My Top 30

[grainbear]

This does not take into account any trades to be made, or players that get a job at the pro level, or any of the latest drafted players. Not in any order. Also do not limit it to only 3 20 year olds as 6 are shown. This could change depending what we do in the import draft as well. These are players I think have a good chance of making the team


Forwards:
Tot, Hood, Yakubowski, Leverton, Laurecelle, Amson, Buonassissi, Mckechnie, Merkley,Duke, Soffillas, Ramsay, Watson, Bezuch, Moline, Maxwell

Dmen: Bloomqvist, Pilon, Topping, Henry, Scheidl, Erkamps, Galbraith, Sayers, Johnston, Oslanski, Kizuik

Goalies: Rimmmer, Liston, Kovacs, Tai



What are your thoughts ?

[canes77]

Nice list.

The only problem is I have a couple more players to add, and none to delete... although I guess overall that's not a problem at all !!

At forward, I would add Wong and Olynek. Both are smaller guys yet both have great offensive upside.

Wong led his midget AAA team in goals this season as a 15 yr old (on a strong team that made the Gold medal game at the Mac's) and also made Team Alberta along with Reid Duke.

Should be a great season!!

[grainbear]

Interesting to read comments by Robson on Pat S . column that ideally they will trade 2 of the 20 year olds before camp and one later to get us to three 20 year olds. I was very comfortable with our Euros ,will be interested to see what does happen at the import draft. I for one would have no problem with trading the rights in the draft for another experienced 18 year old forward who can score or also for a high draft pick in next years bantam draft .With our Euro fwd he is by far the best shot out scorer in the league and has more moves then biggest volume stock broker in the world and Bloomqvist if healthy is the Rock of Gibralter

[Bocephus]

And not a single player on the roster was drafted this weekend for Preston's team.
Come on man.
Zero, zilch, nada, muckway, donut, bagel, goose egg, none.
I feel for the fan base in Lethbridge. What a slap across their faces that Preston still has his job.

[here for the long run]

Also goes to show how important bantam draft picks are (Thanks Roy). No 1st rounder in the 94 group and our 2nd rounder was a bust which we traded to Portland. If I remember correctly we didn't have a GM for the 94 age groups draft. I do agree that I would like coaches and a GM which could develop our mid to late round WHL picks into NHL draft picks (i.e. Sutter). With a good season we will likely have 2-3 of or 95's drafted and a couple of our 96's being drafted very high in two/three years.

[canes watcher]

Pretty sure Preston did not draft any of those eligible players. We'll see next year.

[grainbear]

When you look a few days ago at our director of hockey operartions comments about trading 2 of our 20 year olds before the season. It is becoming pretty obvious with no activity that with all the extra 20 year olds around it is going to be very hard to get anything for them and the longer we wait the more obvious it becomes that no one is prepared to give us anything when they can simply wait and get them for nothing once we release the surplus . Sorry but looks like a couple will either be going on the education road which is fine or else they will surface somewhere in Junior B . Too bad we didn,t make these decisions previously and now just like our former import they get them for nothing . Yes the are worth more than an 9th or 10th round but everyday the likely hood becomes we get zero. Let's make the decision and move on !

[CanesCrazy]

But how do you know the 20s haven't been shopped around? How do you know Bezuch wasn't shopped around? I would think if there had been a lot of interest in the kid around the league he would have been grabbed early on for free by one of our competitors rather than 108th out of 120 by an OHL team. Please don't misunderstand me. I really like Bezuch and was sad to see him go but I wouldn't assume that Preston didn't try to trade him. I would suggest making the same assumption about the Hurricanes overages may be just as premature.

[canes77]

When a player is available to be traded, I'm sure every GM contacts all 21 other GM's to see if there's any interest.

As for the Canes 6 overagers, a couple may get tryout invitations to NHL camps in August. Remember last fall, Fyten and even Reid Jackson got an invite to NHL camps. Mostly they're just to balance the numbers in training camp... but you never know, one may even get signed and play in the AHL.

Look at Jonathan Parker last year, skipped over in the NHL draft 2 straight years, he went to camp in PA thinking he had one more year in the WHL... then got an invite from Buffalo and 3 weeks later they signed him. That killed PA so it's nice to see Preston has a couple backup plans. I'd rather the Canes have too many overagers than not enough.