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Draft Preview 2013
The Hockey News has been providing the most comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey since 1947. In each issue, you'll find news, features and opinions about the NHL and leagues across North America and the world.
BACKTESTING OUR 1998 DRAFT RANKINGS
Here’s how our first round ranking from 1998 compares with the actual. Ten players taken in the first round went on to be among the 27 best careers. 1998 THN RANKINGS 1. Vincent Lecavalier 2. David Legwand 3. Brad Stuart 4. Manny Malhotra 5. Bryan Allen 6. Michael Henrich 7. Martin Skoula 8. Dmitri Kalinin 9. Mark Bell 10. Rico Fata 11. Robyn Regehr 12. Ramzi Abid 13. Jiri Fischer 14. Mathieu Biron 15. Patrick DesRochers 16. Christian Backman 17. Jeff Heerema 18. Eric Chouinard 19. Vitali Vishnevsky 20. Mike Van Ryn 21. Simon Gagne 22. Milan Kraft 23. Mathieu Chouinard 24. Michael Rupp 25. Stephen Peat 26. Ossi Vaananen 27. Justin Papineau ACTUAL 1998 DRAFT PICKS 1. Vincent Lecavalier 2. David Legwand 3. Brad Stuart 4. Bryan Allen 5. Vitaly Vishnevsky 6. Rico Fata 7. Manny Malhotra 8. Mark Bell 9. Mike Rupp 10. Nikolai Antropov 11. Jeff Heerema 12. Alex Tanguay 13. Michael Henrich 14. Patrick DesRochers 15. Mathieu Chouinard 16. Eric Chouinard 17. Martin Skoula 18. Dmitri Kalinin 19. Robyn Regehr 20. Scott Parker 21. Mathieu Biron 22.…
NUMBERS GAME
You don’t make the first pick at the NHL draft three straight seasons without the eyes of the hockey world staring at you enviously, wondering what you’ll make of them. That’s the lot in life of the Edmonton Oilers, who were the beneficiaries of lottery ball luck and nabbed the top slot from 2010 to ’12. Now, with Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov on board, they’re at once the envy of most teams and a fascinating curiosity in terms of how they’ll evolve with three franchise forwards in a the salary cap era. With glaring deficiencies on the blueline and an NHL system designed to spread elite talent throughout the league, Edmonton will at some point have to move a member of their trio of No. 1s to achieve…
NIGHTMARE IN PHILLY NET
REMEMBER RON HEXTALL? He was drafted in 1982. Since then the Flyers have selected 34 goalies. Only 10 have played in the NHL and four played seven games or fewer. Dominic Roussel, Tommy Soderstrom, Johan Hedberg (who never played a game for the Flyers), Brian Boucher, Antero Niittymaki and Roman Cechmanek are the others. Ilya Bryzgalov was the $51-million answer to Philly’s 30-year question mark, but he’s been inconsistent. SHORT-TERM NEEDS Is Steve Mason the answer in goal? And what happens to Bryzgalov in the off-season? With Chris Pronger ranging toward retirement and Kimmo Timonen pushing 40, defense also needs addressing. Brandon Manning, Shayne Gostisbehere and Oliver Lauridsen are decent prospects, but none is top-75 in Future Watch. LONG-TERM NEEDS Even though Mason is still young and will be given a chance…
REASON TO ROOT
NHL scouts, generally speaking, aren’t warm and fuzzy guys. They spend most of the winter on the road away from their families, drinking questionable coffee and eating cold pizza, looking for hockey players. Of the seven or so kids they draft in any given year, they figure they’re doing a good job if two or three of them turn out to be full-time players. They don’t consider a kid’s backstory, how wonderful a young man he is or whether he’s a pillar of his community as part of the evaluation process. What they most care about is how he handles a crosscheck to the teeth. That said, even these guys are cheering for 17-year-old Hudson Fasching from Burnsville, Minn. The city is exactly 18 miles from his family’s front door to…
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