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Keygan · 05-17-2020, 05:25 PM

[Image: 875482844-nhl-centennial-100-celebration.jpg.jpg]

After three hours of draft and trade discussions, Connor Tanner steps out and talks to the media about what had just transpired.

It had been a long time since I had personally done a draft, as the previous season 53 draft took place while I was in Cuba on vacation, so I had to trust my management team alongside my always trustworthy assistant manager @TommySalami to finish that draft for me while I was away, just briefly entering WiFi long enough to welcome the new draftees and then head back to the beach.

As always we had our mammoth draft sheet to begin the night and we had quickly identified that a position of need for us in the future would be without a doubt defense. We scoped out what we had identified as the top 5 in the class and with that information, we penciled in that we truly thought we needed to try and find a way into the top three picks in the draft to secure that franchise-altering defenseman so we started on the phones, first with Texas to try and trade for first overall and secure the generational talent of Mikkel Asmus Sondergard but by no surprise, Texas was not interested in dealing a pick as valuable as the first overall which was totally understandable, but then the rumours started. Rumours began becoming a plenty that not only was Texas not going to select Mikkel Asmus Sondergard, but neither was Toronto. We immediately struck a trade with the New England Wolfpack for third overall contingent on the rumours being true and that Matthew Sawful and Ryosuke Sato were going second and first overall respectively.

We were sure we had struck gold and secured Mikkel Asmus Sondergard in the draft but then 4:00 came around and immediately the first pick was posted.

"With the 1st overall pick, the Texas Renegades proudly select

Mikkel Asmus Sondergard
Defenseman - Maine Timber"

Our hearts sunk, the rumours were not true and the draft begin to go off the rails for us, Toronto would come in next and draft Ryosuke Sato, which left Matthew Sawful available for the New England Wolfpack to draft, we immediately tried to ring the Tampa Bay Barracuda to try and arrange something, but before our call could be picked up we heard through the line

"With the 4th Overall Pick, the Tampa Bay Barracuda Select....

Dwight Knight

Welcome to the Barracuda"

We frantically began to message the Buffalo Stampede who had been rumoured to have been trading the fifth overall selection in the draft, and lone and behold there was still one defensemen we were still incredibly interested in left available being Emilia Bergman but when the Buffalo Stampede manager answered his phone he laughed and said "Tune into the draft channel cause our pick is already in pal."

"The Buffalo Stampede are proud to select with the 5th pick in the S54 SHL Draft, from Sweden

Emilia Bergman"

We sat back down in our office and said to ourselves "There is still a lot of elite level talent left, but I think we might have to start looking outside of defense for the 9th overall selection." thankfully prior to the draft we had sat down and plotted out two sets of players, a top 9 and a top 15 to assess who was great value and at what point they are great value, and we noticed as our pick was getting closer we noticed a centerman Daniel LaForest out of Montreal, Quebec kept dropping and dropping and dropping, I mean we are talking a player that had been discussed as a first or second overall talent and very rarely was mocked outside of the top 5. We sat down as a management group and said, while he may not be a defensemen, he is without a doubt a player that should have been drafted much earlier and that is when our first opportunity arrived to draft in the season 54 draft and so we walked to our webcam podium for the draft live stream and we made our announcement.

"The Edmonton Blizzard are proud to select from Montreal, Quebec.

Daniel LaForest - @Snoopdogg

Welcome to Edmonton!"

The centerman from Montreal, Quebec was an elite talent that we could have never imagined dropping as far as he did, let alone far enough for us to select him, but man oh man are we glad after discussing everything with him. A pass-first centerman with a very strong stride on the ice, one of the faster skaters on the ice at any given time, has no problem playing a two hundred foot game. The scouts compare him to a much more raw Tony Pepperoni with a ceiling of a Jason Visser level center. If he continues working his game he has a multiple-time MVP ceiling.

As we continued on in the draft we were approaching the fifteenth overall selection when the Los Angeles Panthers approached me about potentially trading fifteenth overall for their season fifty-five first round pick and the twenty-ninth overall pick in the draft. The valuable was undeniable and we were quick to jump on the opportunity to make that trade and thus our next pick grew further away. Tommy and I sat down, got some snacks and drinks and anxiously awaited the 29th selection. We entertained a bunch of players at this pick but one of the most dangerous things you can find yourself doing is thinking to yourself that you will for sure land a certain player as when they get drafted right before your pick it can be an incredibly dangerous thing to begin scrambling for a pick, thankfully we had laid out three potential draftees when we reached 29th overall, those being Thor Odinson, a goalie from Detroit, Guy LeGrande a centerman from Newfoundland and finally Adam Friedland a left defensemen from Carolina. Thor Odinson ended up getting drafted with the 27th overall pick by the Buffalo Stampede and we knew that San Francisco would be drafting Thorbjörn Gunnarson which left us to choose between Guy LeGrande and Adam Friedland, and ultimately decided to select Guy LeGrande, a centerman out of New Market, Ontario.

A strong skating centerman with the massive frame standing at 6 feet, 5 inches tall with a robust 220 pounds sat on those skates LeGrande comes across as a very offensive centerman ala Zach Evans as a potential comparison.

LeGrande is a very well respected member of the VHL community and always seems to have his hand dipped into the graphics honey pot with a very distinct style for his graphics that I hope will continue being appreciated here as much as they are in the VHL. When a player of this caliber is available as late as 29 you jump on him, bar none. I truly believe he is going to continue his trend of elite players in any league he is in. We're thrilled to add a player with the potential @Steve has.

We continued on with the draft knowing full well that our next pick wasn't until the end of the third round pick 47 in the draft. This is the part of the draft that can separate the good from the great in terms of scouting abilities and that can be one of the major benefits to a large management group. Recently adding someone like William Hartmann to the management group allows us to access a different perspective on players locker room activity and overall forum activity as well from another manager's perspective. That gave us a little bit of insight as we led into picks 47 and 49 as we had acquired Toronto's 4th rounder in exchange for First Name Last Name and Kevin Robinson two seasons ago. When discussing it with the room we had narrowed it down to three players, those being Walito Gretzky, Bryce McMahon and Kyle Sutton. We opted to select Kyle Sutton with the 47th overall pick, Hamilton then turned around and drafted Walito Gretzky which left us with our final pick of the draft Bryce McMahon, but we had yet to pass at that point.

We began waiting out 63rd overall, and we begun to announce our pick when Tommy begun whispering in my ear "Hey, hey Connor, Hillier's already been selected." Thankfully he had spared me the embarrassment of selecting a player that had already been drafted in front of all the other managers. The more and more I looked at Hillier's draft profile though, I began noticing things about him and eventually put two and two together, he had been good friends with Ryan Kastelic, one of the best players to ever step foot on the ice for the Victory Hockey League. I knew I had to find a way to get him so I quickly dialed the phone and spoke to the Minnesota Chiefs and laid it all out there.

"Hey, you spent a fourth on Hillier, I'll give you a second round pick for him." I quickly chimed in, but Minnesota was not so quick to deal, and brought it back to their war room, it took approximately three or four hours before I got a message back saying "I think we will end up accepting your offer, let us make it official." and thus Chet Hillier was traded from the Minnesota Chiefs to the Edmonton Blizzard for a season 55 second round pick.

Ultimately I am thrilled with how the draft turned out for Edmonton, and while we were looking defensemen in the first round and it did not end up coming to fruition we are more than happy with the players we did end up selecting, and subsequently traded for during the draft.

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Nokazoa · 05-17-2020, 06:56 PM

I wish i got drafted when Keygan was needing money. I would have some nice media written about me

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