Friday, June 5, 2015

NOTEBOOK: Draft Eve

In not-so-surprising news, RDS’ Stephane Leroux reports that Shane Bowers wants to be picked by either Saint John or Halifax.
Bowers has not committed to the QMJHL yet, telling Sportsnet that “it’s not so much for me a preference of one route over the other for one certain thing. It’s going to be what’s the best situation, where am I going to be able to develop the best and pursue the goal of playing in the NHL.”

Darrell Young knows Bowers personally. If the Sea Dogs are able to move up in the first round, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him being taken by Saint John.

NEW GOALIE
Sea Dogs general manager Darrell Young is expecting the newly acquired Marc-Antoine Turcotte to push for the starters job this fall.

"We feel Marc-Antoine is a solid major junior goalie who can push Alex Bishop and challenge him for the starting job," said Young in a Sea Dogs press release. "He's a good young man with an outstanding work ethic."

Turcotte, who will be an overage netminder this coming season, had an 8-7-0-2 record with a 2.17 goals against average and a .908 save percentage in 18 games with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada.

THE OVERAGE QUESTION
With the addition of Turcotte, the Sea Dogs now have five 1995-born players listed on their 2015 pre-season roster. The other overagers are forward Mitchell Dempsey and defensemen Adam Bateman, Braydon Blight and Shane MacDonald.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the team’s overage situation moving forward. Does the team try and upgrade a bit or are they content with choosing from these players?

AWARD
BACK IN CHARLOTTETOWN
The QMJHL Entry Draft is finally heading back to the Maritimes.

It was announced today that the 2016 draft will be held at Charlottetown’s Eastlink Centre on Saturday, June 4, 2016. The QMJHL Annual Session will take place June 1-4.

DEEP DRAFT

One GM believes the second tier after Bowers, Morand, Comtois and Veleno is stronger than advertised, saying there are as many as 10 solid prospects up for grabs. Another GM is even more enthusiastic about the third tier, projecting as many as two dozen solid players. Scouts often gripe that the quality isn’t there after the first round, but not this year.

It looks like a good year to have lots of picks.

MOCK DRAFT
HockeyProspect.com has posted their annual mock draft. They have Saint John taking forward Joseph Veleno first overall, forward Louis-Filip Cote ninth overall and forward Peyton Hoyt tenth overall.

Cote plays with Levis while Hoyt was a member of the Fredericton Canadiens this past season.

ANOTHER MOCK DRAFT
Steve Turcotte of the Shawinigan newspaper Le Nouvelliste has also produced a mock draft.

Turcotte has the Dogs taking forward Joseph Veleno first overall, goaltender Dereck Baribeau ninth and forward Joel Teasdale 10th.

BY THE NUMBERS
The Sea Dogs looked at some draft numbers in an article posted on their website.

Photo via the Facebook

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