Moffatt was actually #2 in the WHL draft, but the point stands. I think part of it is him being overwhelmed against comparable talent. He tore up midgets when he came up to play for Compuware prior to joining the NTDP, and I think he tried to get by on skill alone when he joined the US team. Hopefully he finds that skill again when he arrives on campus this fall.

lewellen sneezed on these guys or something. it's the only explanation. get that dude some hand sanitizer. cough into your sleeve!

Technically WHL is a little different than OHL since they draft a year earlier, meaning there's a little more projection at that age.

Red lets them wander around and do whatever they want. They'll turn into olympians and help said GM reach the playoffs with a team that hadn't gone since the '02 season.

I think we're decent on offense next year, so I think we can let the freshmen round into form a little next year. Between everyone else getting older and better, I think they should be able to replace Lebler pretty decently, especially if Louie can take his Sophomore first half and Junior 2nd half and combine them. I know we didn't score as much as we would have liked last year, but I think with just what we have coming back we should be able to at least equal that, though it would be nice if we could get some stud production from a freshmen, it's after next year that our offense terrifies me. Also, I predict a break-out year for at least one of Brown/Lynch/Treais (world-breaking, I know!) I hope Merrill stays in the first round, just because I think it looks nice to have a 1st round draft pick on the team and the last 2 first round D-man have stayed four years :-) Defense intrigues me next year, a lot. I'm really interested to see what Red will do with them. There are 7 that should be able to play (5 from last year, + Merrill potential 1st rounder and Bennett already a 3rd rounder). If Langlais weren't a senior, I'd say he moves to forward, but I don't think that happens his senior year. Of our other offensive D, Burlon is too good to move up and I'm not sure Moffie fits as a forward. If you pressed me, I'd think it would look something like this: Langlais-Pateryn Burlon-Merrill Llewellyn-Bennett with Moffie as a good depth choice. Moffie could replace Bennett regularly too, or they could switch out. Also, maybe switch Pateryn and Llewellyn. I think Langlais would put Merrill in too many less-than awesome positions, than a freshman should deal with, to pair them together, whereas Burlon is much more steady. I don't think the first pairing is really particularly dominant, but I think they're all pretty solid, I think with Rust/Hagelin's defensive abilities, the first pair doesn't need to be the be-all-end-all of defensive pairs and having three solid pairs would be more helpful to the potential question in goal than something else. I didn't take into account shot side. And I don't really know what I'm talking about, which is why we have Red to do these sort of things for us. God Bless the man. Then God give the man back his body at age 30, so he can coach us another 40 or so years.