John Tavares Sweepstakes Leaders Include Islanders, Maple Leafs

The New York Islanders are winning the NHL Entry Draft sweepstakes. This game is like golf and the lowest score wins.

The Islanders' 40 points puts them ahead of the Atlanta Thrashers with 48, Tampa Bay Lightning with 50, and the Toronto Maple Leafs with 53.

The 2009 Entry Draft Sweepstakes are now known as the John Tavares Sweepstakes.

In the preseason six of 10 NHL scouts polled by TSN said they would take the Swedish blueliner Hedman ahead of the Oshawa General sniper Tavares. At the World Junior Championship, Tavares jumped out in front of Victor Hedman in the race for top spot in the 2009 NHL entry draft.

At 6'5" and 220 pounds, some observers have begun to compare him to Chris Pronger.

Tavares' push to the top was his MVP performance at the 2009 World Junior Championships. He led Team Canada to its fifth-consecutive gold medal. Since then, he has scored his 200th goal in the Ontario Hockey League and was made captain of the London Knights.

Tavares made his OHL debut in 2005, before his 15th birthday. He had 45 goals and 77 points in his first year with the Oshawa Generals and raised plenty of eyebrows when he broke Wayne Gretzky's league record for goals by a 16-year-old last season.
       
He won the 2006 CHL Rookie of the Year Award, the OHL Rookie of the Year Award, and the 2007 CHL and OHL Player of the Year in his second season.

Hedman, from Sweden, is a defenceman currently playing with MODO Hockey in the Elitserien. He played for Sweden at the 2008 World Junior Championships, where he helped the team to a silver medal, losing to Team Canada 3–2 in the final, and was selected to the tournament All-Star Team.

He later became one of the youngest players to play for Sweden's national men's team when he made his debut at age 17 in an exhibition game against Norway.

Ranked third by many scouts and GMs is Magnus Svensson-Paajarvi, a left winger currently playing for Timrå IK in Elitserien. During the 2008 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships in the Czech Republic, he became the youngest player ever to play for Sweden during a World Junior Hockey Championship.

The top Americans who could get drafted in the first round of the 2009 draft are Jordan Schroeder of the University of Minnesota, Louis Leblanc, who plays for Omaha in the USHL, John Moore, who plays with Chicago in the USHL, and Chris Kreider, who plays for Andover Academy.