Yesterday I went through what general manager Jarmo Kekalainen and head of amateur scouting Ville Siren said about the team's two first-round selections. But what about the rest of the draft?
Overall, Kekalainen seemed pleased with the team's draft.
"We got some good players," he said. "And we got guys that were higher on our list so that makes us happy but as always time will tell how right our list was but we got guys that were fairly high on our list."
The club drafted two Russian players, which was a topic of conversation during the draft because of the situation going on due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Wild star Kirill Kaprizov is wanted in Russia for allegedly buying a falsified military ID card in 2017.
— The Athletic NHL (@TheAthleticNHL) July 7, 2022
What is the level of concern?
"Its clear Russia is trying to pressure NHL players right now not to leave Russia"@RussoHockey with more: https://t.co/0XRUr9ZHEW pic.twitter.com/ffquA1Huk0
When asked about this, Kekalainen didn't say whether or not this situation affected the Russian prospects' draft positioning.
"I can't speak on anybody else's behalf," he said. "I think we just did our list the way it was it came to us when we felt it was an appropriate time to draft them and that's it."
On a lighter note, Kekalainen is happy with the return the team received in the Seth Jones trade a year ago.
"Yeah, well, I've said it before that when you depart with a real good player like Seth Jones you expect to have a big return," he said. "And I think we got a good return and we're happy with it and we're going to build into the future with a lot of those parts that we got in the trade."
Kekalainen also spoke about the process of going through lean years in order to obtain high draft picks to select top talent.
"I've said this many times throughout the years that unless you suffer through a couple of bad years and get to pick high in the draft you usually don't get that top-end talent that can win you championships," he said, later adding that "You often forget when you build and suffer through those years that when it finally materializes and you become good and you can stay good for a while it's easy to forget those bad years when you had to suffer through tough times and pick high. But you look at the championship teams, there's not too many there that haven't had those years where they had to go through tough times but got the high draft picks."
Kekalainen said that second-round pick Luca Del Bel Belluz received a first-round rating from the team.
"We had him rated in the first round," he said. He latter added that "we like his two-way game, that's [an] important part. In the NHL it doesn't matter what kind of offense you have if you want to win championships you're going to have to play a two-way game all year."
In addition to his defense, Del Bel Belluz scored 30 goals and 76 points in 68 regular-season games for the OHL's Mississauga Steelheads in 2021-22.
"But he's also got some pretty special qualities in making plays and being creative offensively and so forth so we think we got a good one."
He also praised Jordan Dumais, the forward the club selected 96th overall.
"It's pretty extraordinary to have 109 points in one season as an 18-year-old," he said. "And he doesn't have a lot of size but he's got some grit and he's played through [having] the target on his back being the leading scorer of his team and still being able to produce, so we've got a lot of faith in him. He's got some special skills and instincts so we'll see what he can do."
He also spoke about Kirill Dolzhenkov, the forward the club selected 109th overall.
"He's huge. And he can play too. So again I think he has a big upside and that's what we're banking on."
When talking about Sergei Ivanov, the goalie they selected 138th overall, Kekalainen said he personally focuses more on the mental side than the technical side of the position.
"I'm looking at more of the mental side of things," he said. "[If] they let in one bad goal, how do they respond and how calm, how confident they look when the games are on the line and [those] types of things."
On the club's final pick, forward James Fisher, Kekalainen was impressed with his size.
"He's got a good frame," he said. "He plays a physical brand of game, and he can also play, so he's got some great toughness to him. We got one guy from our size strength forward column."
Only time will tell how these picks pan out, but it's safe to say the club is pleased with the players they selected.
