Via KK, Sportsnet’s Rory Boylen took note of the fact that the Red Wings have 11 picks in this year’s draft:
It’s also worth pointing out the teams that have the most picks in the early rounds. While the Red Wings hold the most selections overall, Montreal and the Rangers pick most often in the first two rounds: New York will hold five of the first 62 picks at least, while Montreal (which holds an NHL-high four second-rounders), will also picks five times across Round 1 and 2.
One final tidbit: as the Detroit Red Wings continue to retool, draft picks have become more important to them. This is the second year in a row the Wings could pick six times in the first three rounds, but it’s almost unprecedented for Detroit to hold multiple first-round picks. Remember, in the 16 NHL drafts from 1997 to 2012, Detroit didn’t pick in the first round at all 10 times.
This year, they acquired Vegas’s first-rounder in the Tomas Tatar deal. If Detroit keeps it (which you have to believe they will), the Wings will pick twice in the opening round of the draft for the first time since the 1978 amateur draft. At that point in the league’s history, the draft age was 20 instead of 18, it was called the amateur draft as opposed to the entry draft, and ’78 marked the last selection process before the NHL-WHA merger.
And based on the trajectory so far, there will no doubt be a concerted effort by KH & company to gather even more picks & offload contracts by draft day. This is the closest they’ve ever come to calling this a rebuild – if not through their words, then certainly through their actions…guess we’ll see. The draft lotto should be interesting too – not sure they can do worse than last year.