Bantam draft preview: Should Everett’s lack of picks be a concern?
Published 6:39 pm Sunday, April 25, 2010
As mentioned in my previous post, Alan Caldwell has researched the likely draft order for Thursday’s bantam draft, taking into account all the trades involving this year’s bantam picks. According to his work, Everett’s picks in the first eight rounds are thus:
First round, 18th overall
Second round, 40th overall
Fifth round, 106th overall
Seventh round, 133rd overall
Seventh round, 150th overall
At first blush the reaction is, “Ugh.” Not only is Everett’s pick late in each round — thanks to accumulating 97 points this season — the Tips have just five picks in the first eight rounds. That includes no picks in the third, fourth and sixth rounds. I’m planning on providing live updates on draft day, but unless a deal is made there’s going to be a long stretch of inactivity after the second round. In contrast, Kootenay has its own first rounder, two second rounders, two third rounders and two fourth rounders. The Ice will have picked eight times by the time the Tips make their third selection. That tends to imply Everett might be in trouble four or five years from now.
But I’m not going to say that.
Having seen Everett go through seven draft classes now, it’s clear the bantam draft is far from an exact science. Indeed, I’m convinced a team’s first rounder is the only player it can reasonably expect to have an impact career in the WHL. Why do I believe this? Well, let’s take a look at Everett’s past drafts. First, here’s the first rounders:
2003: Zach Hamill
2004: Eric Doyle
2005: Kyle Beach
2006: Kellan Tochkin
2007: Kent Simpson
2008: Ryan Murray
2009: Nicholas Walters, Seth Jones
Let’s take Walters and Jones out of the equation since they haven’t even been eligible to play in the league yet. The other six all are/were quality players in this league. Hamill was a scoring champion, Beach led the league in goals, and both were first-round NHL draft picks. Doyle played five years in the league. Tochkin is a point-per-game player who, though undrafted, already signed an NHL contract. Simpson will be taken in this year’s NHL draft. And I’ve got a feeling that Murray kid, even though he’s only played one season in the league, is going to turn out OK. That group spans just about the entire length of the first round, from third overall (Hamill) to 22nd (Simpson). So it seems likely Everett’s first rounder is going to hit, regardless of where in the first round he’s taken.
Now let’s look at Everett’s second rounders:
2003: Peter Mueller
2004: Keegan Bourelle
2005: Matt Ius
2006: Jeff Regier
2007: Gabe Minville
2008: Tyler Giebel
2009: Jari Erricson
Again, remove Erricson from the equation. Of the rest, Mueller is the only one who’s had much of an impact. Bourelle never played in the league. Ius and Regier were both traded after not panning out the way the Tips hoped, and eventually they drifted out of the league. The jury’s still out on Minville and Giebel, though both still have opportunity to prove themselves.
In just about every other round Everett’s collection of draftees are comparable (with the exception of Mueller) to the Tips’ second rounders. Everett has two seventh rounders this year. That’s happened twice before and in 2005 the Tips ended up with Tyler Hlookoff, and in 2007 it produced Campbell Elynuik. Consider the players Everett drafted in the 10th (Zach Sim, Jesse Burt, James Reid), 11th (Brennan Zasitko, Shayne Barrie, Chris de la Lande) and 12th (Jonathan Harty) rounds. That group stacks up pretty well to Everett’s second rounders, and they were all taken in rounds where some teams are passing on their picks. And this doesn’t even take into account the undrafted players (three of Everett’s top four scorers this season were passed over in the bantam draft).
So while Everett may not be positioned particularly well going into this year’s draft, if I were a fan I wouldn’t be worried. The Tips still have their first rounder, and that seems to be what matters most.
