Friday, June 24, 2011

Friday Afternoon Notes from the NHL Entry Draft in Minnesota


(St. Paul, MN) We are still over an hour away from the start of the 2011 NHL Entry Draft (Versus 6 p.m. CDT) and the arena floor and media risers at the Xcel Energy Center are starting to fill up.

You can click on the above picture to see a couple of interesting things on the traditional banners. The Predators are sporting the new gold color on their banner which stands out as being distinctive from the rest.

The last banner on the lower right is the black one sporting the Winnipeg name and carrying the NHL shield as the logo.

At a press conference this morning officially naming ex-Milwaukee Admirals Coach Claude Noel as the teams new head coach it was suggested that the name of the team would be announced when the Peggers make their first round pick in the seventh slot. Indications are that it will be the Jets with the main speculation now being whether they will be Manitoba or Winnipeg.

Things have been relatively quiet on the trade front today after yesterday's blockbuster moves by Philadelphia with the only news being John-Michael Lyles going from Colorado to Toronto for a 2012 second round pick.

A press handout at the arena had an interesting breakdown of NHL games played by draftees since 2000. The Predators are ranked 14th with 4,814 man games played. The range is from Los Angeles at 5,926 to Tampa Bay's 2,502.

The year by year breakdown for the Preds has a bulge in 2003 as you would expect with 1,170 games while they have yet to have anyone log games from 2009 and 2010. The other years with large numbers are 2000 (905) and 2001 (995). Also standing out on the down side is 2006 with only 21 games played.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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