Draft Day in Pictures

Round one was no doubt a hectic one. With 13 trades made, NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman had plenty of face-time at the podium as he announced all the deals. The 13 trades was more than the last four years combined in the 1st round.





It also made the event drag on a little... four hours for 30 picks isn't exactly a blazing pace. Rounds 2-7 today should take no time at all.





Nine Western Hockey League players were selected, trailing only the OHL in that category who had 11 players take to the stage.





Luke Schenn was a highly sought after defenseman. Toronto traded up to get him and General Manager Cliff Fletcher pointed out in the media scrum that they're were a lot of teams interested in Schenn and that getting the 5th pick overall was the only way they were going to land him.





It was a great day for the Kelowna Rockets, Lethbridge Hurricanes and Regina Pats. Each team had two players taken in the opening round. Kelowna had Luke Schenn (5th overall - Toronto), Tyler Myers (12th overall - Buffalo). Lethbridge had Zach Boychuk (14th overall - Carolina) and Luca Sbisa (19th overall - Philadelphia) and Regina saw Colten Teubert (13th overall - Los Angeles) plus Jordan Eberle (22nd - Edmonton).





We're expecting a handful of Broncos to be selected today led by Geordie Wudrick who could fall anywhere from round two to four.





Here's some pics from round one:

Draft Day festivites outside the arena

That famour wall mural near the Sens dressing room that got so much attention in the opening round of the NHL playoffs.


The Toronto media gathers around Cliff Fletcher after their opening pick. As you can see, it was a zoo.

A look at the podium just before the action begins

Luke Schenn meets the Toronto media

Steven Stamkos was the center of attention

Pretty good crowd for the opening round.

It was quite the interesting day in the media risers. The wireless internet wasn't working making several of the accredited media useless for the event. Without access there was no live blogging, no story filing. It was a mess. Plenty of the national members were livid. You can bet several complaints will be launched to the NHL office Monday morning. A wireless signal becomes about as basic as drinking water at some of these events. I guess problems like this happen at every level - just not the Crushed Can in Moose Jaw.

Round two is about to begin... more later,

Jon