By now, I'm sure you've heard. Taylor Hall once again wielded his inexplicable influence on the draft lottery and the New Jersey Devils earned the first overall pick. The Canucks were bumped down one spot to 10th.
I got a little panicky on Tuesday afternoon about the idea of an Original Six team moving up, especially since four of them were in the running this year. Sure enough, the Rangers and Blackhawks ended up rounding out the top three.
Talk about a team that is in uncharted rebuild territory: this is the first time the Rangers have EVER picked in the top three since the draft was first introduced in 1970. As for the Blackhawks—they're thrilled with the three spot because that's where they picked last time the draft was held in Vancouver in 2006. They came away with Jonathan Toews.
The Canucks drafted 14th overall last time they hosted, selecting winger Michael Grabner. He had 11 points in 20 NHL games with Vancouver before being bundled into the deal that brought Keith Ballard to the Canucks at the 2010 draft. A horrific eye injury limited Grabner to 41 games with the Arizona Coyotes this season. All told, he has 167-98-265 in 594 career NHL games with six different teams, not including Florida. He was placed on waivers by the Panthers without ever playing a game for them.
The biggest intrigue on lottery day came with the leaked image that showed the top three teams more than half an hour before the official announcement.
Here's the story behind the image, which originated in Sweden:
More officially, Sportsnet's Kristina Rutherford was locked in the room with the lottery balls between the time of the draw and the official reveal, while Devils president Hugh Weber tried to keep his composure as he sat on a very exciting secret. This is a fun read.
I've spent a good part of the last year wondering if the hockey gods would see fit to grant the Canucks another brother combo to carry them through the next 20 years but at this point, Jim Benning seems highly skeptical about the idea of moving up far enough to grab Jack Hughes.
Benning also told Elliotte Friedman that he doesn't foresee any cap issues in getting young players like Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes signed as their entry-level contracts expire and that there's no roadblock in the Alex Edler negotiation—he expects that deal to get done.
He also offered this thought on why we may not have seen the positive results we'd hoped for in Utica this year:
“We had five or six young players go (to Utica) this year,”
Benning told Friedman. “For some of them, it didn’t work out like the player wanted, or like we wanted, but that’s going to happen when you have six young players show up at the same time. Some players are going to fall by the wayside…. That’s just the way it is. I think our guys are organized down there. They have good communication with the players, their expectations for the players are high.”
Elliotte says that Jim is now off to take in some OHL playoff games in Guelph and Oshawa before heading down to Utica this weekend. The Comets finish out their regular-season schedule at home to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Friday, then travel to Hershey on Saturday before ending with a home game against Syracuse on Sunday.
With a 1-2-0 record so far in the month of April, the Comets are now 2-7-1 in their last 10 games and have slipped out of playoff contention. Heading into Wednesday's games, they're sixth in the AHL's North Division with 72 points, nine back of fourth-place Cleveland.
As far as who the Canucks will eventually take at 10, this sums up my feelings nicely right now:
With major junior playoffs happening now, U18s in Sweden just around the corner and the Memorial Cup and draft combine still to come, we'll still have lots of opportunities to learn more about these kids before June 21. And picking 10th, it's perfectly possible that the Canucks' scouting staff will go off the board from the names we're hearing now. Brock Boeser seemed to come out of nowhere when he was selected with the 23rd pick in 2015 out of the USHL. He turned out OK.
Finally—it's playoff time! The first round kicks off with five games on Wednesday, starting with Tampa hosting Columbus at 4 p.m. PT and wrapping up with Vegas at San Jose at 7:30. The only one of the three Canadian teams in action tonight is Winnipeg, hosting St. Louis.
There's still time to get your entry in for the NHL's Bracket Challenge. My track record over the years is terrible so I don't have high hopes for my predictions but nevertheless, I think it's fun to see where I go wrong:
I tend to take too many upsets in the first round but this year, I think Calgary is a top seed that's ripe for an upset due to their substandard goaltending, and I expect Vegas to be able to lean on its experience from last year to go on another long run. I'm being more ornery in choosing the Islanders over Pittsburgh—for me, that's about the Barry Trotz factor and the fact that the Islanders have two excellent goalies. If Matt Murray gets injured again, the Pens are in trouble.
Despite those off-the-board choices, I was probably more horrified to see that my Final Four featured the same four teams as last year. I'm taking Tampa Bay for the win this year, and feel pretty good about that, but I imagine the actual route will turn out to be more winding than this.
Who do you have? Share your brackets and your reasoning in the comments.
Let's go!
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