2010 KHL Entry Draft
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 7, 2010 5:00 PM MDT
in Prospects
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PrintOn June 4th the KHL held its second ever entry draft. It's pretty screwed up. To wit, one of the guys selected was John Tavares but that selection was voided because he's already under NHL contract. Two other teams also picked players under NHL contracts and had their selections voided which lets you know that these teams understand the rules of their own draft about as well as Rick Olczyk understands the CBA. The first overall pick was a kid named Dmitry Yashkin, a Russian who plays in the Czech Republic. I'd never heard of him, so I looked him up at eliteprospects and hockeydb. Apparently they've never heard of him either. What. The. Hell. But the craziness didn't end there...
The second overall pick was Sami Vatanen, a pint-sized defenseman chosen 106th overall by the Anaheim Ducks a year ago. That's a pretty weird pick, but hey, at least the internet has heard of this guy. Plus, he's probably not good enough to even contemplate playing in the NHL unless Derek runs a team of Finns (and even then...) so he may end up actually playing for them. Another top five pick was Martin Marincin, the prospect Derek wrote about as a possible 2nd round pick for the Oilers this year. So there's a real prospect. Some other real prospects were chosen too! Because teams are allowed to select players as young as 17, one team gambled that Adam Larsson would play in the KHL and took him with the 17th overall pick. Surely, Lokomotiv will end up disappointed, much like Ak Bars Kazan must have been when Taylor Hall decided to play in Windsor instead of Tatarstan this past year. My bet? The Oilers take Hall with the first overall pick only to get bogged down in negotiations when they refuse to give him the full bonus package and watch him flee to Russia. I hear it's warmer there.
Some other Oilers may even join him! Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson was taken 19th overall by Lokomotiv in 2009 but seems to have spurned their advances. That didn't stop Spartak from selecting Paajarvi's teammate with Timra, Anton Lander, with the 149th pick this year. Somehow, I doubt the story will have a different ending. The other Oiler prospect taken this year was Olivier Roy who was chosen 88th overall by Barys. Congratulations to Roy on being the top Canadian selected! Riley Nash was also on the list of one hundred eligible North Americans, but I guess the Russians figured they wouldn't be able to convince him to leave Cornell. Trust us guys, it's not easy.
As for how these guys get on the list, I have no clue. I do know that 690 guys made the cut, but how they did it is a mystery. In total, there were 188 (valid) players chosen over the seven-round draft, including 77 non-Russians. How many of those guys actually play in Russia is a totally different discussion. I'd bet somewhere around 7.
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Was Paajarvi under contract before the draft? I thought he was…
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
He was under contract before the 2010 draft, but he was chosen in the 2009 KHL draft. Lander and Roy were taken this year.
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 7, 2010 5:24 PM MDT up reply actions
Ohhhhh gotcha. OK.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
unless Derek runs a team of Finns (and even then…
You tease!
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Just a little thing about Dmitry Yashkin: Cyrilic-to-Latin translations can be pretty loopy. Here’s Dmitry Yashkin—listed on his EP page as “Dmitrij Jaskin”, which I assume is his Czech spelling (he’s listed as both Czech and Russian on EP).
Not that the draft isn’t weird. I really liked these back-to-back picks:
6. Lokomotiv
Alexey Shubin, Russia
11.12.1993
F Lokomotiv-93 (Yaroslavl)
7. Lokomotiv
Alexey Shamin, Russia
02.09.1993
F Lokomotiv-93 (Yaroslavl)
If those aren’t fictional names/bios made up for, like, test-tube prospects developed in a lab in Uzbekistan, I’ll be shocked.
Glorious! You’ve found the elusive first overall pick! Do you know if those offensive numbers are at all impressive? Looking at the background of guys like Krejci and Hemsky, it doesn’t really look like it but those guys were in those leagues a decade ago now.
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 7, 2010 9:01 PM MDT up reply actions
He was smoked by a 16 year old on his team.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
League leaders, but you have to check on each guy to see his age.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Thanks Derek! Still so weird that he’s the first overall pick. Or maybe I’m weird. I mean, who wouldn’t want the 55th leading scorer in the Czech U20 league!
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 7, 2010 10:34 PM MDT up reply actions
EP has him as the 11th-leading scorer in the league under age 18. It is kinda strange. The #1 scorer (the gloriously-named Martin Frk, who according to some Czech dude on HF is the next great Czech hope, and who played in the U18 league as like a toddler, and who had 55 points in 39 games [to Jaskin’s 23 in 38], and and and is like 8 months younger than this Jaskin cat [eligible for the 2012 NHL draft, I believes]) apparently didn’t get picked until the very last pick of the first round. I think it’s probably similar to the CHL import draft (and occasionally the CFL draft, I think), in that “likelihood to actually come to North America (or Russia, in this case)” is a huge consideration.
And to answer your question, Scott, no, I know next to nothing about international leagues.
by Passive Voice on Jun 7, 2010 11:23 PM MDT up reply actions
Yeah, I was going to liken it to the CFL draft. You can pick the best prospect in the world, but it there’s NFW he’s coming to your team, your league, or even your country, what’s the point? But you wind up with some crazy juxtapositions of superstars mixed in with whozzats.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Jun 7, 2010 11:45 PM MDT up reply actions
picks like that 89th-overall spent on Taylor Hall last year seem really shrewd to me. the odds probably aren’t great that he’ll go, but you never know and the payoff’s pretty huge. and, what the hell, it’s a 89th-overall pick. it’s the sports world’s ultimate Nassim Taleb play.
by Passive Voice on Jun 8, 2010 12:35 AM MDT up reply actions
Didn’t the New England Whalers take Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito in something like the 49th or 50th round of the ’72 WHA draft, well after everyone else had gotten bored and stopped picking?
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
Frk started playing in the U18 league at age 13. That’s fantastic.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
just craziness. also, not to get all NFL-scouting-combine-weird on you guys, but he’s listed as 5’11", 190 as like a 16-year-old. here’s a thread on HF about him, which unfortunately mostly comprises petty bickering.
by Passive Voice on Jun 8, 2010 12:28 AM MDT up reply actions
The google translation of this article is lacking:
Among the most pleasant surprises in the Czech selection now includes Martin Frk Carlsbad striker, who as a representative of a younger year 1993 was given confidence to the championship osmnáctiletých, fruity Minsk excellent form, which he decorated in the domestic youth competitions. Quickly, who thrives in a vigorous game in the flesh, shone in the match against the Slovak Republic, which had one goal and two others handed.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
I’ve always been described as lacking when it comes to vigorous games in the flesh.
by Passive Voice on Jun 8, 2010 12:37 AM MDT up reply actions
That’s what she said.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
2012
1. RW Martin Frk (Hc Karlovy Vary, Cze-U20)
Two years from his draft year, and Czech phenom Martin Frk has already figured out junior. While a CHL talent would be forced to go through the motions in their home league for another two seasons, Frk is the perfect example of a player who will benefit from the European style of prospect development.
Debuting in U18 hockey as a fourteen-year-old, Frk had just one assist in five games but followed that up with 93 over his next 74 games at that level. The 5’11, 190 lbs graduated to the U20 ranks full-time this past year, and promptly finished fifth in league scoring with 55 points in just 39 games; hadFrk not missed so many games to play in both the U17s and U18s, there’s a good chance he would have been first.
Frk also compiled 184 PIM; before anyone gets too excited, those totals came mostly as a result of Frk supplanting himself among 20-year-olds by way of fisticuffs. Initially a target of cheap shots, few have bothered to tangle with the double-underager since.
A sublime puckhandler whose hockey sense may eclipse any skater in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 drafts, Frk has drawn several comparisons to one Jaromir Jagr- mostly due to heritage. In truth, a better one may be the player one spot below Jagr on the all-time RW points list. Listed at 5’10, 195 lbs, Mark Recchi had three 100+ point seasons and two more over 90. He’s also compiled close to 1000 PIM.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Frk also compiled 184 PIM; before anyone gets too excited, those totals came mostly as a result of Frk supplanting himself among 20-year-olds by way of fisticuffs
.
That quote confuses me.
by Passive Voice on Jun 8, 2010 12:44 AM MDT up reply actions
Well, a game misconduct is 20 PIM in Europe, so it only takes five or six fights to really inflate the numbers; it’s not like in the NHL where you’d need 20 to get that many.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
I love the idea of a CHL talent “going through the motions”, i.e. first-tier bantam and, y’know, junior high school, as opposed to that great Czech development model which has developed zero young All-Stars in the last decade.
by Benjamin Massey on Jun 8, 2010 11:37 AM MDT up reply actions
That’s Frk’n amazing
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Jun 8, 2010 9:30 AM MDT up reply actions
PERSPECTIVE WATCH: the 55th-leading scorer in the Western Hockey League this season was left wing Kevin King of Kootenay, an undrafted 20-year-old Calgary native.
Forget Hall and Seguin!
by Benjamin Massey on Jun 8, 2010 11:43 AM MDT up reply actions
Vatanen is actually a highly-touted prospect
30 points in his 18-19 year old season. 3 less than Golden Boy Hartikainen’s 19-20 year old season. As a defenseman.
Highly touted by whom? He was drafted in the fourth round and he’s currently ranked 14th in the Ducks org. by the HF people. He’s also listed at 5’9’’ and 159 lbs. which is pretty scary for a defender in the NHL.
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 7, 2010 11:22 PM MDT up reply actions
Marc-Andre Bergeron, but with less offensive talent?
Ouch.
by doritogrande on Jun 7, 2010 11:45 PM MDT up reply actions
well if i am not wrong he was captain of the finnish junior team. He was touted as the Finnish Ryan Ellis in his draft year and if he was Canadian, he would have gone earlier. He is actually a better skater than Ellis, so Kris Russel might be a better comp.
A quick check shows that he captained the U18 team in 2009. I didn’t find who captained Finland for the U20’s. At any rate, “might be Kris Russel” isn’t exactly great. For this kid to have a chance he had better be phenomenal on the power play.
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 8, 2010 9:25 AM MDT up reply actions
Jyri Niemi (recently traded from the Isles to Rangers) captained the U20 Finnish squad. Vatanen starred in a couple of the games. He has great skill, but yeah, the size is a major obstacle.
No way is Brian Rafalski actually 5’10", though.
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Not to go all “new NHL” on you, Scott, but a small defenseman who plays smart can go a long way in this league these days.
by Benjamin Massey on Jun 8, 2010 11:38 AM MDT up reply actions
List of NHL defenders listed at 5’9’’ or less by nhl.com: Marc-Andre Bergeron, Francis Bouillon, Brett Lebda.
Difference-makers!
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 8, 2010 12:31 PM MDT up reply actions
Martin Frk
This was a great thread because I got to read about Frk…. I am preying he doesn’t go to the CHL at all. Also, this generational talent stuff should be dropped asap… Olesz was also an outstanding Czech Junior player and hasn’t developed as hoped (they even put him on the Olympic team 4 years ago). However, I hope it is true cause Czech hockey is getting slaughtered at the Junior level right now!
Do you know anything more about Frk?
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Yeah, like how do you pronounce his name? Rhymes with jerk? prick?
Either way, Oilers should draft him.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Jun 8, 2010 1:08 PM MDT up reply actions
I knew nothing of him… rhymes with jerk though. Somebody above made the astute (and painful) observation that it’s been a long while since the Czechs produced a bonafide young all star (although Hemsky, Krejci, Frolik, Pavelec, Havlat, Neuvirth, both Michaleks aren’t exactly pieces of shit either) and I’ll believe it when I see it. The Czech team has had their asses handed to them at the last few WJHC’s and are poised to get killed this Xmas in the toughest pool I’ve ever seen (Russia, Sweden, Canada and the Czechs – 3 advance) so I’m not sure what ‘best player on the team’ is really even worth.
The guy they should try to steal is that Slovak giant mentioned in the other article… shame Lubo is gone, could’ve brought him along real nice!
Russia, Sweden, Canada and the Czechs.
Jesus.
by Passive Voice on Jun 8, 2010 2:58 PM MDT up reply actions
Czechs are world senior champs. No mercy. ;)
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Jun 9, 2010 10:08 AM MDT up reply actions
I knew nothing of him… rhymes with jerk though.
The Oilers need to draft him so that when he scores “Frkoff and die you stupid Canucks!”
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
HOw do you mean? Hejduk is still surprisingly effective in my opinion. A very strong offensive player…. as much as I love my Czech boys, I’ve always noticed that we protoctypically produce a lot of playmakers and not many pure snipers (unlike, say Slovakia, who consistently produce very strong goal scorers). Hejduk is (ok, was) one of our best pure strikers. Shame about the knees!
I think he meant “Is Hejduk too old to qualify as a bonafide young all-star?” and I assume that he is probably older than what you had in mind in that he was drafted in 1994.
by Scott Reynolds on Jun 9, 2010 9:57 PM MDT up reply actions
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