Pratt Rumblings: Not Another Insightless 2012 NHL Mock Draft! Seriously!

Ryan Murray, courtesy of Wikipedia

To start off, I want to offer you a quick look into my mind (I promise you won't get hurt.) When writing for TSC, usually I look around a bit and pick whatever sounds interesting in #sportsbiz land to talk about for a few paragraphs (CAA Basketball and the NBA Finals come to mind lately--congrats Lebron!). But not this week—oh no, there’s a little thing called the NHL Draft starting tonight in Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center (many of my Drexel peers might remember my early co-op search revolved around trying to work that event). Well… that didn’t happen, but as the resident “NHL guy,” it’s my duty to give y’all some draft talk. 

When I say draft, most people immediately think they’re going to get a mock draft from me. Well, I’m here to disappoint you—usually I’m decent at predicting these things, but this year seems so up in the air, I don’t dare to try to project even the top five picks. In my time as a hockey fan, there hasn’t been a draft with so many questions going into the first round. Here are some things to watch Friday (and Saturday):

Nail Yakupov, courtesy of Sportsnet.ca

Who goes #1? — The Edmonton Oilers (infuriatingly) have the first overall draft pick… again... third straight year. They’ve tried to play it cute in the media thus far, saying they really like defenseman Ryan Murray over the (mostly) consensus top prospect, Sarnia Sting winger Nail Yakupov, because they already have a huge collection of skilled forwards (see Hall, Taylor, Nugent-Hopkins, Ryan, and Eberle, Jordan). I don’t entirely buy it, but their decision between the smooth skating Murray and superstar Yakupov will shape the rest of the top of the draft board.

 

Rick Nash, courtesy of CBS New York

The Worst Joke in the NHL Gets Worse — If you’ve seen me on campus the last year, you may have wondered about the lack of Union Blue in my day-to-day attire. It’s all packed away likely to never be seen again. The Columbus Blue Jackets want you to “Join The Battle,” but after six and a half years of passionately “Carrying The Flag” I am done. If you saw the team who skated in before the fans in Nationwide Arena this season (and the teams from the decade preceding that), you know my plight. This franchise is inexplicably terrible. As a fan, I’ve called for countless heads over the years (Sergei Fedorov, Doug MacLean, Ken Hitchcock, Rick Nash, Steve Mason, Nikolai Zherdev, the Kershaws, Claude Noel, J.P. McConnell, Mike Priest, Scott Howson, ad nauseum). The fans deserve better than what they’ve gotten—in any other city, the GM,  over-matched coaching staff, scouting staff (the same from the AWFUL MacLean years, mind you), and President (who knows nothing about hockey. At all.) would have gotten sacked. Or at least had their job security questioned for a moment; not in Columbus! Almost all of the above still have jobs somehow. When things hit rock bottom, MOST people decide they need to change something… but not this poor franchise.

You also may have heard about that Rick Nash guy who requested a trade before the trade deadline. When that didn't happen, it set the NHL up for a fun offseason--"where will Nash go?!" GM Scott Howson is still holding out for the right offer, and there seems to be many interested franchises. Where (and if) Nash gets traded is one of the biggest stories of this draft, if not the entire off-season. Columbus’ asking price seems to be high, and even then, it might be the final “Nail” in the coffin. As Bob Hunter of the Columbus Dispatch discussed on Tuesday, few franchises do well when trading away their franchise players (Kovalchuk in Atlanta, Luongo with Florida, etc)… in a market like Columbus, it’s a dangerous proposition unless you can find another marketable face. Steve Mason, John Moore, Ryan Johansen, Cam Atkinson, and R.J. Umberger aren't selling tickets or filling seats. Heck, even Jack Johnson, one of my personal favorite players even before the midseason trade to Columbus is questionable.

This brings me to the next issue—let’s say Ryan Murray goes #1 to Edmonton—who does Columbus pick? Do they go with the best player in the draft, arguably, Yakupov? All rumors point to no, thanks to some past struggles with Russian players (Nikolai  Zherdev, Maxim Mayorov, Nikita Filatov, Alexandre Svitov, etc). Nevertheless, Yakupov has played two years of North American hockey and every report shows him as charismatic, polished, and driven to succeed in the NHL. His family lives in North America as well. If I’m Scott Howson, I pick Nail Yakupov. He’s too marketable and brings too much potential (another Pavel Bure sort of player?) as a scorer to pass up. If the pick isn’t Yakupov or Murray, CBJ scouts have been high on Swedish winger Filip Forsberg, who draws comparisons to Chicago’s Marian Hossa. He is at least a year or two away from serious contention for an NHL roster, and I (as many other hockey fans) are leery of Columbus’ track record developing players (there are too many names to list). The other name being tossed around is one of the top upside players in the top end of this year's draft, Belarus' own Alex Galchenyuk, who is coming off a major knee injury that limited him to two games this past season. Does Columbus take a chance on potentially damaged goods? This is the biggest weekend in Blue Jackets history—the decisions made today will shape what the “Post-Nash” era will amount to in the Buckeye State. Howson, Tyler Wright, and the Blue Jackets brass have no room to make mistakes.

And in other news... – Sorry about that rant--there’s a lot of frustration built up. Anyway, some other players to keep an eye on this weekend include Jordan Staal (Pittsburgh), Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan (Anaheim), Roberto Luongo (Vancouver). All have been rumored to be on the trade block in recent weeks. It should be interesting to see which marquee players (other than Nash) see themselves in a new jersey by the start of the 2012-13 season. Yesterday, Staal refused a long-term contract extension from the Penguins, setting him up to be traded soon in all likelihood. Don't rule out top free agents like Ryan Suter and Zach Parise getting moved at the draft--it's become a trend to see top free agents' rights acquired before July 1st to give teams a foot up in negotiations.

The Elephant in the Room – Oh yeah, remember that one time there was minimal progress toward a new collective-bargaining agreement between the NHLPA and owners in June, with the existing CBA (which cost fans and players the entire 04-05 season) expiring September 15th? Remember the last time that happened? Yeah, so do I. I might be alone in worrying, but until I hear some progress (other than the NHL cancelling Europe games, training camps, etc to ready for a lockout) I’m going to keep worrying. The NHL product cannot survive another drawn out labor battle—everyone connected to hockey should pray that both sides are sensible and come to an intelligent new agreement soon. This silent pall will be the biggest topic no one discusses this weekend, but expect the murmurs to grow come free agency on July 1^st.

If you want more Pratt-insight, follow me at @LXAPratt--I'm likely going to be live tweeting the draft.