Rising from the ashes: Phoenix draft picks
Welcome Phoenix Coyotes Entry Draft class of 2010!
Just days (really it was almost just hours) after celebrating the NHL Award wins for Head Coach Dave Tippett winning the Jack Adams Award and Captain Shane Doan bringing home the King Clancy, the Phoenix Coyotes left Las Vegas and head for Los Angeles.
In the first round of the Coyotes chose with their 13th overall draft pick (acquired from the Calgary Flames) Brandon Gormley.
Gormley is a 6’2” 185 pound defenceman who played last season with the Moncoton Wildcats in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) and won his own set of hardware with the Mike Bossy Trophy and being named a QMJHL Second-Team All-Star.
Racking up 54 penalty minutes and scoring 43 points (9 goals and 34 assist) in 58 games for the 2009-10 season he went on to play in 21 playoff games in which he totaled 2 goals and 15 assist.
Heading into the draft he was ranked sixth among North American skaters by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau and was third according to the International Scouting Services.
Later on in the first round the Coyotes drafted Mark Visentin with the 27th overall choice.
Visentin is a 17 year old Goaltender from Canada. Spending the last season with the Niagara IceDogs of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) he posted a 24-26-5. His Goals Against Average has gone from 4.26 in his first season with the IceDogs to 2.99 last season allowing only 160 goals in 55 games played.
Goaltenders tend to take longer to develop (Just look at Detroit Red Wings Rookie goalie Jimmy Howard he is 26).
On day two of the draft in the second round Phoenix claimed Philip Lane with the 52nd overall pick.
Lane is a 6’2” American right winger. In 64 games played this past season he scored 18 goals and had an additional 14 assist with the Brampton Battalion of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).
“He is a big strong powerful right winger. He is a very good skater and he has very good hands around the net. He has good vision with the puck. He needs to be a more consistent player. When he is on his game he is great,” says Brampton Battalion head coach Stan Butler of Lane.
With the 57th pick overall the Coyotes chose 18 year old Swedish center Oscar Lindberg of Skellefteå AIK in the Elitserien a.k.a. Swedish Elite League (SEL). In 36 games with Skellefteå AIK Lindberg racked up 35 penalty minutes but only 1 goal and 1 assist in the regular season. In the playoffs Lindberg only received 2 penalty minutes and scored 2 goals in the 10 post season games. I would like to point out that in addition to his time in the SEL Oscar Lindberg started the season playing for Skellefteå J20 in the J20 SuperElit (a junior ice hockey league. He had 14 goals and 19 assist in 38 games before being brought up to the SEL.
Lindberg split the 2009-10 season between was ranked seventh among European players by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau.
With their last pick of the 2010 NHL entry draft the Phoenix Coyotes tool Louis Domingue with the 138th overall pick.
Louis Domingue is a 6’3” strong puck-handling goaltender from Quebec, Canada who split the 2009-10 season with the Wildcats (QMJHL) where he posted a .902 save percentage and had a Goals Against Average of 2.81 in 22 games played. His Wildcat win loss record was 11-9-0 when he was traded to the Quebec Remparts. He went on to play 19 games for the Remparts and registered a .910 save percentage and 2.54 Goals Against Average to finish off the regular season. Domingue went on to play in 9 playoff games; his Goals Against Average jumped to 4.34 and his save percentage was .873 for the post season.