2009 NHL Draft

First off, I must say that as a guy who used to have dreams of playing in the NHL, it's nauseating to see kids born in the 90's getting drafted. Now that that's out of the way, this year's draft was probably one of the best I've seen as far as competition over the top players. In the past few seasons, there has been one player that was clearly the best in the draft and was going #1 for sure. This year, the top pick was in doubt because the Islanders (who got the first choice this year) are terrible in all aspects and could use a star in any position. They picked John Taveres, a Center from the London Knights of the OHL. Victor Hedman then went to the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was one of the best fits for a team since Tampa Bay needed a good D-man more than anything else. Third pick went to Colorado and since I hate Colorado, I won't talk about them except to say that the guy they took, Matt Duchene, actually grew up an Avalanche fan. Seeing the picture of him standing in his room full of Avalanche merchandise made me feel like I had just seen Medusa and was turning into stone.

Thoughts and notable events during the first round of the draft:

Someone should have told some of those guys to take the cardboard out of their new team hats. That looked so dumb.

Pronger to the Flyers. I can't even begin to explain how pumped I am over this. Get that goon out of the West and into Sidney Crosby's backyard. Penguin fans think Detroit plays dirty... just wait. As much as I hate Pronger, I like it when a player ends up on a team that he fits. One of two wonderful things will happen with Pronger in Philly: He plays against Pittsburgh and actually gets called for his cheap antics for once and becomes the bum defenseman everyone knows him to be, or he destroys Crosby and all the Penguin fan's heads explode over all the unreal no-calls. Welcome to our world, Pittsburgh.

Please, no more NHL Drafts in French Canada. Having to hear everything in French and then English was so annoying.

Amazing that Brian Burke (GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs) got booed louder and longer than Gary Bettman.

Speaking of Brian Burke, having him wear a wire as he walked around and talked to other GM's was a nice try by VS to spice things up and make the draft more interesting. If only hearing a bunch of guys in suits talk about conducting business was interesting.

Finally, is it just me or is Pierre "Datsyuk scored because of a gust of wind" McGuire the worst hockey analyst? Not to mention the creepiest?


Skip ahead to around the 1:48 mark. Prepare to be uncomfortable.