Thoughts on the First Round of the 2012 Draft

   

Morgan Rielly was picked
5th overall to the
Maple Leafs.

 This won't be super in depth or anything but I will discuss a few things that went down tonight in the NHL Draft. Many thought the Oilers would draft for their needs, and select Ryan Murray over best available prospect Nail Yakupov but the Oilers ended up going with Yakupov after all, which in my opinion was the best move. Ryan Murray went to the Blue Jackets as expected, and the Canadians took Alex Galchenyuk as many believed he would. The next pick, which surprised some, but not us at PuckCentralHQ, was Griffin Reinhart, 4th overall to the New York Islanders. Griffin Reinhart is shaping up to be the next Ryan Suter or maybe even Shea Weber, either way, he's going to be a star someday, so that was a great pick by the Islanders. The first questionable pick of the night went to the Toronto Maple Leafs. They used their 5th overall pick to take Morgan Rielly, the all out offence, highly skilled defenceman of the Moose Jaw Worriers. They passed over Big, skilled centre Mikhail Grigorenko and big winger Filip Forsberg, which leads me to the next big story line, 10, and 11 teams passed up on these guys. Filip Forsberg went 11th to Washington Capitals, which is a steal for them and Mikhail Grigorenko was selected 12th overall to the Sabres. Now I'll back track a little bit to talk about the first and only block buster trade of the first round. The Penguins traded Jordan Staal to the Carolina Hurricanes for Brandon Sutter,Brian Dumouline, and the 8th overall pick. The Pens then used the 8th overall pick to select offensive defenceman Derrick Pouliot. In my opinion that was an off the board pick at 8 but the Pens are getting their former top prospect, Joe Morrow's defence partner, and they seem more than happy about that. They were also more than happy to see Olli Maatta fall to them at 22. There's a very good chance Maatta could be on their team next year too, so they got a steal with that pick. Calgary traded down to the 21st pick where they took highly skilled but long term project forward, Mark Jankowski. The Ottawa Senators got a gift at 15th overall when hometown kid, Cody Ceci, fell to them. On the note of gifts, Chicago received a pretty big one in Teuvo Teravainen at 19. He's a highly skilled player who many had ranked in their top 5. It's also worth noting that the Winnipeg Jets selected Jacob Trouba, a monster defenceman,Vancouver selected Brendan Gaunce, a workhorse centre for Belleville, and the Washington Capitals acquired Mike Ribeiro for a Cody Eakin and a 2nd round pick. There are a lot of big names still available tomorrow so it will be a very exciting day tomorrow as well, so make sure you follow @PuckCentralHQ for constant draft updates.

Cody Ceci was selected by his hometown team
the Ottawa Senators 15th overall.

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