<div align="center">With the Draft Over, Work Begins</div><div align="center"></div><div align="center">Karsten Kadinger, selected 4th overall, is just one of many draftees looking to make their mark on the league.</div><div align="center">2x for covering SMJHL S38 Draftees</div>

At the end of the day, drafts really don’t matter.

Sure, teams can make or break their entire futures on the draft, but for individual players, the draft is really just a game of finding out where you’re going to end up. Whether you get drafted first overall or thirtieth overall, everyone is entering this year on equal footing. This year’s draft saw potential star players falling as far as the fifth, sixth, possibly even seventh rounds depending upon how things shape up. By this time next year, scouts may look back on the selections made today and scoff -- or maybe their own choices, in the S39 SHL Entry Draft, will reflect those made by their SMJHL counterparts. No one should feel the least bit slighted for going late, nor should anyone feel particularly proud of themselves for going high. Unlike some other hockey leagues, players enter their rookie seasons with every chance to differentiate themselves from, and even exceed more established names, and we may well see that same process happen this year, as has happened many times in the past.

Either way, the draft is over, and now the real work begins.

Karsten Kadinger went higher than many expected -- and lower than some expected. In a draft this up in the air and this stocked with talent, it would be difficult to dispute him being selected anywhere from the top five to the top thirty-five. But moving from Europe and having to play on smaller ice for the first time in his young career, he’s just one example of a player who is going to have to put in some serious work in training camp, at practice, and in the gym to overcome whatever bad habits he’s inherited from the Deutsche Nachwuchsliga (DNL) and learn to play the particular style that has come to dominate the SMJHL. That style is largely predicated on a skill-based approach to hockey -- one that places great emphasis on a carefully planned offense, along with a strong defense based on clear positioning and simple, yet effective stickwork. Physicality in large part plays a secondary role, with players able to take the body proving particularly useful, but not always factoring in to team strategies per se.

For Kadinger, that might sound like a recipe for success -- an undersized, two-way winger whose entire game relies upon positioning should be an easy fit into this SMJHL system. But at the same time, entering into a league where your particular skillset is not just in line with current league strategies, but is almost ‘normative’ can mean blending in a bit too much with the crowd. This places pressure on Kadinger to make sure that, through a year’s worth of training and playing, he effectively proves to scouts that he isn’t just another scoring winger, but rather the kind of player that can really make a difference on the ice. That begins, for Kadinger, with the drive to win a Four Star Cup with the Colorado Mammoths, who took a chance on him with the fourth overall pick in the draft.

This, too, is something that many of the rookies selected will have to contend with. For another example, look no further than Kadinger’s friend and former teammate, Fredrich Koenig, who went seventh overall to the Montreal Militia. As a ‘soft’, passing defenceman, Koenig is the very blueprint for a successful offensive defenceman in the SMJHL, and even the SHL. Yet, as much as that might lead teams to look at him as a potential roster player at a professional level, it could also work against him if he starts to blend in to the crowd. In order to really show his value to teams, and reaffirm to Montreal why he was worth a first round selection, he’s going to have to prove that he isn’t just another offensive defenceman -- but rather that he’s Fredrich Koenig, of which there is and can only be one.

A lot of this sounds fanciful at this point -- but it’s advice which some rookies should take to heart. With the draft no longer occupying the bulk of the league’s attention, the time has come to get down to brass tacks, so to speak, and get to work. And now is perhaps the most important time in any player’s career to get to work, as the junior rookie season can often be the period in which the league separates the wheat from the chaff. Countless players emerge with a head of steam, touting themselves as future stars and drawing in hype from scouts and fans alike, only to burn out midway through the season. Countless players enter the draft without any fan support, going late to a team that barely knows them and selected on the whim, only to enter the SHL draft a year later as a consensus first round selection.

This very process seems to be something that Kadinger is relishing. In an interview immediately after the draft, Kadinger spoke about his future in Colorado, and his expectations for the SHL draft now a year away:

”I’m looking forward to starting work in Colorado. If I’m being honest, I don’t know much about the organization, but from the conversations I have had they seem like a solid group of people. I don’t know what kind of role they’re going to want me to fill, but I’ll do my best to do whatever they need for me. I’m honoured to have been selected so high in the draft, and I really want to avoid letting them down. When you think about it -- being selected in the first or second round, that’s really a vote of confidence from a team -- they could have done all kinds of things with that pick, but instead they held onto it and picked you. When people are looking back on the draft, I want to make sure nobody is saying about the Mammoths, ‘Oh, they had a good draft, but if only they hadn’t picked Kadinger…’. I want to be one of the faces of this franchise, and I want to prove management right for trusting me.”

Tomorrow, Kadinger and the rest of his draft class will begin their first and only training camp with their junior teams. It’s a chance to prove themselves, as much as for their teams to help influence how they’ll develop as players in their junior careers -- likely to last three to four years in most cases. If training camp is the first step, then pre-season is the second, and the regular season is the third. The beginning of the rest of his new crop of rookies’ careers begin now, and their futures are their own to win -- or lose.

And now that everyone has been divided up, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the first overall selection or the last overall selection. The playing field is wide open, and the real competition begins. The best statement to end on is the one we began with: at the end of the day, drafts really don’t matter.

Signature Credit: Wasty

Andrew James - Retired Defenseman - Edmonton Comets

Winston Windsor - Retired Defenseman - Edmonton Blizzard

Karsten Kadinger - Retired Defenseman - West Kendall Platoon

Will Windsor - Retired Defenseman - Buffalo Stampede

Jari Heikkinen - Retired Defenseman - Manhattan Rage

Tommy Thompson - Retired Center - Buffalo Stampede

Warwick Windsor - Defenseman - SMJHL Prospect
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Position: Defenseman
Handedness: Right
Jersey Number: 8
Height: 6ft 6in
Weight: 245 lbs
Birthplace: Edmonton, Canada
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SMJHL CAREER STATISTICS
S74 | TBD | GP: nil | G: nil | A: nil | P: nil | Hits: nil | +/- |
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SMJHL PLAYOFF STATISTICS
S74 | TBD | GP: nil | G: nil | A: nil | P: nil | Hits: nil | +/- |
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TRANSACTIONS & ACHIEVEMENTS
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And now that everyone has been divided up, it doesn’t matter whether you’re the first overall selection or the last overall selection. The playing field is wide open, and the real competition begins. The best statement to end on is the one we began with: at the end of the day, drafts really don’t matter.

This last paragraph got me so amped! Amazing job bro looking forward to the next article