After the Entry Draft

Last night's entry into the QMHL went over actually a lot better than what I had expected. With four expansion teams and eight existing teams, there was a lot of skepticism that I would pick up players that I was actually looking for this year.

The basement was set-up for an interesting draft, with guys strewn around the room, the big screen TV had the computer feed to show everyone how the draft is going. That was mighty impressive. One guy was out of town and hard to get a hold of, another one was home, high on prescription drugs (didn't ask why), one probably didn't know he was being entered and had his team chosen for and then everyone else was in the basement. All but one at the draft actually had a laptop and all but one of those had a Mac. PCs... computer of the poolies! Just sayin'.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my team had it's own logo before we even got drafting. The Sherpa's Yaks had an identity and then gained yet another one during the draft, getting called the Yakkity Yaks before it was all said and done. I'm a good sport, I laughed along. Hell, my zingers were coming fast and furious last night too.

I had to wait to see what the existing teams were going to drop and put back into the entry draft, which was a little confusing, because I thought everyone who was dropped before and during the draft, went to the supplemental draft, but that wasn't the case. The guys that teams cut to go down underneath their new salary cap, which is the NHL's cap at $56.8 million.

Once that was all decided, we were ready to draft. I was pretty happy with my third pick, but if I was going to get the player I really wanted I had to consider moving up. The Colts, who held the first pick, did offer a pick swap, if I gave them my third round pick as well. Ummmm... no. I kept the third and went on drafting.

Well, to keep a long story rather short, I did a great job of drafting underneath the cap, making good use of players to help me win whatever division or trying to be the best team in the pool, period.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Corey Perry	Scott Niedermayer	Steve Mason
Andrew Ebbett	Ron Hainsey	Ty Conklin
Saku Koivu	Dan Girardi
Todd White	Filip Kuba
Ray Whitney	Ryan Parent
Jakub Voracek	Marc-Eduoard Vlasic
Dustin Brown
Zach Parise
Jamie Langenbrunner
Chris Kunitz
Henrik Sedin

Yeah, that team cost me$56,628,000 against the cap, which is nice & snug up to it. During the week, we only dress six forwards, four defense and a goalie, so I think I can put together a good squad each week. Parise, Langenbrunner, Sedin, Kunitz, Whitney and Perry would be my immediate six, while Niedermayer, Hainsey, Vlasic and Kuba would be my starting four, while Mason would be my starting goalie more often than not. That's a prety good team, if you ask me.