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“And they did a great job in getting some players over from Europe.”

In 1979, with the last pick in the first round, they took Kevin Lowe 21st overall and said, as scouts always say, they were surprised he was still there.

“We had him anywhere from 10th to 13th,” head scout Fraser said at the time.

Normally, a future captain who hung around for five Stanley Cups is a good enough haul as it is, but they didn’t stop there. Edmonton spent its next two picks on hunches, taking Mark Messier 48th, based on one goal, 10 assists and 54 PIMs with the Cincinnati Stingers of the WHA, and Glenn Anderson 69th from the Canadian National Team.

OILERS WERE CONNECTED

In those days, before the internet era, it was all about connections, and the Oilers had bird dogs in the right places at the right times.

“Lorne was involved with the Olympic team and new Glenn Anderson very well,” said MacGregor. “And Barry knew Messier from being around Edmonton.”

In retrospect, waiting until the third round to take Messier suggests that even the Oilers didn’t know what they were getting, but they were willing to roll the dice.

Imagine in this day and age, a scout going up to his GM and saying I want to use our second pick to take a kid with one goal.

“I think it can still happen,” said MacGregor. “Will it happen? I’m not sure about that. But they knew the reputation of the Messier family and saw Mark play as a 15-year-old in the Alberta Junior league, and probably took into consideration that he was 17 and playing pro hockey.

1980 was just as good, with another home run on the first pick, Paul Coffey sixth overall.

Again, a Hall of Fame defenceman would have been good enough, but there was more to come.

The NHL was only starting to delve into Europe - Thomas Gradin in 1976, Bengt Gustafsson and Risto Siltanen in ‘78 and Anton Stastny, Mats Naslund and Thomas Steen in 1979 - and the Oilers were quick to test the water. They took Jari Kurri 69th and used another late-round hunch on Andy Moog 132nd.

ANDY MOOG: ELITE STARTER

“Anderson in the third round, then Moog, they were hitting on all cylinders as a scouting group,” said MacGregor.

After going through eight different goalies in their first to seasons, the Oilers finally had a long-term elite level starter in Moog, who led Edmonton to a shocking playoff sweep of the Montreal Canadiens and took the eventual Stanley Cup champion New York Islanders to six games.

So spending the eighth pick overall on a goalie the very next year seemed rather odd. But the Oilers were dead set on Spruce Grove’s Grant Fuhr.

“He’s the best prospect since Bernie Parent,” Fraser told curious reporters on draft day. “I think he can play in the NHL this season.”

He started 48 games as a rookie and never looked back.

That same year, the Oilers added Steve Smith with the 111th pick.

The 1983 draft yielded the second member of the twin towers defence pairing, Jeff Beukeboom (19th overall) and yet another late round gem in Esa Tikkanen (82nd overall).

CORE COMPLETED

The core was complete. Those 10 players not only had skill and drive, but meshed perfectly under the leadership of Sather, Gretzky, Messier and Lowe.

A run like that was not unheard of - the New York Islanders landed Denis Potvin, Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies, John Tonelli and Mike Bossy in a five-year stretch - but those types of perfect storms don’t happen often.

And, yes, there is a certain amount of luck that goes into hitting late round home runs. The Detroit Red Wings are the first to admit they had no idea Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg would turn out this good.

“Jim Nill always said in Detroit, if we were that smart, why didn’t we take them earlier (than the 171st and 210th picks),” said MacGregor. “These things happen. You don’t have the scenario where players aren’t seen anymore, but lots of guys use hunches.

“I remember Lorne Davis telling a story about being scheduled to fly home from Finland on Dec 23. He decided to stay one more day and ended up seeing Jari Kurri for the first time. It was good work and good drive to succeed. They were smart guys.”

Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 06.28.2013

682711 Edmonton Oilers

Edmonton Oilers will choose 'best available' in NHL draft

By Robert Tychkowski ,Edmonton Sun

First posted: Thursday, June 27, 2013 06:57 PM MDT | Updated: Thursday, June 27, 2013 08:51 PM MDT

NEW YORK - Sunday afternoon in New Jersey will mark the 10 year anniversary of a painful, costly lesson for the Edmonton Oilers.

That was the year they decided to deviate from the most iron-clad rule in drafting: Always take the best player available.

If your team is neck deep in defencemen and the best player available is a defenceman, don’t downgrade to a forward. Scoop up the D man and sort it all out later.

Any scout on any team will tell you that taking the best player available is a cliche for a reason.

But, in 2003, the Oilers decided instead to fill a specific need and are still regretting it to this day.

They were neck deep in small forwards at the time, with Todd Marchant, Mike York, and Mike Comrie in their top six, and didn’t want another one, even though highly-rated Zach Parise was available with the 17th pick.

They needed a big centre, so they traded down to 22, let New Jersey take Parise, and landed Marc-Antoine Pouliot

Ouch.

“Our mandate from Mac T is to pick the best available player and the management group will deal with what that player is,” said Oilers chief scout Stu MacGregor. “If they need to, they can use an asset within the organization to fill the holes we need to fill from a positional standpoint, but he wants skill.”

If a big guy has high end skill, great, and there are some big dudes who can play in and around the No, 7 hole, but if it comes down to a big role player or another small forward who shows signs of elite level skill in whatever round, they’re going with the talent.

“You can get those role players through other means, we want to draft skill, guys who can make a play with a puck,” said MacTavish. “If you take a role player in the later round who doesn’t have much stick skill, the best he’s going to be is a guy who’s not able to move the dial of your team.

“If you draft somebody who’s maybe inadequate in size or speed but has some skill, maybe he picks up some size or is a great worker, like some of the guys who are well-described in Detroit, and he turns out to be somebody who can change the complexion of your team.

“Our objective is to pick the player who’s going to have the biggest impact. If two or three or four players you feel are going to have similar impacts, then you may default to a positional bias, largely defence and centremen are the most coveted position.”

Otherwise, it’s the best player available. Even if he might not be on the team for another year or two.

“At No.7, there’s a couple of players available there who may have a good opportunity to play,” said MacTavish. “But Stu and I both realize that our No.1 drafting objective is to draft the player who will have the most impact over time.

“That doesn’t mean next year. We want to help our team next year, but it won’t influence who we pick.”

What will influence who they pick are the six teams picking ahead of them. For the first time since 2009, Edmonton isn’t at the head of the buffet line. They have to wait and see what’s left before they get to eat.

“You worked hard to put your list together and I think we’d be very happy to get the seventh player on our list,” said MacGregor. “We’ll wait and see. If we happen to get a player who’s on our list at 3 or 4 or 5 or 6, instead of 7, we’re even a little happier.

“It’s a wait and see. You have to be prepared for whatever scenario presents itself. But I think we can still get a very good player who’ll be able to make an impact on our hockey club.”

Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 06.28.2013

682712 Florida Panthers

Panthers gear up for Sunday's NHL Draft

By Harvey Fialkov, Sun Sentinel

6:53 PM EDT, June 27, 2013

Unlike Colorado Avalanche vice president of hockey operations Joe Sakic, Panthers General Manager Dale Tallon doesn't believe in giving away his hand before the card game even begins.

So, unless Sakic is the best bluffer since Doyle Brunson, the Avs will select Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) center Nathan MacKinnon with the first pick of Sunday's NHL Entry Draft.

That would leave the Panthers with better leftovers than yesterday's Chinese food when they use the second overall pick on Portland Winterhawks (WHL) defenseman Seth Jones, a 6-foot-4, two-way force.

Or there's always MacKinnon's linemate left wing Jonathan Drouin, the Canadian Hockey League Player of the Year.

Jones, the son of former NBA forward Popeye Jones, is the NHL Central Scouting Bureau's top-ranked North American prospect. However, MacKinnon's stock has risen dramatically with an MVP performance in the Memorial Cup as he and Drouin led the Mooseheads to the CHL title over the Winterhawks.

Although the talent pool becomes quite shallow after the big four (MacKinnon, Jones, Drouin and Finnish center Aleksander Barkov) is off the board, Tallon and assistant GM Mike Santos are confident the Panthers will land a stud at No. 2 and bolster the team's depth with their six other picks.

"We'll get a good player, but it's up to us to do the right thing to develop that player,'' Santos said Thursday while traveling to Manhattan. "We're good any way we go. We could put Jones on a defensive corps that has [Alex] Petrovic, Erik Gudbranson and Michael Matheson, who we took last year [28th].

"We've got a lot of young talented forwards, too. [Jonathan] Huberdeau is Rookie of the Year, and we've got three young center prospects ready to start their pro career. Nick Bjugstad, Drew Shore, look what he did as a rookie last year, and Vincent Trocheck led the OHL in scoring.

"I don't think we have a particular need, especially when we have Jacob Markstrom in goal, so it gives us more options.''

Gudbranson and Huberdeau were the third picks of the 2010 and '11 drafts, respectively.

Tallon, no stranger to draft-day trades, has said he will listen to all offers for the prized pick if it will help the 30th-place Panthers rebound from last season's nightmarish, injury-plagued season.

Santos said the cell phones have been buzzing and he expects them to continue right up to 3 p.m. Sunday when the Avs go on the clock at Prudential Center, home of the New Jersey Devils, and site of the one-day, seven-round draft.

"We're in prime position to get a great player, but if there's something that makes sense to make our team better, we'll look at that, too,'' Santos said. "We'll either add to our core of young players or find a player to fill a need while the young players develop, or maybe we can do both.''

No Weiss talks

Santos said that he is not actively negotiating with any of his own unrestricted free agents, including veteran Stephen Weiss, goalie Jose Theodore and defenseman Tyson Strachan.

He did say the Panthers would entertain trade offers for Weiss before free agency kicks in next Friday.

"He's still under contract with us. If somebody wants the opportunity to speak to him early we would entertain that option,'' Santos said. "I'm sure there's interest in him because there's not a great market out there for centers.''

Santos said that decisions on which of his own restricted free agents to tender offers will be finalized Saturday. The deadline is Tuesday.

Among the more prominent RFAs on the Panthers are forwards Shawn Matthias and Peter Mueller, as well as Markstrom.

Santos high on Horachek

Santos, also General Manager of the San Antonio Rampage, said the hiring of Peter Horachek to coach the Panthers' AHL affiliate was a no-brainer.

"When a Peter Horachek is available you find a way to get him in your organization,'' said Santos, who worked with Horachek when both were in the Predators organization.

"He's a real good developer of young players who commands respect and has a very good presence on the bench. He's a winner.''

Sun Sentinel LOADED: 06.28.2013

682713 Los Angeles Kings

History of third round & 88th picks under Lombardi

Posted by JonRosen on 27 June 2013, 6:01 pm

Up to this point, no player selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the third round under general manager Dean Lombardi has played in the National Hockey League. It’s a somewhat misleading note, as no player under that banner is above 25 years old, and the Kings have actually found success in rounds 4-through-7, having won a Stanley Cup with Alec Martinez (4th round / 2007), Dwight King (4th round / 2007) and Jordan Nolan (7th round / 2009) taking regular shifts.

There aren’t many “hits” in the third round in general. For every Jonathan Quick (2005), Brad Marchand (2006) or Adam Henrique (2008), there’s a vastly higher number of players who have slipped into the ether of the average fan’s consciousness.

Los Angeles third round selections under Lombardi:

LA Kings Insider: LOADED: 06.28.2013

682714 Minnesota Wild

Wild's Fletcher busy making the rounds before NHL draft

Article by: MICHAEL RUSSO , Star Tribune

Updated: June 27, 2013 - 9:15 PM

NEW YORK – Between sessions of Thursday’s Board of Governors meeting, Chuck Fletcher and Dave Nonis dragged two chairs to a tiny table away from the rest of their colleagues.

There, the Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs general managers dined over cold cuts and salad for a half-hour.

With the trade season about to ramp up as Sunday’s NHL draft in Newark, N.J., approaches, there’s zero doubt they were talking shop.

“Or, I could have just been having lunch with him because he’s a friend,” Fletcher said, laughing. “We had to sit somewhere.”

After lunch, Fletcher huddled with old friend Doug Wilson, the San Jose Sharks GM with whom he made three trades two summers ago. Then, Fletcher chatted with Boston Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli. Then Edmonton Oilers President Kevin Lowe.

“It’s that time of year,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher is trying to be active. As the roster currently stands, the Wild has about $3.6 million in salary cap space at its disposal (includes the $795,000 Buffalo is picking up from Jason Pominville’s $4.505 million cap hit). In reality, it’s less because the Wild must leave room for injury call-ups and potential in-season acquisitions.

This doesn’t leave a lot of flexibility, especially when one considers the Wild hasn’t re-signed potential unrestricted free agent Matt Cullen and potential restricted free agents Cal Clutterbuck and Jared Spurgeon.

The one player Fletcher is believed to be getting significant traction on is Clutterbuck, the hard-hitting 25-year-old winger. If the Wild doesn’t find the right deal for the fan favorite, he will be re-signed.

“There’s a lot of different options [on the team],” Fletcher said. “It’s hard to comment on [Clutterbuck] because there’s a lot of different things that can happen. The bottom line is when we come out of this weekend, we’re going to be where we need to be or close to it.

“We’ll have our team probably mostly ready to go for next year, maybe with a couple exceptions. Clearly we have to work through our cap situation. I think it’s easily resolved, but there’s work to be done.”

Fletcher is trying to trade defenseman Tom Gilbert. If he can’t, the Wild likely will use one of its two allowable compliance buyouts on the Bloomington native. Buying out Gilbert would cost the Wild $1 million in each of the next two years but clear an additional $4 million in cap space next season.

It’s believed the Wild also would be willing to trade Devin Setoguchi, who is entering the last year of his contract, for the right return, while center Zenon Konopka and defenseman Justin Falk are also on the block. Kyle Brodziak could probably be snagged, too, but it’s hard to give up Brodziak because the Wild isn’t deep at center.

The Wild will work to extend Pominville’s contract later this summer.

So does Fletcher have a clear picture yet as to what he may accomplish?

“Clear as mud,” he joked. “There just seems to be a lot of dialogue on a leaguewide basis. A lot of teams are talking, a lot of things are going on. So you’re talking to one team and they may have an idea, but they’re also trying to do something else. Everything’s kind of tied together.

“So the reality is the vast majority of these conversations lead nowhere, at least immediately. Some do and some may lay the foundation for something down the road.”

Around the league

• The big news Thursday was Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman announcing that the Lightning would buy out Vincent Lecavalier.

• The trade rumor mill was churning. There are some big defensemen potentially on the block, from Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang to San Jose’s San Boyle to Toronto’s Dion Phaneuf. Some forwards potentially available include Chicago’s Dave Bolland and Tampa Bay’s Ryan Malone.

• Commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the NHL and International Olympic Committee will meet Monday to try to finalize the NHL’s participation in the 2014 Winter Games.

• Bettman also made clear that if the city of Glendale, Ariz., doesn’t reach an agreement with the newest ownership group assembled to buy the Phoenix Coyotes by Tuesday, “I don’t think the Coyotes will be playing there anymore.” A relocation to Seattle could be on the horizon.

• The day started on a somber tone when universally respected Winnipeg-based agent Don Baizley, who represented the Wild’s Mikko Koivu and Niklas Backstrom and such NHL greats as Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Teemu Selanne, succumbed to cancer at the age of 71. “I would not be where I am without him,” Backstrom said. “Just hearing his name mentioned brings a smile on my face because I remember all the great stories he had, all the advice he gave me and the way he taught me about life and hockey.”

Star Tribune LOADED: 06.28.2013

682715 Minnesota Wild

Minnesota Wild's Jason Pominville ready to show he's worth hefty price tag

By Chad Graff

Posted: 06/27/2013 12:01:00 AM CDT

Updated: 06/27/2013 08:40:43 PM CDT

NEW YORK -- The Wild's newest addition to the organization was the last to leave the locker room.

It was May 9, just a few strokes before midnight and about a half-hour after the Wild's season ended with a 5-1 loss in Game 5 of their opening-round playoff series against the Chicago Blackhawks.

Jason Pominville was sitting at his locker. His eyes were puffy, and his voiced cracked when he spoke.

Zach Parise came over and patted him on the shoulder before walking out of the room.

"I just hate losing. My wife would probably say I'm a sore loser," Pominville said this week, looking back on the 2013 season for the first time publicly.

And what a season it was; it started with him playing in Germany during the lockout, took him to Buffalo for the first 37 games and then to Minnesota on April 3, when he was traded for the first time in his eight-year NHL career.

Pominville was the Wild's big addition at the trade deadline and is one reason optimism still surrounds a team that collapsed late in the regular season and lost in the first round of the playoffs. He also is the reason the Wild don't have a first-round pick in Sunday's NHL draft. Unless the Wild trade up, it'll be the first time in franchise history they go without one.

The Wild gave up top prospects Johan Larsson and Matt Hackett along with this year's first-round pick, No. 16 overall, in exchange for Pominville and a second-round pick next year.

"You're going to pay a price for a player

of his talent and who's produced like he has," Wild assistant general manager Brent Flahr. "When you're adding a piece like that, especially at the trade deadline, you're going to pay a price, and we knew that."

That price becomes magnified if Pominville, who is entering the final year in his contract, plays only one full season in Minnesota.

"Our goal is certainly to re-sign Jason," general manager Chuck Fletcher said. "We acquired him to be a part of our organization for the longer term. It's very hard to find highly skilled offensive players, and we're thrilled we were able to land him, and he's going to be a big part of our team next year and hopefully beyond."

At one point, Pominville thought he might spend his entire career in Buffalo. Now, he said, he likes what he's seen from Minnesota -- both the state and the organization -- and wants to re-sign with the Wild.

"They're committed to winning," he said. "That's what you want as a player."

Pominville still wants to show the Wild what they're getting with him. In his 10th game with the Wild, on April 23, he took an elbow to the face from Los Angeles' Dustin Brown. The official diagnosis from doctors was a concussion, Pominville said, but neck stiffness and whiplash from the hit lingered longer than the concussion and prevented him from turning his head without pain. He missed the next five games, including the first three playoff games.

"It sucked," Pominville said. "It's really frustrating, especially that type of injury. It's not one you can really play through. If you're not all right, you don't have a chance to play hurt. If it's a shoulder injury or something else, maybe you can find a way to play through it. These types of injuries are serious, and you have to do what you have to do."

Pominville finished with four goals and five assists in 12 games with the Wild.

His versatility and ability on special teams and as a two-way forward made it easy for coach Mike Yeo to insert him in different situations. And he had known most of his teammates in some fashion, even playing with Parise, Tom Gilbert and Pierre-Marc Bouchard on a few occasions. He was a natural fit in the locker room.

Moving the family was the tougher part. The family already had moved from Montreal (his offseason home) to Buffalo at the end of the summer to Germany during the lockout and then back to Buffalo when the lockout ended. Now everyone had to pack up and move to the Twin Cities.

"We were trying to count all our moves the other day," Pominville said. "It's been crazy."

That meant moving his two children, ages 2 and 3, and all of the stuff that accumulates with living in the same location for a decade.

With limited time to search for options, the family lived out of a hotel in the Twin Cities.

"That was the toughest part," he said. "The hotel is kind of fun for a little while, but after a few weeks that wears off and you get tired of it."

Now he's back in Canada, about 20 minutes outside Montreal, where he's within driving distance of his family and his wife's family.

He has resumed his typical offseason routine of working out Monday through Friday with his personal trainer, using the workout plan the Wild sent him.

He expects to be back on the ice again in July, then join other Canadian pros for private on-ice workouts in August before training camp opens.

But his whirlwind year isn't over. His house in Buffalo just went on the market. And he still has to find a place in Minnesota.

But before that, he's relaxing after a harried six or seven months.

Pominville has caught up with some Wild players. Bouchard and Stephane Veilleux visited and went to one of his wife's shows. She is an aerial acrobat. On Tuesday, he bumped into Zenon Konopka at a golf tournament near Montreal.