NHL Draft Liveblog

The draft show has started on Versus, meaning the first pick will go down about half an hour from now or so. James Duthie is hosting, and Darren Dreger is on the draft floor.

The first trade of the day is that LA sends Mike Cammalleri to Calgary, while LA and Anaheim end up with some draft picks.

Apparently the official TSN dress code is a light blue shirt and striped tie and sports coat. Every analyst is wearing one. Lots of talk about trades and potential trades. Nobody really cares. Let's get this thing under way.

They tried to interview Steve Stamkos but the mic didn't work. Nice prep work.

The draft will begin after this commercial break. Everyone seems to think Stamkos will go first overall, but I don't think so. It's like Kevin from The Office said. If someone gives you 10,000 to 1 odds, you always take it(and it certainly worked for whoever bet that Prince Fielder would have two inside-the-park homeruns in his career). I'm guessing the website was just a smokescreen.

They finally got the microphone issue cleared up with Stamkos. He didn't have much interesting to say. It's got to be pretty easy knowing where you're going to be drafted.

Gary Bettman is up to the podium, and makes an awkward joke about being booed by the fans. Tampa Bay is on the clock. Let's see how much time they waste.

Stamkos is sitting with about 50 of his closest friends and family. Lamest posse ever.

Tampa Bay is moving towards the podium to make it official. They congratulate the Red Wings on winning the Cup. New owner Oren Koules gets the honor of announcing the pick.

1st overall, Tampa Bay selects: Steven Stamkos Stamkos apparently has to hug everyone in attendance in the arena before he gets to the podium. It's true what people say about hockey players being overly polite. Five minutes later he's up to the stage and shakes hands with about 40 old white guys in suits. The camera shows Stamkos' mom trying to take pictures with her cheap little digital camera. Good thing she remembered that, because I doubt anyone else is capturing this moment.

Stamkos is the 6th player to be taken first overall in his major junior draft and the NHL Draft.

Los Angeles is drafting next. Bob McKenzie is thinking Drew Doughty is the pick, and I'll agree. Zach Bogosian is a possibility here too. Pierre McGuire lists one of Doughty's strongest qualities as "knowing the difference between pain and injury". Yeah, that's huge.

Los Angeles is at the podium. They thank the 2000 fans at their draft party and make a joke about how many picks they have. "Ha ha, we sucked so bad that we had to accumulate draft picks to rebuild. Super-sorry, dedicated Kings' fans."

Second overall, Los Angeles selects: Drew Doughty Pierre McGuire says the LA Kings defense will be just like the Detroit Red Wings defense, except they don't have a Nick Lidstrom. That's like saying this blog is just like Deadspin, except without the millions of readers.

Doughty says it has always been his dream to play on the LA Kings. Yes, every kid in Ontario grows up hoping to don the black and purple. James Duthie asks about the Mike Cammalleri trade and Kings GM Dean Lomardi has no answer. Gripping televsion.

Gary Bettman announces a trade: Olli Jokinen to Phoenix for Nick Boynton, Keith Ballard and the 49th pick. There were a ton of Jokinen rumors ever since the season ended, and Florida finally pulled the trigger.

Darren Dreger asks a GM about a possible trade. Response: "I can't answer that". These guys understand how interviews are supposed to work, right?

I have to say that I'm thrilled that 36 minutes into the draft, I haven't seen any reference to The Love Guru. I know the league is desperate for publicity, but I can't believe they let Mike Myers use their logos. That movie is unbelievably awful.

Don Waddell of Atlanta is heading to the podium. Bob thinks Zach Bogosian, and I'll agree.

Atlanta congratulates the Wings and thanks their fans at the draft party. The double!

3rd overall, Atlanta selects: Zach Bogosian Pierre calls this a cover-up for trading Braydon Coburn, implying that if Atlanta still had Braydon Coburn, they would have just passed the pick, or selected somebody projected to go in the 7th round.

Another trade from the commish. Now the crowd loves him. Fickle bastards. Montreal trades pick 25 and a second round pick next year to Calgary for Alex Tanguay and a 5th.

Garth Snow and Charles Wang are manning the phones at the Islanders table. That's a lot of stupidity concentrated in one spot.

St. Louis is up next. I've got a feeling that Alex Pietrangelo will be their pick.

Bob McKenzie mentioned Steve Wagner, and occasionally reads this blog. The man is a hero.

St. Louis already traded Jamal Mayers to Toronto for goalie Chris Mason. Bill Simmons had a theory that whenever a team had a player they were ready to cut, the GM would say, "What the hell, let's give Isiah a call" and see if they could trade him to the Knicks. The Maple Leafs are kind of like the Knicks in the NHL.

John Davidson gives a shout out to flood victims.

4th overall, St. Louis selects: Alex Pietrangelo Pietrangelo has a guy with a douchey haircut in his camp. Pietrangelo looks good in a suit, which is good, because that's what he'll probably be doing next year with Andy Murray as his coach.

Pietrangelo is called Chris Pronger without the nastiness and phyiscal edge.

James Duthie has to ask every prospect how many points they'll score next season, and every prospect has to try to be as modest as possible. Then Duthie asks the GM sitting next to him about a potential trade, and the GM declines. I'm just going to start cutting and pasting this.

Toronto and the Islanders will be making a trade. Both teams will be losers. Not necessarily because it will be a bad trade for either team. But they'll both suck regardless.

Cliff Fletcher almost dozed off there. How metaphorical.

"People are going to start to question what direction the Leafs are headed in" "start"?

The Leafs are going to move to 5th overall, while NYI gets the 7th overall and a 2nd and 3rd round pick. The Islanders either gets pick 60 this year and a 3rd next year, or 68 this year and a 2nd next year.

Ottawa's fans don't like Toronto getting the 5th overall pick.

5th overall, Toronto selects: Luke Schenn

We're at a little over an hour and have only made 5 picks so far.

Gary Bettman announces that Columbus is on the clock and then starts reading something. The camera stayed with him thinking he would do something else, but nope, just reading. I'd like to think he was reading Cosmo.

Now Bettman announces a trade. Columbus trades 19th overall and third this year, for R.J. Umberger and a 4th round pick. Umberger gets to go back to where he played college hockey. Hopefully he has a little more success in Columbus this time around.

Columbus also has the 6th overall pick, and I'm think they'll pick Filatov. There's always a concern about Russian players early in the draft, but I think Filatov is a pretty safe bet for a Russian.

6th overall Columbus selects: Nikita Filatov Either Columbus' GM doesn't know how to pronounce his name, or everyone else is pronouncing it wrong.

Filatov's interview is just painful. A shrug is not an answer. At least Duthie had the good sense to realize it wasn't going anywhere and cut it off short, with a sound of defeat in his voice.

The Islanders trade down again. They give up the 7th for the 9th overall and a second round pick.

Nashville has the 7th overall now and they're at the podium. I'm thinking Boedker.

7th overall, Nashville selects: Colin Wilson The first NCAA selection. He looks huge.

Wilson said he's ready to play in the NHL next season, which isn't great news for BU fans.

Phoenix is up next and I think Boedker is the obvious pick. They have lots of great forwards and need young defenseman.

Wayne is heading up to the podium and is ready to make the pick.

8th overall, Phoenix selects: Mikkel Boedker Boedker has an absolutely mullet. He'd be an awesome bad guy in an 80's movie.

Credit to Wayne Gretzky for at least artfully dodging James Duthie's questions. I guess that's the advantage of being used to having to answer questions with non-answers.

The Islanders are on the clock now. This pick could be a bit of a reach. I think it's obvious NYI had a player in mind, and tried to trade down, knowing he'd still be there.

9th overall, New York Islanders select: Josh Bailey Not much of a reach, though he still went earlier than he was projected.

Vancouver is up next, and everyone seems to think they'll take Kyle Beach.

10th overall, Vancouver selects: Cody Hodgson I like this pick a lot better than Beach. The Brampton Battalion have incredibly ugly jersies.

Mike Gillis says the Sedins aren't available for trade. The first real answer from a GM tonight.

11th overall Chicago selects: Kyle Beach Eh. I'm not a huge fan of Beach, but Chicago could use a tough forward like him.

Los Angeles is up next as part of the trade they made earlier, though it looks like LA is going to trade this pick to Buffalo.

You'd think the NHL draft would be more interesting since everything is out in the open, as opposed to the NFL draft, where most business is conducted inside the "war room" with everything going down on phone, but as it turns out, not really. It's just a lot of guys milling around and talking.

Bettman announces the trade. LA trades down one spot with Buffalo to get an additional 3rd round pick next year.

Buffalo walks to the podium. Lindy Ruff looks bored to be there.

12th overall, Buffalo selects: Tyler Myers Myers is an interesting pick. He didn't blow me away at last summer's Select 17 Festival, but apparently he came a long ways this year, and has the potential to get much, much better.

13th overall, Los Angeles selects: Colton Teubert The Kings are building quite a stable of defenseman with Jack Johnson, Thomas Hickey, Drew Doughty, and now Teubert.

Jimmy Rutherford is coming to the podium to draft for Carolina.

14th overall Carolina selects: Zach Boychuk I'm glad we're done with the prospect interviews. They didn't add much.

Nashville is going to be drafting again. They already have Colin Wilson in their stable, and TSN is speculating that they're going for a goalie.

Bettman announces a trade. Nashville trades their pick to Ottawa for the 18th and a 3rd round pick in 2009. Ottawa being on the clock wakes up the crowd.

Daniel Alfredson gets the honor of making the selection. I guess the Senators want to get their moneys worth out of him.

15th overall, Ottawa selects: Erik Karlsson I guess it makes sense that one Swede would announce another.

Karlsson gets interviewed. First question: "Do you think you can play in the NHL at your size?" Does it even count as a question if there is no possibility of more than one answer?

McKenzie discusses Colborne and Gardiner has "wild card" picks that could go anywhere. Boston is up at the podium. The Bruins congratulate the Celtics on their championship.

16th overall, Boston selects: Joe Colborne The first player playing college hockey out west is taken. He's got a lot of potential, but I think he also has the potential to bust. One knock is that he struggles with physical play, but he'll get lots of experience playing physical hockey in the WCHA.

There were a lot of fireworks in the first couple of picks with a ton of trades being made, but overall, not as much excitement with the actual drafting as there was last year with Thomas Hickey going fourth overall and Cherepanov falling to later in the first round. So far this year, it's been pretty much by the book.

Anaheim is drafting next, and I think they'll pick Satan. He can play on a line with Bertuzzi and Kunitz and not look out of place.

17th overall, Anaheim selects: Jake Gardiner Gardiner goes 17th overall. I think this is a little high for him, but I had a feeling some team would fall in love with him and select him early.

Some Minnesota HS goalie just got totally schooled in a highlight video on cable television.

Gardiner's pick brings about some pretty good analysis of college hockey and players leaving early from the crew. It was pretty nice work from Canadian-based analysts.

Duthie asks Brian Burke who is making him offers for their next pick and Burke just laughs in his face. These interviews are basically dead air.

18th overall, Nashville selects: Chet Pickard Nashville gets the goalie they needed. They already made a nice pick in Colin Wilson, and were able to trade down while still getting the second guy they wanted.

This is the biggest day of Pickard's life and he didn't take the time to shave the ugly semi-goatee off his face.

RE: College hockey analysis. The TSN guys didn't say anything groundbreaking. Just that it's difficult for teams to keep their good players because of the new CBA, and how Wisconsin had 15 seniors on their national title team, as opposed to just four last year. It wasn't much, but from a Canadian crew, it's nice to see them know their stuff when it comes to American hockey.

19th overall, Philadelphia selects: Luca SbisaSbisa is a Swiss player, which is starting to become a little more common in the draft.

20th overall, New York Rangers selects: Michael Del Zotto Del Zotto slipped a couple of spots, and I think this is a really nice pick for the Rangers. Del Zotto slipped this year, but I still think he's very talented, and the Rangers get another solid young defenseman.

Pierre McGuire used the phrase "too cool for school". I don't think I've heard that phrase used in at least a decade.

There is a congregation of guys with legal pads, so it looks like there will be a trade. Gary Bettman announces that New Jersey trades pick 21 to Washington for picks 23 and 54.

GMGM is heading to the podium to make the selection for Washington. They're bringing their goalie coach up to the podium, so it looks like a goalie.

21st overall, Washington selects: Anton Gustafsson I'm kind of surprised by this. A lot of teams moved him way down due to injury concerns. I thought the Wings would take him at 30th overall. If he stays healthy, he'll probably be a nice pick, and Washington is deep enough in terms of prospects that they can take a chance.

Edmonton is up next, and they seem like a team that might select Daultan Leveille.

Glenn Anderson, the newest member of the Hockey Hall of Fame is announcing the pick. He's ad-libbing with a story about Lorne Davis.

22nd overall, Edmonton selects: Jordan Eberle They dedicate the pick to Davis, and select a player from his old team.

Most of Eberle's highlights are from his years playing squirt hockey. I'm sure that's what the folks in Edmonton wanted to see.

Eberle is the first kid to look visibly excited about being drafted, and he admitted that he read mock drafts, which is a little funny.

New Jersey trades the 23rd pick to Minnesota for pick 24 and a third round pick next year. All of these trades seem to indicate that teams want to stockpile picks for next year's draft, which should be pretty deep.

Nicholas Deschamps has a name that is French enough for the Wild to select him here at 23.

23rd overall, Minnesota selects: Tyler Cuma The Wild need a defenseman, and Cuma slipped a little lower than most people had him ranked, so not a bad pick.

New Jersey is finally going to make a pick after trading down about 8 times.

The Devils have 5000 fans skating on their new rink tonight? That can't be good for the ice.

24th overall, New Jersey selects: Mattias Tedenby

Calgary is making their way to the podium, but stops for a casual conversation with the Buffalo table. Nice focus, Calgary.

25th overall, Calgary selects: Greg Nemisz

Darryl Sutter at least gets points for honesty by admitting that there's no way he'd answer a question.

26th overall, Buffalo selects: Tyler Ennis The TSN guys thought Buffalo would go for a goalie to possibly replace Ryan Miller, but they weren't going to find a goalie ready to start in the NHL in 18 months late in the first round of the draft. Ennis is a nice up-tempo offensive player.

Bettman announces another trade, but by this time, the crowd can only offer up a half-hearted response. Steve Eminger and pick 84 are traded to Philly for this next pick.

27th overall, Washington selects: John Carlson Carlson slipped a little bit, but is a pretty nice player.

The latest trade is that Anaheim trades pick 28 to Phoenix for 35 and 39. Nice trade for Anaheim. I'm not sure who Phoenix wants this badly. Probably a goalie.

Phoenix traded for this pick, so there must be a specific player they want. I don't get why it's taking them so long to get to the podium.

28th overall, Phoenix selects: Viktor Tikhonov This seems like a big reach for 28th overall. Tikhonov really moved up with some big performances in big tournaments. Tikhonov is described as very American for a Russian, but is still sporting a mullet.

29th overall, Atlanta selects: Daultan Leveille Nobody could have guessed he'd be a first round pick 6 months ago. Definitely a nice find by Rick Comley and the Michigan State coaching staff.

Michigan State is going to be counting on freshmen from less than stellar junior leagues next year, so seeing Leveille go this high has to be a nice validation of his skill.

Pierre McGuire is officially on the Nicholas Deschamps bandwagon. I think he's mentioned him about 15 times now. Maybe he gets a cut of the kid's first contract?

30th overall, Detroit selects: Thomas McCollum An American goalie closes out the first round.

A pretty decent year for American-born players in the first round, and a fairly rough showing for future college players, but still great compared to 10 years ago. Tomorrow morning should see a lot of future college players taken.