2009 NHL Mock Draft 2.0

A lot has been going on in the NHL over the past month.  Jim Balsaille had his third attempt at purchasing an NHL franchise and moving it to Hamilton thwarted by Gary Bettman.

Sidney Crosby and company finally fulfilled their destiny by winning the Stanley Cup, and as always, Alexander Ovechkin won multiple awards at the NHL awards ceremony, only this time in the great city of Las Vegas.

But now with all of these events finally out of the way, the next event on the agenda is of course the draft.

There is still a lot of speculation out there regarding the draft. A lot of players are still quickly rising and dropping in prospect ranking, and there still might be trades going on in between now and when the draft starts on June 27th.

But once again, without further ado, here is my personal Mock Draft, the second edition.

 

1. The New York Islanders will select John Tavares of the London Knights

This is actually a much harder decision for this team than most people would think. John Tavares is a world class talent, but so is Victor Hedman. This pick will all boil down to one thing.

Does Garth Snow want to rebuild the team, or rebuild the fan base? Both players can be building blocks for the future, but let’s be honest, only one will bring in the fans.

 

2. The Tampa Bay Lightning will select Victor Hedman from MoDo (Sweden)

Once again this is a much more complicated pick then one would anticipate. Yes this team needs defense and yes Victor Hedman would help them with that problem. But the issue here is whether or not they trade out of the spot to dump salary.

This team has too much salary for next season and General Manager Brian Lawson need to address that before the start of next season. So as for right now, the obvious choice is Hedman. But don't be surprised if that changes in between now and the draft.

 

3. The Colorado Avalanche will select Matt Duchene of the Brampton Battalion

This to me is a no brainer for the Avalanche. Joe Sakic is coming to the end of the line and they need somebody to replace him. Matt Duchene is a fast, hard working player who is a playmaker and leads by example.

Best part is that he has arguably the best wrist shot out of any prospect in this year’s draft. Sound a little familiar?

 

4. The Atlanta Thrashers will select Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson from Timra (Sweden)

This was a hard decision because the Thrashers are a team that needs a lot of things. But the most important thing this team needs is a solid first line. They already have two thirds of it with Bryan Little being the center and Ilya Kovalchuk manning the right. So drafting Paajarvi-Svensson makes perfect sense.

It would finally complete a first line that has been incomplete for some time.

 

5. The Los Angeles Kings will select Evander Kane of the Vancouver Giants

This team is scary enough as it is with the amount of blue chip prospects it has in its system. With this pick, they are adding another one. Evander Kane is a fast power forward that with a year or two of strength training will become a premier power f

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