by Greg

I pretty much missed the draft entirely, between preparing for and departing to paradise on earth, so I'm still catching up. A couple notes from this end of things:

* Who knows if he'll ever be a contributor at the pro level, but Avalanche top pick Kevin Shattenkirk has a great hockey name. It just sounds ... tough. Bruising. "He shattenkirked that guy right through the glass!" Unfortunately, it appears he models his style of play after Brian Leetch, not the first guy you think of when you think "hard-nosed" (or "throwing a check"), but ... still. Great name. It'd look good on a hockey jersey, if my closet didn't already make it look as if I have a mental disorder.

* Kind of hard to get too excited about the Thrashers' draft -- which resembled those of the 1990s St. Louis Blues, when they'd given all their top picks away to get Scott Stevens or Brendan Shanahan or Mike Keenan. Jes says good things about Spencer Machacek, so I'll take his word for it. Hockey's Future, in addition to referring to him as "lanky" (one of my favorite words), also notes that Machacek "already has 40 WHL playoff games under his belt," which should do the Thrashers good if they ever make it to the WHL playoffs.

* I've been playing my old pal Eastside Hockey Manager recently, and in a nice bit of synchronicity, my fake 2007 draft came at about the same time as the real one. In fake draft '07, fake Zach Hamill went first overall (to the fake Columbus Blue Jackets). In real draft '07, real Zach Hamill went eighth overall (to the semi-real Boston Bruins). When I saw that, my instinct was seriously "the Bruins got a steal!" before my conscious reminded me that the Zach Hamill made up of ones and zeroes that I'm drunkenly manipulating at 1 a.m. is not the same as the real-life one. And as is frequent in these cases, I took a moment to think about what I'm doing with my life.

Labels: avalanche, Entry Draft, games, Spencer Machacek, thrashers