. And that's a type of information that is valuable to an organization. So you may look at how much a guy is going to bench press or how he knows what's he going to do in sprints or whatever the event's going to be. but the big takeaway and the big the most interesting information you can gather is where a guy may end up hurting himself it's funny because George McPhee

Sam Cosentino and I did a again a combine program on sportsnet.coma and Facebook Live and one of the things we had McPhee on Jam of Vegas and one of the things he said is what I take away from this is which are the bodies that are going to be able to withstand 10 years in the NHL.

I think he's sort of getting at in a roundabout way, the same thing that this trainer was talking to me about two years ago. Yeah, I mean, if you're making this type of investment, especially at the top end of the first round, you're hoping that guy's going to be on your team for a long time. Like, it's obviously something you should focus on it. And, you know, it extends through various different phases of the game as well, especially around this time of year.

With free agency, if you're going to be signing a guy at like a four or five-year deal, you want to kind of vet that as, properly as you can, and I feel like some teams still, it's definitely still a very inexact science. I guess you can sort of better your odds of making a calculated guess if you're looking at certain things. You kind of have to hit on your first rounder, right? Yeah.

Like, I don't know if there's an old saying that if you miss on your first rounder, it sets your franchise back two years. I don't know about that one, but I know that, you know, you better hit on your first because, you know, to a lesser extent, the second round pick, and then after that, I mean, good luck getting in the end. I mean, the percentages just dwindle so remarkably. You really do have to hit on your first round pick.

And in fairness to the NHL, I think safe to say, you know, most teams do hit on their first rank. There's always the exceptions, obviously. But the league is so well scouted now that very few, if any, slip through the cracks. But you're right. Like when you're investing this kind of dough, these types of resources, into these players. You need to know that, you know, I'm Edmonton and I just drafted, you know, Kyler Yamamoto, who's not the biggest guy out there by any stretch of imagination, but man, is he dynamic? You look at his 42 goals and you say to yourself, well, only 10 of them are on

the power play. This guy is not just a power play machine. This guy gets it done five on five. How is his body going to withstand the rigors of the National Hockey League, even though it isn't, you know, welcome to the jungle the way it was 20 years ago. Still, you do have those concerns about what's that body going to do. What's that body going to look like after 10 years? Well, the reason why not nailing your pick in the first round can be so detrimental beyond obviously the disappointment of you were hoping that guy would be able to contribute to your team is that teams have such a difficult time sort of just pulling the plug sometimes and just admitting

that they were wrong. So it's like if you pick the wrong player and he doesn't work out, like you generally keep keep giving him more and more opportunities just to try and sort of vindicate yourself and prove that you were right the first time. And then you're sort of just hurting your team along the way as well. So it's not just this like one time thing. It's just kind of this gift that keeps on giving if you keep, if you mess it up. So I think that's why it's so crucial to nail those, especially in the, like in the lottery. I mean, that's, it's tough to come back from that. If you don't, if you, that 10 pick isn't, isn't, uh, isn't contributing for you within like

three or four years. Are you trying to tell me in your listening audience right now, Demetri Philippa, which of the PDO cast, that organizations overvalue their assets? No, I would never, I would never say something like that. Oh, okay, just so we're clear. Yes. No, I think Cody C.C., former first rounder, is definitely a guy whose play in the NHL has warranted

the senator is loving him as much as they do. That's what I'm saying. Okay, all right, bye. Mr. Rondon, all on the same page. Yeah, I usually takes a new general manager to come in, and that's where I'm against knock knees. Hey, listen, man, like, I can remember a number of prospects X because the one thing that doesn't, well, one of the things that doesn't get talked about a ton is how, you know, players are sensitive when they're free agents, you know, walking into a scenario where, you know, where you're concerned about who's presenting you.

And I'll give an example. Teddy Purcell coming out of college, you had a number of teams that wanted him, including the Toronto Maple Leafs. But that was a transition time, let's just say, where everybody sort of had the feeling that John Ferguson was. probably on his way out as the general manager of the team. And as much as Teddy Purcell wanted to play with the Maple Leafs, and I think it was his first choice, the reason he went to Los Angeles Kings was, you know, if I come in,

I come in as one of Fergie's guys, if he's not there for much longer, then I'm part of the old group. I want to go somewhere where I know, you know, the general manager that presents me is going to be that general manager for a while. Right.

Yeah. all right yeah um okay so mera heiskin and nkel mccar going three four do you think that that was actually um the right order or do you think that those teams might have made the the slight miscalculation of looking at their current situation and you know looking looking around and being like wow we really need defensemen and we should just try and get them here but not realizing that it's probably going to take a while for those guys so actually come and fix those problems. Good point. I think that there were, and we saw this last year, specifically with Detroit and Nashville,

there's always teams that go in there deliberately to do something with an area where they're deficient. And you saw both Detroit and Nashville last year, Dennis Chalosky with the Detroit Red Wings and Dante Fabro with Nashville. They went in there and said, oh, we need to start stocking defensemen here. And you can even make the argument, too, that the Chicago Blackhawks, you know, by picking up Henry Yokoharayu where they did, I mean, there's some people that would have said he's, you know, he's an early second round pick as kind of a stretch to put him in the first. You know, they went out there and said, listen, we need to grab a defenseman. They wanted Yerho Vakanin as well.

He ended up going to Boston at 18. So he was off the board for the Chicago Blackhawks. But they went in there, I think, deliberately, they were coming out with a defenseman on the Friday. and put it this way. I don't think that Dallas was hard and fast set on Heiskenen because I have a really strong belief that they were one of the teams that tried to trade up to the number one position and they would have selected Nico Heeshire as well.

Right. So it wasn't as if they're like, well, we're three, here we go. We're going to get our defense and close our books, you know, and be out in time for last call. I don't think it was that because I'm pretty sure they were one of those teams that were trying to trade up. I think Colorado is kind of in dire straits with their defense defense situation. But then you ask yourself, you know, who's got the higher, you know, who's got the higher, you know, who's got the higher, you know, growth potential? Kail McCar off to UMass next year, who went after him.

It would have been the Pedersen kid to Vancouver, Cody Glass to Vegas after that. And maybe, you know, you do look at your organization. You say, just off, well, we're okay out front. Let's go with the best defensemen available here. I understand, see, I'm of a couple of minds on this one. I remember talking to Patrick Watt at the Memorial Cup a couple of years ago. And he was trying to make the point that, no, we need the draft for need in Colorado because this was his point. His point is these guys, when they get drafted, are closer to the NHL than ever before.

Like, it's not a matter if you're going to draft the guy and then he's going to vanish for five years and then reappear. spending three years to the minors. It's not that way anymore. So we need a draft for position. But then I always remember the Chris Pronger story. The Chris Pronger draft story, San Jose Sharks fans, you might want to turn off the podcast right now.

You might want to just... They've already turned it off, Jeff, don't we. You might want to just stop listening right now. So it was a year, you know, San Jose was going to draft second. They ended up trading. Hartford ends up taking the size of the day year, and they draft Chris Prong. So Pronger's interviewer's San Jose, the general manager at the time, I think that would have been Jack Ferrara, you know, essentially says to Pronger, you know, there's really no point in us even having a conversation. We're drafting number two. We're not going to take you. We already have Mike Rathgi and we have other big, strong, big defenseman back there. We have too many of you already. So we're not going to draft you. We're going in other direction.

So essentially, even though they, in their mind, they had Mike Rathchian a bunch of other oak trees, they turned down one of the best defensemen the game has ever seen because they already have enough guys like him. Which is why I always come back to the, no matter if you have a million centers, and that's all you have in the organization, and Austin Matthews is available, you take Austin Matthews, period. Right. So I always go back to that Chris Prong, or example. Yeah, I guess there wasn't You know, the forwards After the top two guys were like, I like a guy like Cody Glass, for example But, you know, it's not

He's not necessarily one of those like generational can't miss guys Where it's like a sure thing that if you don't take them You're going to wind up regretting it for the next 15 years So it's very... I love Cody Glass so Yeah I thought honestly, I thought Vegas did a great job with the draft I really do

I thought Vegas coming out of the first round I mean that was a Picasso You know Scott Luce and the entire scouting staff Like that was, man, that was fantastic. They pull off Cody Glass. Okay, you can make the point. Okay, that's the easy one. Like Cody Glass is available at 6.

You take Cody Glass. Right. I was shocked that Detroit didn't take him at 9. plays every single situation, dynamic on the power play. Maybe the smartest player in the entire drive. from HV71 in Sweden. Everything that we say about Kail McCarr, you can say the same thing about Eric Bransom,

just say it in Swedish, and you almost have the exact same player. So you walk away with, you know, two pretty high-end centers, and Eric Ransstrom, who's a wonderfully gifted, dynamic control your power play type blue liner, mind you, he's a couple years away,

but that's all right. Great wheels and really smart. You know, he's a defenseman for 2017, I got to hand it to Scott Luce. I had handed to George McPhee coming out of coming out of that first round. The Vegas had, you know, had three swings of the bat, and they hit it out of the park, I think, with all three. They wanted to make the big splash.

We all know they wanted to trade up and get Philly's pick to take Nolan Patrick, but I still think they came out with maybe the biggest quality out of anybody in that first round. Yeah, no, I completely. agree. I thought the glass pick was great. I would have preferred Liligran over Brandstrom, but it's not agreed just by any means. And then, I mean, yeah, having, uh, having those three first rounders is, uh, is a pretty nice little starting point for them. And obviously credit to George McPhee and his staff for, for making the right moves to leverage their position, their unique position with expansion draft to actually afford themselves that opportunity, um, because they obviously

could have handled a different way. Um, yeah, like the, I don't have many issues with a lot of the, the top picks like a guy like leas anderson for example i don't necessarily know uh enough about him to just write that pick off the thing that i don't like is when you watch the broadcast and you hear the way he's sort of discussed and it's just it sounds like it's kind of the safe pick where it seems like people kind of feel like leas anderson is going to play in nchel and he's going to be a good player but it's like the guys that went after him maybe have more upside and i thought that for the rangers at that seventh pick it seemed like that could have been a chance for them to kind of swing for the fences and really try and knock it out as opposed to just sort of settling for just

another guy i don't know do you think that's a fair way to put it like i'm not trying to try to bury the guy by any means but it just seems like there was uh i don't really love the thought process that went into that pick okay let me sell you on leas andrews he is um dynamic he is fast um he's on the you know the smaller side of things um wonderful with the puck and let me tell you little story. I was hoping to get this one on the broadcast, but we didn't have any time for me to tell my goofy stories. So I'm going to drop it on your audience instead. I played for HV. 71, and I think they put this line together, I want to say, during the middle of the year. It was Leas Anderson with Batheas Teddenby. Remember him, former first round draft? I sure do.

He was in the Cobaltuck trade, wasn't he? Yeah, right. Okay, so you remember Matias Teddenby? And a guy of the name of Philip Sandberg, who is a San Jose Sharpton. San Jose Shark prospect. All three of them are on the smaller side of things, all are really quick, speedy, couple of water bugs. And they dubbed the line, the Gumby Bears line. And if you don't think about Swedish hockey fans, they love to sing and they love the chance.

So every time that that line was on the ice, man, I love hockey in Europe. The whole rink would sing the theme song from the Gummy Bears TV show every time they were on the ice together. Leeus Anderson, Matthias Teddenby, and Philip Sandberg. Have I sold you on Leeus Anderson? I'm sold.

I'm sold. Okay, there you go. You know what? I do want to say it because I know that people are instantly going to be flooding the mentions. Matthias Ten &B was not traded for Coburg. That was actually Nicholas Bergfors. Okay, you're thinking of Bergfors? I do remember Tenney. Yeah, he was a one of first four picks. Nicholas Brighford was the first two, wasn't he?

I believe so. I mean, I remember people being very high on him, and obviously that did a... That did not work out for the Atlanta Thrashers organization. Not many things did. As Colby Armstrong told me, he said, we even had a motto for the team. It was Welcome to Birdland, to which the players on the team said, welcome to Birdland, please take two points. HV 71 sounds so badass.

It sounds like some sort of like a rogue operation or some sort of headquarters you'd see in like a James Bond movie. I'm a fan of HVV 71. HV 71 sounds cool. Ruggola sounds cool. Like, I'm sorry, man. The Swedes got style, even the way they named what they're named for Lunda. Like, they got just cool names for all the teams, please. They got us beat.

They got us beat everywhere. They're better looking than us. They're in better shape. Damn Swedes. Damn you, Ufeboudine in Sweden, if you're listening to this. He's definitely listening to this. He's just smiling and nodding his head. Yeah, the other pick was obviously,

you know, when I had you on the show last time, we were discussing how Michael Rasperson was a guy that we were sort of skeptical on and a lot of people were, with the numbers, approaching it from a numbers background. And it was sort of surprising to see him go ninth to Detroit just because there was so many other interesting names available.

And I don't know. I mean, it's funny because, you know, people still, I feel like give the Detroit Red Wings the benefit of the doubt with the draft because of, all the stuff they were doing in like the sixth and seventh round when people weren't really even scouting, like 15, 20 years ago.

And maybe we need to reevaluate how we are sort of discussing their draft picks and the job they're doing because I was not a fan of that pick and I obviously haven't been a fan of what the Red Wings been doing for a while now. So I just, that kind of stuck out to me is one of the more questionable things that happened on day one. The Red Wings have built up a lot of goodwill. Yeah. They've built up a lot of breaks.

they've built up a lot of mulligans. The Raspuson one surprised me as well. I remember talking to our executive producer, Shirley Najak at the draft. And we were talking about the green room, because I did a lot of stuff back there talking to Patrick and Hesher and other prospects. And he said, you know, who's going to be in here the longest? And the two that I thought, I'm like, oh, man,

this might be a long night for a Climcast. turned out to be. I said it might also be a long night for Michael Rasmussen of Tri-City. And I was wrong. I didn't expect Detroit. I thought Detroit was going to take one of two players at nine when it became obvious they were available. One was think Suzuki and the other was Timothy Lilligrant. I thought I was going to be one of one of those two players. And maybe I'm just thinking, you know, old style, old school Detroit Red Rings philosophy. I didn't think for a second that they were going to go with Michael Rasmussen. I didn't think that they were going to go with, you know, the big center.

His skating gets knocked, but he gets around the ice just fine. You know, the only real, what are the only real issues I have? And like a lot of people have with Rasmussen. We'll see what happens next year. Tri-City should be a better team. Um, is the 5-on-5 production. Just, I mean, that's, it's a reality. It just wasn't there for Rasmussen.

There was a lot of points, uh, on the power play. Um, you know, we'll see what happens. He's coming off a wrist injury now. but I'm with you that was that was one of those picks where if it were any other team right like if it's not the detred red wings making that pick if it's you know the Florida panthers let's say that the panthers and the red wings had flipped and Dale challenge Dale Tallon's got is you know two hands back on the wheel and also they take Michael Rasmussen and all of a sudden you know we're having the same conversations of you know they're taking you know the big hulking guy, you know, over, you know, over someone who, you know, plays more of a 2017 game. Right. But it's Detroit. So you've, you've built up that goodwill.

So, man, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a tough one for me. Like, on a scale of one to ten, how much did that, did that Red Wings pick shock you? I mean, I was pretty surprised just because of, you know, me guys like Owen Tippett and maybe even like a Gabriel Villarity available and you just thought like oh this is setting up pretty nicely for the Red Wings to get a really intriguing skilled guy and then they went in Rasmussen and I was a bit taken aback but I was pretty surprised that middle stat went to pick before that too and obviously you know a guy like Valardi was was the big loser in that in that and that shuffle because he kept dropping to 11 so here I said I thought I was I was making the case from myself Suzuki just because

I think an old school Detroit and did Ophillelaliligran but I was I was thinking you're crossed the pond from Windsor, you've had how many viewings of Gabriel Valardi? I, when I was, you know, after the pick was made, I'm thinking to myself, because I'm in the green room there. I'm looking over with the Valardi family. Like, man, how many times would Detroit have just, you know, gone over the Ambassador Bridge to watch the Windsor Spitfires and seen Gabriel Valardi for the past couple of seasons? And I'm with you. I was shocked that Valardi went as low as he did going down to 11.

And there are many that are saying, you know, he's a top five, at worst, a top six prospect in the draft this year. So, yeah, there are a few. But then here we are again, because it's Detroit, we're not having the conversation. But if it's the Florida Panthers, that make that exact same pick, what are we saying? It's the loss and crows situation all over again. Yeah. And it's funny that works in many different ways because I thought another sort of interesting subplod was like, you know, Lilligrant falling into the lap of the Leafs, for example, at 17.

or even as a more extreme example, a guy I really liked in Ely Tovon and falling to 30 in Nashville. And one of the reasons I really like, I'm not going to pretend that I've been scouting a lot of Ely Tovin in tapes, but I know that he's just one of those like shot generation machines that was just posting ridiculous numbers. And that just seems like, you know, Nashville, who is a very smart organization,

just sitting back with that 30th pick and he falls into our lap. And I would not be surprised at all in a few years if, you know, we see what they've done with guys like Victor Arvidson and, you know, Ponta Zabar is coming around and all these guys coming like that. And all of a sudden, in a few years, I would not be surprised at all if we're talking about Ely Tovinen that way. And maybe if he'd gone to a different organization, I wouldn't be as high on the pick, but just based on the way it worked out like that, there is a little bit of a sort of confirmation bias involved.

Yeah, that's, um, Tovinan is interesting. And you're right on the money. I thought they were taking Marcus Davidson. because, you know, there's only been four drafts where, you know, going back to year one, there's been four drafts where Nashville hasn't come away with one player from Sweden. And as you see, they've been able to pluck some gems from Sweden in the draft, some early, some late, but they're always able to find that Swede that's going to help them. So I thought they were going to go with Marcus Davidson,

who was an interesting situation, had a really bad beginning of, really bad start to the year. Turns out there was some concussion issues. So everyone had their bad feelings, made up their mind about him. Then towards the end of the season, started to turn it on. Tommy, he was, she was someone that was, by having a really bad couple of months to start the season, everyone already made up their minds about them, not realizing this guy's gone through some pretty significant health issues in a health situation. I thought they were going to go that way. and that's just because of Bergman there

and how much favor he curries at the draft table for Nashville and how much they deferred to him. Tolvinen, you mentioned, he's the volume shooter. He led the USHL with 246 shots. I asked him about that at the Combine. He goes, yeah, it's funny. There was one game that I set my own record, 14 shots in a game.

I didn't even get a goal. I was like, I couldn't believe it. And he's an interesting guy. because, you know, he's on the smaller side of things, certainly true. But if you're of the belief that if you're going to give yourself or your team a chance to win a game by getting between 30 and 35 shots, you know, when L.A. Tolvenin is on your team, you're getting 30 or 35 shots because this guy gets the shot. He gets it in, he gets it off in a lot of different ways as well. It's a hard shot.

Like, it's outside of Owen Tippett, it's the best shot in the draft, period. There are other deficiencies in his game. the interesting story about Tolvin as well and this happened the day before the draft is due to admission issues he got turned down by Boston College where he was committed I talked to Jay Grossman about it the next day

who's his advisor slash agent depending on where he's playing and he said they had known about this for six months he'd been working hard to try to catch up but it just wasn't going to work out and I said well is this going to be I remember the Max LaTernoff situation who went through something similar

was playing Youngstown with like Kyle Connor and JJ Pickenitch he was committed to BU had admission issues and he ended up going to where do you go? Yukon rather than going to Yukon and Jake and I said yeah

college isn't an option anymore you know Europe or the American Hockey League and I guess someone told me today that it looks like he's going to play in Yokeritz Tolvin and is So there he goes. She's not going to play in North America this year, but he's going to go into Yocrit to play with that legendary team.

So I'm with you. I mean, there were times where I thought that Tolvina was going to be a top five pick. I really did. And I love guys like that, too, that just volume shoot, volume shoot, volume shoot. So I can understand why. And when you have an organization, like the Nashville Predators, and you have a farm system like the Milwaukee Admirals, which we should be talking about the same way we're talking about the Grand Rapids, Griffin as far as developing prospects.

That's as good a finishing school, let's just say, for hockey teams they have in the American hockey league. I think we're going to see another graduate of that in Vlad Kamenavre pretty soon with the Predators as well, and I'm a big fan of his. Yeah, I thought he's going to make the team this year. I did. I thought Caminov was coming in this year. Yeah. But that's okay. No, nothing wrong.

Leave him another year. Yeah, I think it worked out pretty well for the Predators in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, you know, it was fascinating seeing with these broadcasts, you know, you were discussing how maybe we didn't have enough time in between the selection and by the time the guy makes it to the stage and it felt a little spit up. But one thing I really did enjoy was you sort of see these, and I know scouts like a Corey Promerner, for example, hate the comparables, right? Because you sort of paint yourself into this box where every player is unique in their own right and you don't, you know, you don't want to put these unfair expectations on them. and all of a sudden, if you compare him to a certain guy, everyone's just going to expect that. And if he turns out to be different,

you're wondering what happened there. And I completely get all that. But I love sort of seeing how they talk about themselves as players. And how do you pronounce, is it Philip Chittell? I've always pronounced it to Philip Chytle. I love that. I've heard both Chitle and Chitle. North Bay drafted him in the Euro draft today, by the way.

Stan Butler thinks he's coming to North Bay. Anyway, go ahead. I loved. So the Rangers took him with their set with their side. second first round pick and there was this caption that said that he described his game as austin matthews like and the comparison for him was thomas placanich and i was like i listen i i respect the hell out of thomas placanaganage's career and he's obviously declined now and is in his older age but he was a fantastic player once upon a time and if i think if philip chettle

becomes thomas placanich the rangers will be very happy but it's just funny seeing the uh the disparity between those two players who I would not compare very closely otherwise. So I'm kind of curious to see how that one plays out. The chasm between the two is vast. Yes. You know, interesting about him as well is left-wingers as a center as well.

Curious to see if he ends up playing in the Ontario League, Stan Butler's only hope so as for the Eurodraft today. He was almost, I mean, he's always been a young hockey player at whatever level he's played in. he just missed a cutoff for the 2018 draft by 10 days. I honestly, I think he was a youngest player in the draft this year. So you could make the argument that, you know, the Rangers drafted this guy, but he's still really not with his peer group.

Right. You know, evaluate him based on, you know, next year's crop with this one more year of development. That's why I think, and I had him at the, towards the end of the draft, I think in my mock, I had him going to Pittsburgh. but he was sort of right around that area, I suppose. So you say to yourself, you know, as a scout, you say to yourself, well, you know, this guy's, you know, one of the youngest in his draft class, what would he be like with this peer group with one more year of seasoning?

Yeah, and I think a lot of people sort of arrived at that point towards in the season when you started to see his name in first round mock drafts more so than you saw the beginning of the season. Well, I think especially at that age, those like 11, 11 months or so, obviously make a huge different in terms of the developmental curve and what he's going to look like once you find him. And then you go to Gabe Valardi, who's almost a full 11 months younger than Nolan Patrick. Yeah. Not that I'm saying that Valardi's going to be Nolan Patrick, but what's Gabe Valerty going to be like with the extra 11 months? It's a legit question.

Yeah, definitely more physically mature. One final guy in the first round that I was curious about. Where did you have Pierre Olivier Joseph in your rankings? because he wasn't in your first round, was he? Let me check really quick. Do some tap dance music here. Let me get my mock draft. 2007.

Here is my mock draft. Let me give my spiel on him before. Okay. To kill some time here. So he described himself, he compared himself to Mark Edward Vlasic. And I love Mark Edward Vlasic. That's a good comparison. I love, but here's my problem with that.

I'm so skeptical about investing first round picks in defensive defensemen. Not that they necessarily don't have value because you obviously see, like, a Marketer Vlasik is an amazing player and one of the better defensemen in the league. But I just, I don't trust our ability to pick those guys out at this young of age. I feel like we, whenever we think then this next guy is going to be this really reliable stay-at-home defensive defenseman, it generally does not turn out well because they have sort of this like capped ceiling on their abilities as a player and it's usually the guys that maybe we're just dominating at the lower levels that sort of settle into this more defensive role once they get to the NHL.

So I'm always kind of hesitant to buy in on self-professed defensive defensemen at this young age because it seems like that's a bit of a red flag for me. As I warned San Jose Sharks fans earlier, I think you should have warned Boston Bruins fans you were going to say that because you're also talking about your ho Vakhanin, who Boston took at 18. I'm not sure that he can describe himself as such. And he's a decent skater and he gets around the ice, but just don't expect any offense from Vakaninan. I understand that. And I completely see your point that if you're, if you're fishing in the first round pond, you want someone that isn't just, well, he's good in his own zone. He can flip the

puck into the neutral zone. And he can get the puck out. Like you want, you want. more to his game. And I think that there is, you know, more to Pierre Olivier Joseph's game than just, you know, strictly the defensive defenseman. He's still wiry thin. He still needs to fill out. I mean, his older brother, Matthew Joseph was the third round of the Tampa Bay Lightning. He had a big year this year with the St. John C. Dogs of the QMGHL, big year with Team

Canada at the U-20s as well. I mean, if you look at him as a model, if that's going to be the frame that he's going to fill into, he's going to have an NHL body sooner than later. I do think that even though I'm always skeptical of how players describe themselves publicly, because I think

that a lot of players when they speak publicly at this age tell you A, what you want to hear and B, what their agent has told them the coach in the room wants to hear. You know what I mean? Yes. Like, before these guys go to the Combine interviews, trust me, they're run through the gamut of questions.

you know, with their, with their agents. You know, here's what you say to the coach. Here's what the coach wants to hear. You know, and in this respect, you know, this is where, you know, second generation guys, Calfoot, for example, from Colonna, goes to Tampa, almost have a sort of leg up on a lot of other players because they just grew up in this environment. You know, they grew up in, you know, this is what the coach wants, this is the hierarchy,

this is how you speak. They just get all of it. So they blend right away. It's not a harsh, you know. entry. It's like an Olympic diver into water. There's no ripple. The sky's in. And you kind of get it. Pierre-Olivier-Josephs in his own.

I'm just looking at my mock you. I didn't have them in the first round. I had them just outside. I had my final picks. Yeah, I had Philip Chytle and I had Marcus Davidson to Nashville. Had Jake Ottinger to Dallas at 29. Yes, for Bulkfest, who I still think should have been in the first round. 28 and then Connor Timmons, who I thought should have been in the first round as well,

going to the St. Louis Blues. Well, that's, so you mentioned Jake Godinger with the stars, and that's another sort of wrinkle that I'd love to get more access to that we probably won't in terms of, you know, if you're a GM of one of these teams

and you're sitting back and you have a certain guy that you're really interested in, and the draft's progressing, and each pick is going off the board, and that guy's still available. like it must be so tempting to just ensure that you get that guy and maybe not make the best move from a value perspective

and maybe give up future picks or something like that to move up a few spots and we saw the stars do that to get Jake Godinger. I guess obviously if you had like sort of discussions with your peers and other GMs maybe you sort of have a feel for how they feel about certain players and maybe you think you can sit back and wait on them but I'm always I'm always fascinated by sort of sitting

and hoping a guy makes it all the way down to you versus just kind of going forward and trading up to get him and ensuring that you don't wind up regretting missing out on him. Yeah, he'd be pretty much sure that when you're training you'd be thinking another team is going to grab them. I can recall last year in the draft

when the Boston Bruins took Trent Frederick. Everybody went, what? Trent Frederick's the second round. There was a few. I think Seidel's North American Central had him as a first rounder. There may have been one or two more. but basically this guy was like you can get Trent Frederick in the second round that's not going to be a problem for anybody

and Boston jumped up and grabbed them in the first round and I had a conversation with someone from the Bruins organization after the draft is on a way back to the hotel and I said what's it the Frederick pick and he's like we had intel that the Anaheim ducks were going to take them with their pick they ended up grabbing Sam Steele from Regina with the 30th overall and we wanted our guy was it too high yep we know it but this was our one one shot to get him because there was, in our minds, no way he was going to get past Anaheim. So for Dallas, you know, they must have had some information. Someone else was going to grab Jake Ottinger. And even though, you know, you might want to do it that high, you have a couple of picks you're playing with. When you have two picks in the first, the history of one is low. You can kind of gamble with it a little bit.

You make your safe pick first. So they grab Miro Heiskin and that guy's going to play in the NHL. And then you sort of throw that dart. and is there a bigger wild card in the first round than goaltenders? And so that's where you take the chance and you grab, you know, the guy that many say is, you know, the best goaltender available this year in Jay Gottinger. Yeah, I was a bit surprised by that just because, you know, other than Alias Amsonov a few years ago, it seems like goalies in the first round have basically become an extinct dying breed.

But I guess people are scared. People are scared. And you can get them all. I mean, it's almost as if there's like this little sort of secret handshake now. Like, ooh, nobody does it. Nobody does it. You can't take goaltenders in the first. And then when one guy takes the goaltender in the second round, it's like, okay, all of a sudden, there's a run on goalies.

And then all of them goes to get a domino effect. Damn, we've got to get our goalies quick. Someone's taking one. The ball starting to roll here. Yeah. Yeah. So did we, in your estimation, do you think we covered all the relevant stuff from the first round? Is there any other anecdotes that you might have wanted to share that you didn't get?

to on the broadcast? Oh, tons of stories. I left a lot in the green room. Like, you know, Jake, I was just talking, Jake Ottinger. His parents wouldn't let him play goal until he was 10 years old. They insisted that he learned how to skate properly, and eventually they relented and let him play backup goaltender on his team. And then one day, the starting goaldren got called up to a different team,

and he was able to finally start. and that was it and never looked back but he got the late start he wasn't a goalton until he was 10 years old what else was in what else was

interesting um was Pierre LeVe Joseph and Josh Norris that's a nice pick I like Josh Norris I don't know give me a player

I'll see if I can rattle off a story for you give me some first rounders see what I got well okay so do you have it like I love the that quote about Taylor Yamamoto with the whole thing where he was basically like telling the team that if they

don't pick him, they're going to wind up regretting it. Like I love stuff like that. So he's instantly like I was a big fan of him statistically. But now hearing that, I'm also just a big fan of him as a player moving forward. I'm going to be rooting for him. So he's 22 months old living in Spokane. And Tyler Johnson, you know, legendary Spokane chief now with the Tampa Bay Lightning. His mom, Debbie, is a skating instructor and started to teach Yamamoto.

at 22 months of age, how to skate. Like the one thing, it's funny because I don't know if we ended up doing it, because I was running around trying to get through his dad, Russ, to do an interview with him. But I think we were planning on doing a split screen with the skating stride of Kyler Yamamoto and Tyler Johnson because they're almost identical. And that goes right back to Tyler Johnson's mom, Debbie,

who taught, obviously Tyler and taught both Yamamoto boys, Kyler at 22 months and his brother, I think at 20 months of age, how to skate. And it's an interesting story. He's from Spokane, you know, grew up playing there. And then when he reached a certain level, and you get this in a lot of American hockey stories where you have to, when you reach a certain level, you have to go somewhere else where the quality is better in order to develop more as a player. And for four years, his dad, you know, every weekend with the kid asleep in the front seat, would drive to Seattle. So the kid could play hockey on the weekends in a higher program.

For four years he did that. Driving to Winachi and then driving to, you know, Los Angeles before I gets drafted in the, I think it was like fifth round or something like that in the WHL Bantam draft. So, I mean, I love those, you know, the sacrifice stories, the relentless stories, the driving all over. to make sure the kid can play it at a high level and also the NHL association stories and when you watch Yamamoto skate just for a second close your eyes and imagine Tyler Johnson because the skating stride and all of it is identical and that right goes back to goes right back to Tyler's mom Debbie. That's a great story man. I like him. I like him a lot and he's a wonderful kid too. He's got a great sense of humor.

You know, he is it's funny because you know a lot of guys like, coach, no coach, you know, furrowed brow, you know, this guy is a dude, this guy is funny, this guy keeps it light, this guy doesn't, I mean, he's serious about his career, but he knows that at the end of the day, you know, this is, this is hockey, this is a sport, this is Toys Russ, this isn't life and death, we're playing a sport here, and you get that sense of Miamoda both on and off the ice. Just so, honestly, he is a wonderful kid to be around, ever meet this guy or his family just wonderful people. He won me over, that's for sure.

Do you, so what are you up to these days now? I'm done. You're done for this season? Yeah, I'm pretty much done. They don't have you on any free agency stuff? No, no, well, we have Jays that day, right? So it's Darren Millard and who else would be on his panel. I think Elliot is on that.

I want to say Doug McLean. and then secondary panel is David Amber and I'm not sure who's on his desk I should probably know but I don't but there's the desk that we have enough people they don't need me my little act. You slacker. People are done with my act by now anyway

God, I've seen enough of miracle all season line on sports that let them go live his little hippie life in Stoville. Yeah, I was going to ask you some stuff about the 2018 class, but I feel like we should let this one marinate a little bit. I feel like

we'll have plenty of time. I've already started my list. So Svechnakov is going to be playing for Barry, right? Yeah, he is selected first overall. They'll get him for one year, then he'll turn pro. He's that good. Yeah, he's that good. So do you think, realistically speaking,

is he, I guess it kind of depends on how the season shakes out and who gets that pick, but if you had to go between him and him and Dahlin right now. Where was you in? I love Rasmusselaing. I really do. I can't, God, I always see,

to me I always defer to the defenseman. Like, I have that positional bias, so I'll go with the Swedish defenseman over the Russian forward, but damn, Svechnikov's good. Like, honestly, like, I hope we get, I hope we do a ton of Barry Colts games

this year on the CHL on Sportsnet, just so everybody can see Andre Svechnikov. That's how good this guy is. And I also hope we do a lot of for Lunda games knowing for well we'll do none because I think we don't like to see Rasmus Thalim. Well, at least we'll get to see him at the world juniors.

I feel like that's going to be kind of a good opportunity for us to check back in on sort of their progress reports and where they're where they're kind of looking in that one two debate moving forward. Yeah, in a more profound role as well. Right. Right. Like last year he was a bottom pairing defenseman, you know, a 16 year old, you know, makes team Sweden, but, you know, didn't end up seeing a ton of ice or in key situations.

But you'll see them in more big situations this year. in Buffalo at the World Juniors. You know, there's good players. You know, Joe Valeno of St. John should be a top 10 pick. Don't look now. There's another Kachuk coming, Brady Kachuk, of the development program. Ryan Murkley, the defenseman with the Gulf Storm. I'm a big fan of Bodie Wilde, who's going to the program right now.

Saginaw has his rights. I wonder if there's a situation where Saginaw trades it to another team, and Bode Wilde ends up playing in the OHL. you're going to love Jared McHaacic when you get a chance to see him. Big defenseman for the Halifax Mooseheads. Ryan McLeod of the Mississauga Steelheads, Quinn Hughes of the development program, Philip Sedina, who got selected in the draft today in the CHL.

He hoped should be probably a top 10 pick. And then, you know, who knows? Yesterday Yelan, Vespel may end up popping big. Olivier Wallstrom of the, the development program, McHill Thomas of Niagara. There's Alan McShane of the Ashawah Jehaw, Jadu of Moose Jaw,

Nando Eganberger, I can go, Ivan Bouchard of London. Like there's next year's draft, like I'm telling you, where this year we said, ah, it's a little bit light, right, next year's draft is deep. There are some real good players

available next season. Yeah, but you know what's going to happen as the process moves along. You're going to start, like, picking the part these guys and and trying to bring them down like it seems like uh as the year goes long we're going to find some wards in some of these guys games for sure but i agree especially at the top of the draft it definitely seems like uh those two guys are sort of the potential kind of generational impact guys that maybe this draft didn't really have yeah they're they're they're

both outstanding and then right right down the list you can get good players so all the listeners can go right now to sportsid dot ca and check out your top 100 for the 2018 draft, right? Where am I at now? Honestly, I think I'm at about, I'm serious, I'm at 52 right now. I got Busby and Flint and Levin at Sudby at 52 right now. You're a man. Gnishnikov in there.

You got, who else I have in there? Carson Fo to Tri-City, Jake Wise at the program, Joel Farabby at the program. Programs be good next year, by the way. Some real good players. All from a nice. You're a madman. Jeff, make sure to take some time this summer for yourself.

You know I love stuff like this? Because draft days are all happy. They're all happy stories. Right. That's why I love it. It's great. It's like everyone, everybody, I mean, outside of, you know, the guys that, you know, don't get selected, you know, generally, you know, everyone's going home happy.

And especially on that Friday, everybody got exactly who they wanted and all the prospects that get picked. They were all chosen by their exact favorite team. growing up. Actually, funny, really quick story, so I know you want to wrap. So I'm back there in the green room for the first overall pick. It's Nico Heeshire, and I'm going to interview his brother,

Luca, who's always been Nico Heeshire's inspiration. He wears number 13, and he is a Pavel Datsuk fan, but he wears number 13 because he's a big fan of his older brother, Luca. He's always been his idol. And right before we're coming hot, like, I've got my producer counting down in my years, you know 10, 9, 8, 7, I get to 5, and Heeshire's father runs up to me and puts this card

in my hand and says, this is Nico at 9 years old, 10 years old I came out of what it was, and I look at it. And Dimitri, and I just held it up to the camera and said, is this foreshadowing or what? It's a picture of Nico Hesha and a New Jersey Devil's Jersey. It's hilarious. That's awesome. What about the 29 other pictures of it? him wearing all the other team's jerseys.

Yeah, we didn't get to that part. Some shrewd marketing by the heat shirts. Those Swiss, I was gushing about the Swedes before. No way, man, they're dope. Give it to the Swiss all day a lot, smartest ones around. You've got to figure it out. All right, Jeff, I really appreciate you taking a time here to spread some of this wisdom. And definitely, as I said, make sure to enjoy your summer a little bit,

and we'll check back in with you sometime down the road. Thanks, man. We'll talk soon. Thanks, Demetri. It's always great podcast. Keep it going. Cheers. Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at

soundcloud.com slash hockey p-docast.