NHL Draft Results
Michigan recruits selected:
Chris Brown: Round 2, Pick 6 to Phoenix
Good news here; Phoenix has a history of taking Michigan players and allowing them to develop in Ann Arbor. Both Chad Kolarik and Kevin Porter stayed four years. Brown's a higher pick than either and may get enticed early, but his flight risk dropped today despite going high in the second round.
Kevin Lynch: Round 2, Pick 26 to Columbus
Lynch's (@ right) flight up draft boards concludes with a second-round pick. Columbus doesn't have a history with the Michigan program either way.
Mac Bennett: Round 3, Pick 18 to Montreal
This selection is somewhat frightening. Bennett has another year of prep school before he arrives at Michigan and Montreal is the sort of team that could push him to the QMJHL. The Canadiens have yoinked Mike Komisarek (two years) and Max Pacioretty (one year) before their eligibility was up. Those guys were first-rounders, however, and Bennett's considerably further down the pole.
AJ Treais, Lee Moffie, Derek Deblois: Undrafted.
As expected, though there was a chance one might go late.
You know what would have been cool? John Tavares at Michigan.
i dont know how to take this news. is this an average draft class for us?
Yeah, this was pretty average. 13 of our players on a 22 man roster have been drafted, so it is slightly more than half. And this year 3 of our 6 eligible players were drafted.
We usually have 1-2 first rounders on the team at any time, so some years we don't get any (i.e. this year and last year). Having the three players drafted taken no later than the third round is pretty good.
Next year we should get another 1st-rounder is Jack Campbell lives up to the hype.
EDIT: And on the other hand, you could have been State, who didn't have a single recruit ranked by NHL Central Scouting.
Bennett was on hand and they interviewed him after he was picked. He said that he was for sure going to play in the USHL next year, but wasn't 100% for sure coming to Michigan. They talked about Kelowna of the WHL being the other choice, which is a little bit strange. The interviewer put him on the spot and he said he was leaning towards Michigan and then said some pretty nice things about Yost and the Michigan program.
I like Brown in Phoenix. They have seemed content to leave Summers here for four years, despite being a first rounder. I hope that getting screwed over by Blake Wheeler doesn't change their philosophy, although there was some chatter amongst the draft commentators that they were tending to bring younger and younger players to the NHL but that it might have backfired a bit (Kyle Turris). If I recall correctly, that conversation was about how long they would leave Ekman-Larrsons in Sweden, and not specifically about college players.
I got the feeling his parents wanted him Kelowna because they liked the area, they were scouting teams while on vacation after all. But yeah, Connecticut is Q territory and with the Habs it shouldn't really be a question where they'd want him.
When your team is winning, be ready to be tough, because winning can make you soft. On the other hand, when your team is losing, stick by them. Keep believing. -- Bo Schembechler
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I also cringed when the Canadiens took Bennett. Visions of Patch being taken from me too soon danced in my head.
Ha, i know what you mean, but reading "Columbus doesn't have a history with the Michigan program either way" just doesn't seem correct.
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