The lottery will determine the order of the first 14 picks of the 2016 NHL Draft, which will be held June 24-25 at First Niagara Center in Buffalo. The Winnipeg Jets, slated to pick sixth, moved up to the top three.
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The Boston Bruins basically had a three percent of moving up into the top three of the NHL Draft Lottery on Saturday night, but they didn’t strike it draft rich when it was all said and done up in Toronto. The draw will occur behind closed doors, under the supervision of the accounting firm Ernst & Young. Maple Leafs entered last night with a feeling of “if it can go wrong it will for us”, but on Saturday, you could see the communal sigh of relief: We saw similar storylines previous year, with teams fighting for last place in order to have the best overall chance of drafting Eichel or McDavid.
“We’re going to pick at No. 7 which means we’re going to pick a quality future National Hockey League player”, said LeBlanc, noting that the Coyotes also own the New York Rangers’ first-round pick.
Instead they’ll be watching this year’s NHL Draft Lottery, when the first, second, and third selections will be determined in the 2016 NHL Draft.
If the Canucks land the first overall pick, which this year is known as the “Auston Matthews Sweepstakes”, they will be getting a dynamic centreman who will easily slide into the lineup next fall.
So the Leafs will likely draft Auston Matthews, the dynamic American center, even though Patrik Laine, the dynamic Finnish winger, is the top selection on many draft boards. The addictive site allows visitors to run the lottery as many times as they want, to see how often each team wins.
One of those Finns will certainly go to the Blue Jackets, making GM Jarmo Kekalainen a very happy man.
“It’s nice to have a bit of clarity, ” said Matthews, who grew up rooting for the Coyotes.
Show of hands: As the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs rage on through the second round, do you really care that the Jackets posted a rousing, overtime victory against Chicago in regular-season finale?
The Toronto Maple Leafs finished with the worst record in the NHL and the League’s lowest point total.
“I’ve heard people say ‘how could you take a defenceman at No. 4?’ I don’t understand the logic behind that”.
Finnish forward Jesse Puljujarvi, Arizona born and St. Louis raised forward Matthew Tkachuk (the son of former Coyote Keith Tkachuk), forwards Pierre-Luc Dubois, Alexander Nylander and defensemen Jakob Chychrun, Mikhail Sergachev and Olli Juolevi are also considered top-10 prospects. No. 2 on Central Scouting’s final ranking of global skaters. Eriksson had 30 goals, 33 assists and 12 penalty minutes in 82 games.
“I don’t think validated would be the right word, because quite honestly if we ended up with the second, third or fourth overall pick, I still felt that we did what was needed to be done in Toronto”, he said.
The last time Toronto had the No. 1 pick it selected Wendel Clark, who went on to become a revered player. “That we didn’t made me feel very good”, he said.
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Marc Crawford, who coached Matthews last season and knows what being in the Leaf spotlight means from his own days coaching in the organization, told Postmedia this week Matthews is “a humble, grounded kid”, and he’d discussed the possibility of him being the centre of attention here.
