Sunday, June 27, 2010

An active draft for the Canes

Well, let's go over this crazy draft, hm?

First off, my selected pick for the Canes, Nino Niederreiter, was taken at 5th by the Islanders, so that was unfortunately not in the cards. Several top defensemen were still on the boards when the Canes picked at 7th, including the touted Cam Fowler, but the Canes went slightly off the grid and picked Jeff Skinner.

Skinner is known for scoring goals, which is always good, but his 5'-10" 190 lb frame makes me think that Rutherford is really, really adverse to getting forwards over six foot for his team. His skating is meh, which is odd because he used to be a figure skater.

Yes, the Canes drafted an ex-figure skater. Needless to say this factoid didn't go over well initially (He picked a short figure skater over a defenseman?! Defense, Rutherford, we need defense!).

But the defense issue was put to rest on Day 2 of the draft, where the Canes drafted 5 defensemen out of their 7 picks. They also traded for a defenseman, Bobby Sanguinetti, sending some picks to the Rangers.

Also gained in trades were forwards Riley Nash from the Oilers and Jonathan Matsumoto from the Flyers.

So it was a busy day in the Draft for the Canes. My first impression is that the plethora of defensemen is an excellent thing for the farm system, and Rutherford seems to generally get value out of trades, so hopefully these will pan out.

As always, time will tell who won and lost in this Draft. A more pertinent issue is the upcoming free agency date - July 1st. No real spectacular updates on that front, but I expect that to change quickly as the week progresses. I do believe the last day for contract buyouts is this Wednesday...

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