Top player, so excited to have him. Play every situation, culture guy, leader. He’s going to be one of those guys that is going to be here for a long time, plays every situation. I talked to Jimmy Playfair, I don’t know, three, four times during the year, and he kept on giving me updates. And he said when he first saw him as a 16-year-old, he said, ‘I told our guys he’s going to play 8 to 10 years. And then after I had him for a year, I said 10 to 12. And he says, I don’t know, I might play 15 now.’ So all the background, everything. It was, we talked about it a lot… It was an unbelievable group of defencemen at the top, like the top 7, 8 defencemen. And I’m going deeper than what everybody said as far as 5 or 6. It was a top group and it was hard to sort out because there were so many different types. But, you know, he was a guy that we just loved. We watched him last year. He’s a winner. So I don’t have much more to say. I know Connie loves the kid. Like, it was, we’re ecstatic. Really ecstatic.

So the next three guys fit into that because it was Jack Hextall was one of the guys. And he’s a guy, Jimmy Cummins – and [amateur scouts] Jimmy Cummins and Mike Craig covered the U.S. for us – and he said he’s a hockey player. That’s what he is. He’s a hockey player. Some guys, they have more skill. They’re more fancy. And their individual parts might look better, but they can’t put it all together. the sum of all the parts is what Jack Hextall is. He can play centre, he plays every situation, he’s good on face-offs and when we first started interviewing him and talking to him, he had such a great command of what he was going to be. He knew what he was, he knew his path and maybe it’s just his dad played in the Centennial Cup, I think it was, so being from a hockey family, he knew what his path was and he knew he wasn’t going to go to Michigan State next year and be on the power play… It’s a really good team and he had a, ‘I’m going to do this the first year and it’s penalty killing time and going there because they have a track record with your sports science department and you need to add strength and speed and everything.’ So it was really cool to have a kid who was really mature and had his own path already set out before he even talked to us. So two way player, multiple situation player. So really, really happy to have him.

He’s a gritty, tenacious guy. He creates room for his line mates. He’s got possession skill. He scores in the hard areas. He’s a rebound trench area guy. When we talk about goals and go back on the analytics, we talk about goals in hard areas, the guy draped on his back or tying up a stick, he’s fearless in that way. He’s really good in and around the net areas. And he can play with good players. And we saw that this year with the players he played with. We’ve seen it last year with the players he played with. And he has a B game. He has a B game, which is physicality and tenacity and grit and jam. So he was a very attractive guy for us.

And then right after [the Harrington pick at 36th], it was Connie. He just started taking over the phones. He had the 51 and 68, and he started with the next team and said, ‘Want to do it? Want to do it?” As long as Trejbal was on the board still, he was phoning those teams. And then Carolina, I think it was Carolina, right? They said, ‘Okay,’ so Jordy [Jordan Sigalet, director of goaltending] was as happy as you see Jordy, like he got a little bit of a smile. As gregarious as Connie is, Jordy’s more stoic, so it was really happy to get… Jordy, he thinks he’s the number one goalie. He’s going to UMass too, right? So good pick there.

He was a guy that, I say this a lot because [amateur scout] Denis Grebeshkov does such a good job for us. And since we haven’t been able to travel into Russia, having eyes on players, we did it without a Russian scout for a while, and having eyes on a guy, and having a guy that played in the NHL for so long, and a guy that can talk to these guys in their native language and interview them, he just liked the guy. He just thought he was diligent, hardworking. He’s one of those guys that has said he can play more flashy and try more risk, but he doesn’t. He just plays the right way all the time.

And then, I was telling Pat Steinberg, like, years ago, there was a guy that played the same way in London, and he didn’t play with flash. Maybe a point a game in his draft year, but he played every situation. And I’m not comparing this guy to him, but it’s the same style, and it was Robert Thomas. And then Robert Thomas, we’ve seen what he’s done. So, this guy’s the same way. He plays the right way. So, we’re hoping that he can play with better players, and as he gets to higher levels, he’s going to get more offence to him. but we were really attracted by the diligence and the hard work and the two-way game that he shows. He’s a thick, strong kid and he plays an honest game.

Then Joe Iginla. So I first saw Joe, it’s a neat story. It was with Connie. We were watching Bradley Nadeau and Suniev in Penticton and Jarome was coaching Joe and Keaton Verhoeff over in a provincial game and they were playing against the Rucks and Mathis Preston. So that was when they were about 14 years old, the WHL draft year. So that’s the first time I saw Joe. And I know Joe played with an injury this year. And coming into the year, we saw him in the 17s last year. And he’s just, he’s got the DNA. He’s got hockey sense. He’s got hands. He just needs to develop physically. He needs physical maturation. And we know that takes time. But we also know the Iginla DNA and the work ethic. So we think at that point, for us, it was no-brainer. He was the next guy on our list. And we were happy that he was there. and to be honest I thought we had a chance at him there because we knew where he was rated but you never know. So that’s why you work your list and you do it your way, you don’t worry about what anybody else says. But I know Central Scouting had him very low but I think because because of the injury and he didn’t have a great start in Edmonton but he picked it up in Vancouver. I think we got a really good player there in the third round.

Egor Barabanov played the last two years in USHL, so he came on the radar mostly with [amateur scout] Terry Doran because we were watching [Nikita] Klepov so much. So he played a lot with Klepov in Saginaw… and a guy we’re going to talk about next year – Dimian Zhilkin is going to be a top pick next year, top 15, top 20 pick – and they were a dynamite line offensively. So that’s how we started watching him. He’s a lighter kid, he’s skilled, he’s got vision, he can see the ice, he makes plays. He’s a little bit feisty, like sneaky feisty, like he’ll pop you when you’re not expecting it. It’s not his game. And then that was a value pick totally for us, taking a shot at a centre ice man first of all, but high skill.

And then the next guy, Katolicky. Czech guy, played in Finland the last two years. When our guys came back from the Under-17s a couple of years ago, they talked about this guy. He’s going to be a good player for this draft. And he went through a bad year as far as sick, had appendicitis, he had injuries. He also played with [injured] ribs. And our Finnish scout, Lauri Tukonen, he thought he never really got his traction. Like, he could never get consistent games, and he was always fighting it. But at that point, it was like, you know, in the fifth round, and this guy we’re talking about late first, early second at the beginning of the year, it was, again, value. He’s got size. He works. He’s competitive. He’s a good skater. Going to Sarnia, so we’re all happy about that. Like, he’s going to play a lot more than he would if he was back in Finland.

And then Bode Laylin, going to Everett next year. He’s a very cerebral heavy puck moving defenceman. Jimmy and Mike Craig, again, USHL, they really liked him. And the thing when I talk about the team and how we worked, they were really supported by the analytic group and what they said and all their analysis of Bode Laylin. So when it came to that pick, there was a couple of guys we talked about and then it was… You guys know Jimmy Cummins. So Jimmy Cummins and the analytic group over here, there’s five of them. Mike Craig was a pretty feisty player, so Connie and I were like, ‘Okay, we’ll do what they want.’ So that’s it. That was all, like, that’s the teamwork part of it, right? How the analytics provided them with the confidence that there was a good swing on a… He’s undersized for sure, but puck mover, skater, we got time, he’s going to go to school. So, you know, three or four years down the road, we’ll see.