NHL.com is as bored as the rest of us and decided it would be a good idea to re-draft the NHL. They decided the order by last year's standings and then went in a pickleserpentine fashion, thus making every team kind of shitty and pleasing no one. Also, some idiot drafted Corey Perry 2nd over Alex Ovechkin and immediately invalidated the whole process. But still, I love looking at random lines and pretty much the whole reason I play Franchises in NHL games is to re-draft and get Alex Frolov back on the Kings (1st overall, baby!) so let's take a look at our fair teams:
Your Los Angeles Kings!
Jussi Jokinen - Brad Richards - Ryan Callahan
Wojtek Wolski - Tuomo Ruutu - Mike Knuble
Ruslan Fedotenko - Jim Slater - Kris Versteeg
Mats Zuccarello - Adam Henrique - Arron Asham
Ryan Whitney - Tom Poti
Joni Pitkanen - Anton Babchuk
Brett Lebda - Barret Jackman
Tomas Vokoun
Jean-Sebastien Giguere
Scratches: Boyd Gordon, Raphael Diaz, Chris Summers
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a lot madder than I should be about this team.
-First off, almost every single person on this team played minutes in the Eastern Conference last season except for Jackman and one of the shitty forwards (like that narrows it down).
-Guess, without looking, who was taken with the 19th overall pick. Then consider that the next 3 picks were: Jarome Iginla, Zach Parise, and Anze Kopitar. (The first pick was Vokoun.) What the shit.
-Look at that fucking 2nd line. Look at it. They originally had Kris Versteeg on that line, which is probably what you'd do if you were in an Agatha Christie novel and wanted to murder Terry Murray. Then you'd change the clock to make them think the crime was committed later in the night and then you'd be all fey and British until a little Belgian guy caught you because he figured out that you were Murray's long lost son and also the narrator of the story!!!
-Apparently Jim Slater has been in the league since 2006. He was on the Thrashers, a team I watched more than a few times when Kovalchuk was there. I've never heard of him.
-Adam Henrique & Mats Zuccarello are the only young players with any sort of upside on the team.
-That defense. Oh Lord, that defense. Everyone's left-handed. Try to figure out the penalty kill pairings. Who the fuck is Raphael Diaz. I could go on.
-The goaltending... pretty good. I have no complaints because I love Tomas Vokoun. Kinda wish they had drafted him in the 3rd round when he still would have been available, though.
-Look how the 3rd round stacked up around the Kings:
Buffalo Sabres- Tyler Myers
Montreal Canadiens- Jaroslav Halak
Chicago Blackhawks- Martin Havlat
Los Angeles Kings- FUCKING MIKE KNUBLE
Phoenix Coyotes- David Backes
Nashville Predators- Dan Boyle
Anaheim Ducks- Alexander Semin
All in all, ridiculous. I'm so mad right now. Feel the top of my head, it's hot. I'm hot-headed about this.
Oh, and this is the team they picked to finish first in the division. OK sure why not.
Your Anaheim Ducks!
Alexander Semin - Anze Kopitar - Matt D'Agostini
Curtis Glencross - Mikhail Grabovski - Claude Giroux
Nikita Filatov - Antoine Vermette - Joffrey Lupul
Zach Hamill - David Desharnais - Jack Skille
Dion Phaneuf - Kris Russell
Cam Barker - Erik Gudbranson
Thomas Hickey - Brandon Gormley
Cory Schneider
Evgeni Nabokov
Scratches: Richard Panik, Luca Caputi, Nikita Nikitin
Great top-end talent, shitty defense, good starter with a hilarious back-up... yep, these are the Ducks! I constructed the Ducks to match how they look now: dominating top line, solid 2nd line with a great right winger, speedy 3rd line that gets scored on, and then a young, tenacious 4th line (the Ducks don't have this but I couldn't make that line as shitty as Anaheim's will be). The defense is a horror show, obviously, but at least they have a lot of youth that can grow into their roles. I have to admit, I like it. I like even more how the Ducks are cursed to never be rid of Joffrey Lupul.
(Note: The original drafter had Nikita Nikitin on the Ducks' top defensive pairing but I scratched him. Why? Because his name is Nikita Nikitin and frankly I think he's made up. Someone prove he exists and I'll move him up.)
Your San Jose Sharks!
Matt Moulson - John Tavares - Martin St. Louis
Drew Stafford - Patrik Berglund - Blake Geoffrion
Brendan Morrison - Cody Hodgson - Eric Nystrom
D.J. King - Nazem Kadri - Cal O'Reilly
Mark Giordano - Colin White
James Wisniewski - Travis Hamonic
Luca Sbisa - Mike Mottau
Pekka Rinne
Johan Hedberg
Meg was all mad about this team but I think he just doesn't know what an average team looks like anymore. I personally think it's pretty good. I enjoy how you get progressively more impressed with that top line as you move from left to right (Moulson? Eh. Tavares? Hey, that's pretty goo- holy shit, St. Louis?!?) and I like the amount of young forwards they have. The defense isn't horrible and they have 2 young guys (Hamonic & Sbisa) who could end up being special in the future. And Rinne owns. Overall, I think this Sharks team is the best of the 3.
Which means that NHL.com picked them to finish last. OK sure why not.
***
Where some Kings went:
Anze Kopitar: 1st round
Drew Doughty: 2nd round (WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT??????????)
Jonathan Quick: 2nd round
Mike Richards: 2nd round
Dustin Brown: 3rd round
Justin Williams: 5th round
Jack Johnson: 5th round
Simon Gagne: 6th round
Jonathan Bernier: 9th round
Jarret Stoll: 9th round
Dustin Penner: 10th round (aroo?)
Matt Greene: 11th round
Rob Scuderi: 15th round
Willie Mitchell: 16th round (Matt Greene higher than Scuderi or Mitchell? That makes sense.)
Ethan Moreau: Undrafted (Haha)
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