Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Who will be Mr. Irrelevant in the 2009 NHL draft?

"Mr. Irrelevant" is not a tag dreamed up just for the NHL draft. It comes from some other sport, baseball probably. A sport whose draft is more predictable. Hockey drafts are not predictable though. The guy taken 210th can turn out to be a regular player - very relevant. Nevertheless, a fun little game among draftniks is to try to guess who will be the last player taken without going over (into the untaken).

Last year I won among the HF Staff with a pick of Mark Olver, 140th to Colorado out of NMU. That's not terribly close to the end of the draft, but it won because most of the guesses were so obscure that they weren't taken at all.

This year I'm going with Roman Horak out of the Czech Junior league. Talented but lazy, he's good enough that someone will take a flyer, but not put too much on the line. I personally don't like this player much, but I'm trying to win here, not pick favorites. I think a European is generally a better strategy in this game since they tend to go later in the draft.

Here are some other staff guesses. Most of them picked from leagues they know well.
Oleg Yashin from Atlant-2 Mystichi (Rus) - Mike Farkas
Benjamin Casavant, PEI Rocket, QMJHL - Kevin Forbes
Chase Schaber - Calgary, WHL - Glen Erickson
Casey Cizikas - Mississauga OHL - Leslie Treff
Beau Schmitz - Plymouth, OHL - Kyle Kujawa

By all means, add your own guess in the comments.
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