Bantam draft (with live updates) inches closer

Published 4:55 pm Tuesday, April 28, 2009

We’re now less than two days away from the bantam draft, which begins at 7:15 a.m. Thursday. Everett, of course, is a major player this season as the Tips pick, eighth, 11th and 29th overall, so Everett should land three quality prospects. After that the Tips’ position is less favorable. Everett doesn’t have its own third-round pick (51st overall), lost in the trade that enabled the Tips to move up and select center Tyler Giebel in the second round last year. Everett does have Saskatoon’s third rounder, acquired two seasons ago in exchange for left wing Ondrej Fiala, but that isn’t until 64th overall. The Tips have no fourth rounder (traded to Brandon for left wing Daniel Bartek), but are back in their usual spot (seventh in each round) the remainder of the draft. Teams are allowed to continue drafting until they have no room left on their 50-player protected lists.

Here’s the full order of the draft for the diehards.

I will be dragging my tail out of bed Thursday morning in order to give my expert analysis on Everett’s picks — players I’ve never seen and in all likelihood have never heard of before — with live updates on the blog. I’ll be getting an assist from Jon Rosen, who will be running the draft tracker 4000 at everettsilvertips.com.