I was gonna do that in the other thread, hope you don't mind me posting here HIL?
I entered this draft with dread. I was a fresh (and very very lucky) recruit coming directly from the entry league. I highly respected everyone present at the draft table, so I was a bit intimidated. Also I was first. Yeah yeah yeah, everyone wants to be first... but I hate that. You end up with no stud as your second pick. However, we were only 13, not 16 or 20, so that's a bit better. Still...
Round 1: First overall, that was a no brainer : Ovechkin.
Round 2/3: I had no choice but to take a goalie here. I nearly took Rask with Howard/Kipper back to back and in retrospect, I should have; they went poof right after my picks. But I ended up with Rask and Jumbo Joe, the only 80+ nearly guaranteed skater left after 2 rounds. Yeah, playoffs, whatever. I was pretty confident at that point.
Round 4/5: That was brutal. I wanted a second goalie, but no dice there; no way I was gonna pick Price... and then he went right after me! Chara was a nice pick by Joos, ultra went with Phaneuf and I believe it will pay off, but I went with the underrated Weber and against my best judgment got Carter for his multi-cat studness as a second center. I believe it was the right pick as round 5 was revealed to be a center-bonanza.
Round 6/7: I was planning to go G and D here. I always stock up on good Ds since you have 6 slots. I had Lidstrom/Markov lined up, with Niemi, Backstrom, Leighton, Lehtonen... they all went poof right before me!!! That was brutal. I was on the clock with no queue left. I hastily decided to go double D, saw EJ and... Myers. That was too soon for Myers I believe... I'm also glad I didn't have to draft Hemsky there, good luck Dub! Kesler. Is. An. Absolute. Steal. Here. Should be on my team instead of Myers.
Round 8/9: No G's to be drafted here... Downie is a nice and bold pick by Lord of the rinks. I had Carter's best friend Hartnell in my queue along with Ericksson, Pavelski, Kesler, Stewart, Burrows, Doan... and then, for a second time in that draft: poof! My queue depleted faster than Lindsay Lohan can... well, let's stay on focus here. Ahem. I needed RW since I was empty on that wing; I went with the next best multi cat stud on the board (Brown) and a favorite of mine (Voracek). My RWs are in good shape now. Frolov was a nice pick by Joos there, but one I couldn't make. I was pretty confident of my team at this point.
Then everything went downhill...
Round 10/11: My queue: Yandle, Morrow, Simmonds, Edler, Okposo, Karlsson, Duchene, Bourque... they all, AGAIN, went poof!! All except Bourque... I juste drafted 2 RW, and he's injury prone... so I decided to go LW since they are much rarer this draft. Took 2 chances : Ennis and Mueller. That could become a stroke of genious or a sore disappointment. Anyway, I could draft Bourque next round maybe... or maybe not, he went right next. Darn, this is frustrating. Subban is such a nice pick there, McDonald and Samuelsson aren't bad either.
Round 12/13: Ellis and Thomas went, so I lost a starting G and my backup G... I didn't plan on G as I had my list full: Bogosian, Giroux, Campbell, Pominville, Raymond, all nicely lined up... guess what? Yeah, bye bye queue! I panicked, I still didn't have a second G; I could go Leclaire/Elliot or Gustavsson/Giguere there. Was that too soon? I compromised(bad idea), rolled the dice instead, picked Gustavsson and, frustrated, rolled the almighty injury dice on Bieksa.
Round 14/15: I lined up: Smyth, Versteeg, Havlat, Frolik, Langenbrunner, Ribeiro, Plekanec, J.J., Booth, Carlson, Ott, Zherdev. I said to myself, 12 in queue, that's gonna be enough this time! Then... I had to pause to take the alcool out of the cabinet... they all were gone by the time I was on the clock!! The guy who patented "Method to exercise a cat" rolled in his grave. True story. Also, Leclaire/Elliott were picked back-to-back by Jobbers, guess I wasn't the only one with that idea... damn. My picks? Well, Weiss was one of the last 1st line C left at that time (beside Bozak i think, which I missed), so I bit. I had a choice of Benn/Perron/Brouwer/Setoguchi/Bergfors. I went with my gut on this one, Benn. The rest disappeared right after. Gagner was a steal there, 14th round.
Round 16/17: Great pick by smack: DiPietro. Maybe I should have gambled on him. C.Mason and Neuvirth gone also there. G is getting depleted... Mike Smith it is. And... I was surprised that Bergeron was still there. Maybe it's because the Habs/Bruins game was on and he just scored a goal, but I went with this high risk pick. Gomez was a steal there.
Round 18/19: Usually, by that time, it's time for the calder-candidate bluechip and young that could breakout for me. Oshie, Filatov, Eberle, E.Kane, Fehr, Del Zotto, Moulson. All on my board, and all gone in the span of seconds. I needed a D, but the D pool was depleting fast. I picked a (ill-advised?) wildcard here : Jason Demers. Kovalev might be a steal there by blammo, or the laugh of the draft. Savard was bold too by doulos. Bozak is a steal there.
Round 20/21: Guess what happened here too? Queue depleted! All those responsible will be sacked! Gilbert was a steal (I wished I took him instead of Dermers, damn!) Giguere went too, grrr, lost my 2 backups. I still needed a D, so Seidenberg it is. Also, hey, look at that... I forgot about a potential bluechip here: Turris. They are patient with him and it might pay off... but probably not this year.
Round 22/23: Uh-oh... I missed Pavelec there. Skinner is a nice high risk pick by dub. Ladd and Berglund went right before me. Not much left here. Stalberg might be the 3rd, 2nd or 1st LW in CHI, so he's worth a pick. I liked his rookie season. Callahan is a multi-cat kinda of guy. Yeah. Really! Well... not really, but who's gonna be my last RW? Then I realized Hedjuk was still on the board, too late. Peverley was a steal right there by LOTR.
Round 24/25: I will definitely cry to bed tonight thinking about my goalies. Oh. My. God. Simply. Brutal. Last year I picked Howard near the end of my draft, and I won in part because of that pick. Maybe if I try something similar... so, with all the confidence I could muster, I picked Jeff Deslauriers! Then it dawned on me... DET vs EDM. Nuff said. As a last pick I took the biggest long shot/dropsie I could dream of regretting: Cole. Yeah. Really. I love the Tangradi pick by Joos, can't believe I missed him. Recchi 25th round? Could become a pretty darn good steal.
That's all. With comforting alcool flowing through my veins and a sense of utter darkness and failure over my head, I went to bed, hoping that I would look back at my draft the next morning and see it differently.
The verdict? I ended up dancing and drinking scotch with Cthulhu before going to work this morning. True story.
H2H std stats + Hits/Bl.Shots/Saves
C : Getz, H.Sedin, Stastny, Boyle, Bjugstad, Berglund
LW: Parise, D.Sedin, Soderberg, Tlusty, McGinn
RW: Perry, Kessel, Kesler, C.Smith, R.Smith, Clutterbuck
D : OEL, Giordano, Markov, Phaneuf, Pietrangelo, Voynov, Timonen
G : Lundqvist, Rask
Farm: Horvat, Beck, Girgensons, Pulkkinen, Jaskin, Rakell, Watson, Ritchie, Erixon, Murphy, B.Smith, Jenner, J.Larsson, Laughton, Morin, Spooner, J.Campbell