The NHL draft: 1st 14 picks

Always enjoy the comedy of the NHL draft. Let’s recap it, live blog, stream-of-conscious, Simmons draft diary style…

Versus is on the air with the NHL draft, stealing the TSN Canada feed instead of sending their own broadcast team. Really? They’re too cheap to send out their own crew? This is the American television carrier of the NHL?

On the bright side, Versus decision to just beam us the TSN feed allows us the opportunity to not hear the nonsense that comes out from Brian Engblom and Keith Jones, although the draft does seem to miss Engblom’s mullet.

The draft is at the Staples Center in LA. What do you think is a bigger deal to the Staples people, hosting Game 7 of the NBA Finals last Thursday or the NHL draft eight days later? Yeah, I thought so.

Thoroughly enjoyed the interview with top picks Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin. The two hit the town last night and saw Jennifer Love Hewitt. They admitted she was looking good.

One of the best things about the NBA draft is the personality the players show when interviewed, their flamboyant outfits (like Urkel last night) and their natural ability to communicate. The NHL draft is the same way, only the exact opposite. These kids have no personality, no style, nothing. They looked terrified during their interviews. And this fear, in contrast to the NBA draft, is one of the best things about the NHL draft.

Gary Bettman takes to the podium and gets booed. Loudly. Most despised commissioner in sports. Even people in LA who have never heard of him despise him.

Bettman rambles on about how great this draft is for California. He seems to have lost his voice. I have images of him partying at STK last night, doing body shots off waitresses and waking up next to Lindsay Lohan. This could have happened, right?

Oilers GM Steve Tambellini comes up to the podium and pretends people in LA care about hockey. He then does everything possible to delay the drama: Hall or Seguin. Finally, he selects Hall as Edmontonians throughout Canada rejoice. He’s their next Gretzky, which means he could be traded to the Kings in 10 years.

TSN’s Bob McKenzie compares Hall to Mark Messier, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson. No pressure there, kid.

Seguin pretends to be happy for Hall, whom he claims is his friend. Let’s hope these two have an Ovechkin-Crosby type rivalry where Ovechkin is clearly the antagonist.

A woman in the Hall entourage (could be a sister, could be a crazy aunt, could be a stripper he met at Crazy Girls last night) is wearing a black leather outfit that reveals way too much cleavage for someone as large as she is.

Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton is sold out and rocking to celebrate a draft. Clearly, there isn’t much to do in Edmonton on a Friday night.

Versus/TSN cuts to Toronto GM Brian Burke who idiotically traded away this pick last year for Phil Kessel. Apparently he didn’t realize that a crummy roster would likely result in a lousy season and a high draft pick.

As Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli announces the pick of Seguin, team owner Jeremy Jacobs starts initiating trade talks for three years from now when Seguin is up for a new contract.

Love how TSN breaks out the home movies to show highlights of the prospects. That always kills me.

Bettman smiles as Seguin walks to the podium. He’s probably thinking to himself, “this is the last time this guy is going to be happy to see me,” and is probably proud of it. One of my favorite subplots of the Stanley Cup presentation each year is how the winning captain holds back his emotion and excitement when he has to go up to Bettman to get the Cup.

TSN interviews Seguin and Chiarelli together, just as they did Hall and Tambellini. Apparently the general managers become the player’s father upon drafting him.

Interviewer James Duthie reveals that Seguin and his father got matching tattoos. Maybe there’s hope for the NHL prospects after all.

Panthers GM Dale Tallon gets ready to announce their pick. This is the same guy who the Blackhawks fired as GM just before the season started and they won the Cup. Will he make mention of this? Sadly, he doesn’t. On the bright side, Tallon doesn’t go through the usual show of thanking LA, thanking the commissioner and saying hello to the fans watching back in Florida (probably because he knows there are no fans in Florida). Florida takes Erik Gudbranson which is a name you would never see in any of the other sports.

Upon reaching the podium, Gudbranson tells Tallon “I didn’t know Florida still had a team.”

Gudbranson reveals that Florida is the right fit for him. You mean a teenager who has lived in Canada his whole life is excited about going to South Beach? Shocking! Who cares if the team hasn’t made the playoffs in a decade?

The announcer declares that this is the 10th time in their 11-year history that Columbus has picked in the top 10. Donald Sterling smiles as he watches his protégé franchise at work.

Watching this draft makes me appreciate all of the excess ESPN uses during their draft coverage of the NFL and NBA.

Suddenly there is a delay on the floor as the Jackets get ready to make their pick. Did they lose their draft card?

Columbus selects Ryan Johansen, not to be confused with Calle Johansson. Pierre McGuire tells us that this is “excellent, excellent news” for the franchise. “This kid is really good!” I should hope so—he is the fourth overall pick, after all.

Johansen is sporting a done-up hairdo that makes me think he just now started using hair product. “But Mom, we’re going to LA, all the stars use hair gel!” In a weird way, Johansen reminds me of a 20-year-old Corey Haim who I think told his mother the same thing 25 years ago.

Johansen is definitely the youngest looking of the first four picks. He looks like he would be afraid of a razor.

Alyssa Milano makes her way to the TSN desk and Duthie looks like a 14-year-old boy talking to a cute girl for the first time. Amazingly, Milano doesn’t promote her Touch clothing line but does pretend to care about hockey.

Kevin Connolly from Entourage is on the stage. Bob McKenzie spots it, Pierre McGuire has no clue who he’s talking about.

Islanders GM Garth Snow makes the latest selection in a long line of failed draft picks on the Island, Nino Niederreiter. Yes, that’s really his name. No, really. Says McGuire: “He may be from Switzerland but he doesn’t have holes in him like Swiss cheese and he isn’t soft like melting chocolate.” Okay then.

TSN puts up a graphic showing that Nino is the highest drafted Swiss player ever. The previous highly drafted Swiss players on the graphic all have had distinctly undistinguished careers. Islanders fans respond by putting in their DVDs of the early 1980s.

Steve Yzerman gets ready to make his first pick as GM of the Lightning and rumor has it they want injury-prone Brett Connolly. Rumor is he had an MRI on his hip but refused to give it to teams. McKenzie corrects the rest of the desk and says the true story is that teams wanted him to take an MRI but he refused. Sounds like just the guy to take in the top 10 of the draft.

Yzerman sounds terrified. I would be too if I were him—I just selected Connolly with the sixth overall pick. In his home movie highlights, there are no fans in the stands.

McKenzie reports that there isn’t much structure to Connolly’s right hand because he crushed it in a steel gate when he was a kid. The Lightning are now banking on a guy with chronic hip injuries and a damaged hand to help carry them to the promised land. I have to say, this isn’t looking like a good start to Yzerman’s GM career.

Yzerman is being interviewed right now and looks like he just got cold-cocked by Claude Lemieux. Could a black eye from a ’97 Wings-Avalanche brawl have not healed yet?

TSN profiles prospect Jeff Skinner by telling us about his figure skating career and showing home movies of him doing double axels. Fans of every team immediately start rooting for their team to take someone else.

The TSN announcers break down the top six picks by nationality and beams when declaring that no American has been picked yet. Gotta love Canadians proud.

The Hurricanes take Skinner! Too many jokes…too many jokes…

How soon until someone creates one of those crazy Johnny Weir outfits and puts a Hurricanes logo on it with Skinner’s name on the back?

McGuire praises the pick by saying “Anytime you draft someone from the Kitchener Rangers, you know he has strong fundamentals.” I guess that’s settled. McKenzie is positively giddy about the accomplishments of Skinner’s brothers and sisters.

TSN cuts to Cam Fowler sitting in the crowd, looking like he needs to drop a deuce but is unable to. TSN had him ranked No. 4 on their board but now wonder if he’ll fall out of the top 10. Brandon Gormley is also falling, much to the dismay of McGuire.

Atlanta GM Rick Dudley has a goatee, a bald spot and a comb-over. Definitely the appropriate look for an NHL GM. The Thrashers take Alexander Burmistrov, who has a legitimately hot woman in his party. My guess is he met her last night when he went to the Saddle Ranch.

McKenzie tells us Burmistrov has a real “zest for life.” So maybe he really did meet that girl at the Saddle Ranch last night. The Russian players always have more personality than the Canadians do.

This draft is moving way too slow for my tastes.

Wild GM Chuck Fletcher looks like he let his kids cut his hair. Minnesota selects Mikael Granlund from Finland who looks a little like Zack Morris. Why isn’t Kelly Kapowski part of his entourage? McKenzie tells us he has to play in Finland for another year so Minnesota makes a pick that won’t help them at all this year or develop a North American game this year.

Rangers GM Glen Sather looks like a washed up Vegas lounge act. Which, come to think of it, is sort of what he is at this point. The Blueshirts take Dylan McIlrath who is nicknamed the “Undertaker” and “is a whole lot of fury and a whole lot of anger and a whole lot of mean” according to McGuire. A graphic shows he got into 19 fights last year, three times more than anyone else in his league. This is definitely my favorite pick of the draft.

Beau Bennett, a prospect from California, tells us that most of his friends don’t know what hockey is. Probably would be wise to not hold the draft in LA anymore.

The Stars take Jack Campbell, the first U.S. born player in the draft and the first goalie selected. In his photo, Campbell has the most acne I’ve seen since I was in high school and everyone had it. McGuire kills the pick because the team just signed another goalie, Kari Lehtonen, to a long-term deal. Channeling his inner Mel Kiper Jr. The NBA draft lacked such a character last night.

With the Ducks on the clock, the fans in LA boo. There’s a Kings-Ducks rivalry? Who knew? Both McKenzie and McGuire assume one of the falling defensemen, Gormley or Fowler, has to go here since they traded away Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer just retired. “They need defense!” McGuire says emphatically.

The booing fans make the announcers long for a Kings-Ducks series. Probably won’t create quite the same local vitriol as Lakers-Celtics.

The Ducks take Cam Fowler, who McGuire says will be “a difference maker” and a “winner” although not as good as Pronger or Niedermayer. McGuire says he could be the next Francois Beauchemin though. Oh. That leaves Gormley as the one sliding defenseman.

Fowler says “they’re definitely going to get 100 percent out of me so I’m excited.” He looks like he’s excited to hit the Sunset Strip tonight.

The Coyotes are on the clock. Shouldn’t Bettman just announce the pick? He’s the only person left who believes the move from Winnipeg to Phoenix was a good idea as proven by their being no buyer for a team the NHL had to take over.

Phoenix picks Gormley as instructed by Bettman. Keith Gretzky announces the pick, probably his consolation prize for being Wayne’s brother. McKenzie and McGuire both approve.

McKenzie tells us that Gormley’s father is a fisherman, just like Brad Richards’ father. Why he felt we needed to know this is beyond me.

With the Blues on the clock, John Davidson makes his way up to the podium. He looks like he’s aged about 40 years since leaving the TV booth. He has to be regretting that career move. St. Louis takes Jaden Schwartz. Apparently this is a fitting pick because he’s buddies with Gormley.

McKenzie tells us that the Blues went “off the board a little bit” to take Schwartz. This analysis is the NHL draft equivalent of Mel Kiper Jr. ripping the Colts for taking Trev Alberts in 1994.

Schwartz’s sister has cancer and apparently needs a bone-marrow transplant to live. That puts a damper on the whole evening. That sounds like my cue to wrap this up.