“If you get two (players) out of seven (rounds) each year that are significant NHL players, you’re doing a pretty good job,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “Three out of seven, and it’s a home run. That’s just the reality.” -
“I have a very simple philosophy: You work hard and you rely on your instincts, which are shaped by your experiences,” Kekalainen said. “You have to get to the core of the player, find out what motivates them, find out what they’re about. I wish we could draft 20-year-olds (like the NFL and NBA), but that’s not the way it works.”
“When he was here, Jarmo was seen as a draft guru,” said Jeremy Rutherford, who covers the Blues for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “When he left, fans were really disappointed. They thought he was the guy — more than anybody else — who was the driving force in the Blues coming back to prominence.”
Johnson, a 6-foot-4, 236-pound defenseman, was viewed by many as a “franchise” player with great offensive instincts, but he has been barely more than a serviceable player. He was traded to Colorado during the 2010-11 season. “I’d like to see the lists of the 29 other teams and see where they had (Johnson),” Kekalainen said. “I know we weren’t alone … not that it makes me feel any better. Some guys from that draft have already won Stanley Cups, so I get the criticism of that pick. But Erik Johnson is still young in his career. We’ll see where he is in 10 years.”
“We would have taken Eller at No. 9, but we thought we’d get him later, and we were right,” Kekalainen said. “For San Jose, Couture was definitely a player worth moving up for. “We had Perron ahead of Cole on our list, but we were convinced we could get Perron later, and we’d already taken a forward, so we went with (Cole). I remember sweating it out that Perron might not be there, but we got lucky.”
This year, the Blue Jackets have the 14th, 19th and 27th picks. Kekalainen said the team will be ready. “Every draft is different, not just the players available but the conversations between clubs,” he said. “We’re going to be active and aggressive.”
