Petrecki seems to be stuck in the 16-20 range. I'm wondering why this is, personally I think he is right up there with Alzner for being the best defenseman in the draft and his offensive game finally seems to be showing. Is the reason he's been stagnant while others are rising above him the level of competition he's up against compared to higher ranked players in the Major Junior or NCAA leagues?
The reason he remains stagnant is because we keep getting negative reports from the pro scouts.
In fact, just before noon I had a lengthy conversation with an eastern conference's director of player personnel (head scout).
I asked him if he'd seen Petrecki. He told me that he was going to, but his staff told him not to bother - he wouldn't want him in the first round, the second round, the third round, any round.
This is not the first scout to tell me that. I had a western conference scout who goes all over the world scouting tell me a few weeks back that the guys on his team's staff that have scouted Petrecki said the same thing to him - "Don't bother going to scout Petrecki; you don't want him." And this was a team that at the time didn't have a pick in the draft until the third round.
I'm telling you guys...Petrecki is this year's Vlad Evseev, Patrick O'Sullivan, Wes O'Neill and Nigel Williams rolled into one. From what I'm hearing I could see this guy not being selected until after the 50th pick. No guarantee or anything, just a feeling I'm getting.
Hockey sense is such an important component of today's NHL, and if there are major issues with it, it doesn't matter if you skate like Bobby Orr in Zdeno Chara's body.