Familiar names taken on Day 2

Eric Duhatschek

Globe and Mail Update

Day 2 of the NHL entry draft was Family Day, as three more players with significant NHL bloodlines were selected in the second and third rounds.

After a flurry of trades on opening night, there were no deals of any consequence Saturday, as the teams concentrated on drafting players and trying to find the ubiquitous diamonds in the rough that characterize the later rounds of every draft.

Jared Staal, the fourth of the famous Staal clan, went 49th overall to the Phoenix Coyotes with a choice acquired from the Ottawa Senators. Staal's older brothers Eric, Marc and Jordan all played in the NHL last season for Carolina, New York and Pittsburgh respectively. The younger Staal, who was rated 43rd by Central Scouting in the final rankings after a mid-term rating of 32, did not attend the draft in person.

In the third round, with the 66th overall pick, the New York Islanders selected David Toews, younger brother of the Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews, a Calder Trophy finalist this season. Also chosen: Philip McRae, son of Basil McRae, who went to the St. Louis Blues with the 33rd overall selection.

Coyotes general manager Don Maloney called Staal "a real projection pick in our minds — not nearly as evolved as his three brothers at this stage. However, after meeting him and seeing him, we like his intelligence, we like his hands and we feel we can work on the physical part of his game."

The Coyotes clearly put some stock in bloodlines. The night before, they chose Viktor Tikhonov, grandson of the famous Soviet Union national team coach, with the 28th overall pick. They also took Ron Hextall's son Brett, a centre from Penticton, in the sixth round.

How important are blood lines? According to Brett Hull, son of Bobby and the co-general manager of the Dallas Stars, he's not sure how much weight to put on them.

"I haven't been involved enough, but I think you have to look at the player first - ahead of the bloodlines," said Hull. "If there's a fine line, then you look at the blood lines. You just take my family: I played, no one else did, and I think my brother Blake was a better player than I was. So is it the blood line, or opportunity? I don't know. It's a hard question. I think [pedigree] has some merit, but you've got to look at the player first."

Hull was participating in his first draft as a GM. How did he find it?

"Boring," answered Hull. "Your scouts do it all. If you don't trust them, you hire new ones. We've done pretty well without a lot of firsts."

St. Louis had back-to-back picks early in the second round, after landing a premier prospect, Alex Pietrangelo on Friday night. After they took McRae with a choice acquired from the Atlanta Thrashers 33rd overall; they followed up by selecting with Jake Allen, a goaltender with St. John's of the QMJHL at 34.

Allen was the first player selected from the Quebec League, after that loop was shut out on opening night. The first skater from the QMJHL went one player later- Anaheim took Nicolas Deschamps, a centre from Chicoutimi, who was rated 21st by the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau.

As a league, the QMJHL rallied on the second day and ended up with 27 players selected overall. The Ontario Hockey League led with 46 followed by the Western League with nine.

Altogether, 119 of the 211 players selected hailed from Canada, followed by 46 from the United States, 17 from Sweden and then nine from Russia. Only three players were chosen from the Czech Republic, one more than from Denmark.

Montreal was the only Canadian team that didn't have a first-round pick after trading their first rounder, 25th overall, to Calgary as part of the Alex Tanguay deal.

Montreal, choosing 56th, took Danny Kristo of the USA Under-18 team as the first of five players they took, three of them American. Kristo, a right winger from Edina, MN, had 18 goals in 47 games last year. He is 5-11, 172 pounds.

Other picks by Canadian teams in the second round: Vancouver took Saint John defenceman Yann Sauve, 41st overall; Ottawa took Omaha (USHL) defenceman Patrick Wiercioch with the 42nd pick; Calgary took Spokane centre Mitch Wahl with the 48th pick; and Toronto took Lincoln (USHL) right winger Jimmy Hayes with the 60th pick.

Sauve, rated 29 by Central Scouting, is big but not especially mobile. Wiercioch is headed for the University of Wisconsin. Wahl played on Spokane's Memorial Cup championship team and made the tournament all-star team. Hayes is 6-5, 210; he played only 21 games last season, scoring four goals.

The Los Angeles Kings took nine players altogether and traded away three lower choices in Saturday's draft, to stockpile more picks for next year.

The Kings probably set themselves back in the short term by trading away Mike Cammalleri to Calgary without replacing him, but general manager Dean Lombardi suggested the organization was committed to building around goaltending and defence and thus, were prepared to show patience.

The Kings took defencemen with their first three picks: Drew Doughty and Colten Teubert in the first round Friday night and Vjateslav Voinov from Russia with the 32nd choice Saturday.

"The danger with young players is, if you don't develop them properly, you're only going to go backwards," said Lombardi, who is still searching for a new head coach after firing Marc Crawford two weeks ago.

"When I took over this organization, the biggest problems were on the back end and in goal. Have we upgraded our chance to have a special defence and goaltending? Yes. If you want to just throw them all out there, you could end up like the New York Islanders.

"I always go back to the Islanders when they had McCabe, Jonsson, Chara and Berard. That was a premium young defence. All four of those kids are out there and they don't have a pillar like Ray Bourque to hold on to — or a goaltender to get them through — and all of them lost their confidence.

"So you've got to be real careful. Defence, after goaltending, is the second hardest position. You can always hide a forward because they're not held [accountable], when they turn over the puck, it doesn't end up in your net.

"If you really are committed to a long-term plan, you've got to be patient."

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