Draft day haul for Ottawa [1/2]

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The Ottawa Lynx, last season's surprise finalists after a cup win the season before, came into this draft with a renewed sense of strength, a true belief that they could win another cup and make it 2 cups and 3 finals in 3 seasons. After draft night, the hype has only gotten more real. Let's take a look at who all was added to the roster on this historic night for the Lynx franchise and for the city of Ottawa.

 

Prior to the draft entirely, the Lynx' night started with a trade. This trade would send Yukon's two remaining picks over to Ottawa, 6th and 8th overall, in exchange for Ottawa's 1st and 2nd rounders next season. This is a classic case of Ottawa GM Jason Glasser banking on himself and his team, as the value of the trade will be determined by where the Lynx finish in the standings. With this haul, Ottawa held 4 picks in a 5 pick span around the turn of the round, 5/6/8/9. This allowed the team to put into place the plans that had been discussed with Glasser and the newly hired AGM @Esso2264. From the very beginning, there were two guys Ottawa had been looking at: the first would have been Carles Puigdemont when the team held the 2nd overall pick. The other, someone who was on Ottawa's radar partially because he'd played the final few games with Ottawa the season before and the team liked his production, was Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen. GM Glasser began to float the idea around of trading down in the first round and picking up an extra pick, hoping to still land Werbenjagermanjensen and also grab another piece later on if that was the route chosen. Ultimately, upon discovering that Puigdemont wasn't going to be available at 2 either way, it was solidified that the trade was going to happen, and fortunately Oslo wanted to secure who they saw as the best goalie value in the draft at 2, Divaani Sohva. Oslo gave Ottawa 5th overall which was a late first rounder, as well as 19th overall in the early fourth, in exchange for the pick.

 

When the actual draft arrived, there was one pick Ottawa felt we had to dodge: 3rd overall to Las Vegas. Since the other three picks ahead of ours were held by Oslo, with whom we'd discussed mutual plans, we were confident if Werbenjagermanjensen survived past that pick, we would land him. When Vegas' pick occurred, they selected Matthew Materazo, certainly a worthwhile choice (and someone I'd considered bringing in with the early 2nd rounders had he fallen there) but it meant we had our guy. In the trade discussions, it wasn't outright stated that Oslo would be taking a different defenseman specifically with 4 (they'd mentioned having a defenseman in mind to take, but neither who, nor with which pick) but it seemed likely given the direction of the first two picks that one would be going there. I'd mentally penciled in Evgeni Komarov; imagine my surprise when the Oslo representative walked up to the podium and announced Donat Szita. Given the scarcity of defense in this league, that immediately made the 6th selection perfectly clear. Werbenjagermanjensen had arrived at our expected 5th overall, and a gift wrapped Komarov was sitting on our doorstep at 6th.

 

With two defensemen drafted and one more already with the team in Gregor Rasputinov (well, two with Braeden Turner, but he might become cut fodder sooner rather than later) it appeared to be time to turn our attentions to the offense. Reliable VHLM mainstay Chance Matthews would be returning to the team once more, but after that the quality was set to drop significantly, so it was decided that the next few picks would be forwards. Opening up the second round with the 7th overall pick, Oslo selected Dallas Jones - it was a safe bet Jones would go to Oslo, given his affiliation with the GM, but not specifically when the trigger would be pulled. Jones going at 7th gave Ottawa our pick of the entire board of forwards, twice. Strictly based on TPE at the time of the pick, the selection of Katie Warren at 8th might have been off the board a little, but her affiliation with the former Halifax GM and the current Davos GM made her a safe pick and one that arguably could have been higher if the board had been populated by a wider array of teams. The next selection of Roll Fizzlebeef fit a little more closely to the draft board, so to speak, and also brought in a guy who had some time to develop at the end of last season.

 

The next 5 selections, comprising the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd, were entirely Oslo and Vegas. This continued the trend that only three teams had selected at all to this point. Sven Hitz, Dorian Mason, and Rocky LaGarza would be packing their bags for the intercontinental flight, whereas Connor McDavid and promising newcomer Nico Sulerzyski would be heading to the flashing lights of Vegas. While all five players were on Ottawa's board at some point, this was a tad earlier than I saw one or two of them going, particularly the one (McDavid) who has been absent from league facilities for nearly a week. Sulerzyski, though, is a great pick for Vegas at this stage. Oslo's three are arguably safer, their floors are higher, but their ceilings are lower for the most part. Ottawa would then go on to select Gritty, another player who'd been part of the surprise playoff run and someone we'd been looking to bring back at some stage. The next selection would bring a new team into the draft, Halifax, who selected Bolt Vanderhuge, then it would go back to Oslo yet again for Josh Harris before Halifax added a second in Viktor Kozlov.

 

This next pick, the opening pick in the fourth round, is one of the two picks in this draft that has the greatest boom or bust potential. Well, not bust as in the player will do poorly, but bust for the sake of the team. Kyson Blake, a proven commodity and a guy who was one of the best in the VHLM last year, is right on the cusp of jumping to the VHL. This kept a lot of teams away from him, as it was assumed he'd be going up. However, I'd talked to him a bit before the draft and he intends to remain in the VHLM. Unfortunately, that's usually a joint decision between the player and the VHL GM he ends up with; since Blake hasn't been drafted into the VHL yet, we only have 50% of the information. There are some GMs out there who are already set on bringing their players up, and if Blake ends up drafted to one of those teams, it may not go as he intends. If Blake can manage to stay down, he should be the single biggest star on Ottawa, at least early while his teammates are developing. Coincidentally, Blake was selected with the other pick Ottawa gained in the swap of first rounders. As for the rest of the fourth round, well that was mostly Ottawa as well. Jack Lynch, Luke Allman, and Matthew Kai were drafted to Ottawa with three of the next four picks. Between Allman and Kai went Mitch Matthews to Vegas, and Vegas came back up again with back to back picks at the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth, selecting Austen Fourier and Basaraba Moose (Moose I'd expected to go slightly earlier than this). Continuing the Ottawa-Vegas run, Ottawa would bring in Don Draper, and then Vegas would take only the second goalie of the draft in Joe Nixon, both in the first half of the fifth round.

 

Teagan Glover would join the Halifax 21st with the next pick, and then our final team drafting tonight, the Saskatoon Wild, would get on the board with Alexander Kachur. It was Halifax and Saskatoon again after that, with Jad Clapperton and Anton Edvin respectively - Edvin is someone who has a little more skill than most of his counterparts at this stage but has stopped going to practice and should be caught fairly quickly. Christopher Murphy, yet another promising newcomer, would be the next to join Ottawa. After Cal Davidson and Joe Yak went to Vegas and Halifax, Ottawa would bring in Jonathan Hill to fill out the defensive top four for the time being. The round would end with another former Lynx, Max Coffey, who unfortunately has been missing from league facilities for a month now - which is why the Lynx weren't too eager to snap him back up. Halifax did, however.

 

When I'd discussed the Blake pick, I mentioned it was one of two. This next pick is the other. Diljodh is in a similar boat to Blake, except that he'd actually said to people that he intended to go up. The uproar among the rest of the GMs in the draft room was deafening when the Oslo representative, who is affiliated with Diljodh, said they were going to take the winger and that he would stay down and play in the minors; information which directly contradicted what he'd earlier said. As with Blake though, it may not be entirely up to Diljodh, and we'll see when his VHL team drafts him what happens with him. At this stage, there weren't many options remaining (and the best one left was a goalie which we didn't need) so Ottawa would select Felix Fernandes, who had created some time ago and had been back on the site significantly more recently than his creation, which is at least something. He's also been on the discord at some point. This selection may not amount to anything, but it was surely one of the better ones out of the options available.

 

This leaves Ottawa's team a massive four lines deep on offense (although three can be replaced if necessary, assuming Fernandes doesn't come back), with Blake, Warren, Fizzlebeef, Gritty, Allman, Murphy, Draper, Kai, Lynch, and Fernandes joining Matthews and Ottawa journeyman-type Rzerk. It's the sign of a truly strong team that Matthews, a strong player for this level as he's proven twice now, is pushed down to fourth line duty due to the inactives rule. The top line is seemingly set for the time being with Blake, Warren, and Fizzlebeef, but the next six guys could make or break this team. If even half of them hit then we have the potential to beat the S62 offense, which seems so ridiculous on its face as to dismiss the claim outright, until you actually sit and take a look at it. That team was great. This team could be even better.

 

Defensively, we're not quite as overpowered, but I don't think too many teams would scoff at two pairings consisting of Werbenjagermanjensen, Komarov, Hill, and Rasputinov. If Hill can develop enough to get to where Werbenjagermanjensen and Komarov are now, this defensive top four could rival the McWolf/Kastelic/Baxter/Rasputinov set from S62, since the first two will almost certainly cap.

 

Last but not least, in goal, we seem to be running a trend. JB Rift joins the line of GM players to stand between the pipes for the Lynx. The S62 team saw Kallis Kriketers, now of Riga, backstop them to a cup, and toward the end of that season Kriketers' backup was the ill-fated Milan Baros, who played four games before his unfortunate early retirement. In S63, the year that was supposed to be the rebuild (or rather a retool as we were never properly bad) but ended up being a run to the finals, Rift played in a timeshare with Finn Davison, who was the only goalie of the four not to be affiliated with a VHL GM. Davison would man the net in the playoffs, but the two split starts fairly evenly in the regular season. Rift is likely to see a vast majority of starts this season, even if another young active goalie ends up joining the Lynx during the season.

 

2038 words, 4 week article, boom.

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claim round 2

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Well, that's one member that I have decided to forfeit making a sig for. Jesus. 

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claim round 3

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claim round 4

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Review

nice insight from a GM. This profiles clearly what goes through a GM's mind during a draft. It is always nice to see what GM's think during one of the most important parts of a season. Nicely written. Good job