Random Stuff

I've been doing a fair amount of research on the NHL Draft lately. I felt happy enough with it that I felt comfortable putting together my own Mock Draft. I'll probably post it as we get closer to the draft. I've got the first 14 picks ready, and will hold off on the rest until the draft order is determined.

As part of my draft coverage, I found this great post from Hockey Analysis that tracked all the draft picks between 1988 and 1995, categorized them into four groups of success, and created a chart. Judging by the chart, only two of the first five picks in this draft will go on to be first line players in the NHL, while it's likely that two won't even go on to be NHL regulars.

Speaking of Hockey Analysis, you may have noticed the new addition at the bottom of the linklist. HA is trying to compile a ranking of all the college hockey websites and blogs out there. So feel free to click on it and vote for me, or if you're the proprietor of your own site, it'd be cool if more sites were added to the list.

Congrats to Chris Snow on getting to live the dream. If you haven't heard of Chris Snow, he is a 24 year old journalist who spent last season as a beat writer for the Minnesota Wild, before moving on to beat writing for the Boston Red Sox, and yesterday, was hired as the Director of Hockey Operations for the Minnesota Wild. That's moveieland fantasy stuff. Snow's responsibility with the Wild will largely entail dealing with all the complicated contractual stuff in the NHL, as well as doing a lot of statistical work for the Wild. Apparently teams are starting to catch on to the fact that the wonky stats a lot of blogs and websites provide have a lot of value.