The Vancouver Giants (WHL) have 3 talented hopefuls that could all have their
names called on draft day.

My latest article at hockeysfuture.com profiles the big and burly Marc Fistric, the industrious Mitch Bartley, and the 'Vertically-challenged' Czech defenseman Lukas Pulpan. It's too long of an article to post here, so go to the link and check it out. I'm expecting 2 out of the 3 to get picked, and we know Fistric is a sure-thing.

Other draft news, sites, notes, rants:

As I mentioned yesterday, Kyle Woodlief from USA Today/Red Line Report, had a chat session on here on USAtoday.com, unlike most chat sessions, which are full of fanboy (softball) questions and rather useless and fluffy answers, Woodlief provides some good and detailed answers in his chat.
Of course, he didn't answer my questions regarding Michal Valent and Andrej Meszaros.
I've had 1 question total ever answered on an online chat, when Ladislav "Mr. Hoppy" Nagy told the world that Jaromir Jagr was his favourite player growing up. Yukh...

The Hockey News has posted the entire contents of their Entry Draft Preview on their website. This is a good site to bookmark (besides my own, *wink* *nudge*) as a source of draft information. It has the profiles, articles, features, and so on that were in the paper edition.

They also have a list of their Top 20 First Round Busts. They list Doug Wickenheiser at #1, which astounds me.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, deserves the title more than Alexandre Daigle. For all of the money he 'earned' and the goals against he was responsible for, I can't think of a bigger bust in terms of bang for the buck and not living up to the hype. THN lists Daigle at #6, citing "Daigle might have reached the top spot on the all-time busts list, if not for his impressive comeback season in the NHL with the Wild in 2003-04"
I can see their point, since Daigle did spot 20 goals last season. But still, the Wild got him as an Unrestricted Free Agent.
The Senators invested a massive sum of money in Daigle before they even drafted him (How dumb was that?), and got the worst
return on their investment ever on a first overall pick. To Daigle's credit, he looks great in a nurses' uniform.

I also take issue with them ranking Joe Murphy on the list at #15. I know Murphy was soft and crappy defensively, but he also put up 528 points in 779 career games. He was a consistantly solid 2nd line winger, and provided his teams with some credible offense.
Sure, he wasn't a superstar, but he certainly gave a good return on a 1st overall draft pick. You can't possibly rank him on a list with the likes of Scott Scissons and give a good argument with a straight face.

Hockeysfuture.com also has an interesting interview with Scott Norton, who is the agent of the much 'maligned' Robbie Schremp.

Schremp is certainly an interesting case. Since the age of 13, he's been hyped as the next 'great one' from the USA, and he even appeared in a hockey video with Wayne Gretzky. His teammates think highly of him, and he seems to have an upbeat personality. On the other hand, he barely played in the final 3 games of his team's (London Knights) playoff games, he wasn't on the US World Under-20 squad, he's already changed agents, and demanded a trade from his junior team.

While guys like Kyle Woodlief think Schremp's off-ice issues are too much to overlook, others seem to think that Schremp is simply getting an unfair rap. Remember when Jason Spezza requested a trade from the IceDogs?
It doesn't seem to have affected his NHL career whatsoever. If Schremp slips out of the Top 15 on draft day, whichever team gets him could be very very lucky indeed.