NHL Draft News & Notes

Some news and notes from NHL Draft day…

• According to media people, there were 31 QMJHL players chosen in yesterday’s draft. That includes six going in the first-round. That's pretty good. Elite Prospects has a list of all the players chosen.
• Patrick Roy and the Colorado Avalanche selected Nathan MacKinnon first overall. MacKinnon’s Halifax teammate – Jonathan Drouin – went third overall to the Tampa Bay Lightning.  Zach Fucale (36^th – Montreal) and MacKenzie Weegar (206^th – Florida) were the other Mooseheads picked.
• MacKinnon was the only QMJHL player the Avs selected.
• The Florida Panthers opted to pass on Seth Jones and selected Russian centre Aleksander Barkov with the second overall pick, giving former Sea Dogs captain Jonathan Huberdeau some offensive support in South Beach. Florida also selected two QMJHL players – the Armada’s Christopher Clapperton in the fifth-round and the Mooseheads’ MacKenzie Weegar in the seventh-round.
• As we noted yesterday, no Sea Dogs were selected in yesterday’s draft. According to TVA Sports’ Mikael Lalancette, Moncton, Saint John, Drummondville, Sherbrooke, and Bathurst did not have a player picked in the draft.
• When the St. Louis Blues selected Cape Breton forward William Carrier late in the second-round, TSN analyst Craig Button told us how he really felt about the Screaming Eagles team this past season. He went off on a small rant about how bad they were.
• The Toronto Maple Leafs picked two players from the QMJHL yesterday. They used their first-round pick to take Rimouski’s Frederik Gauthier and then took Charlottetown goaltender Antoine Bibeau in the sixth-round.
• According to a tweet from the Rimouski Oceanic, former Sea Dogs prospect Maxime Gravel and Fredericton native Peter Trainor have been invited to Montreal Canadiens camp. Neither were drafted yesterday, obviously.
• Next year's draft will be held in Philadelphia.