I was at his draft. I was living in LA county in 2010 and scored free tickets to the draft because the Kings were literally handing them out for free for a while. I ended up grabbing like 4 of them and invited some of the players on my high school hockey team. While there, I got to see the draft floor action live which was pretty cool. Being a hockey nerd, I knew what most of the GM's looked like so I was able to predict two teams that were about to trade. I highly recommend experiencing it.
While there, I got to see:
- The Taylor/Tyler situation unfold
- Watch a player I shared ice with in CA drafted 20th overall (Beau Bennett to Pittsburgh)
- A high school player (Bjudgstad) being drafted fairly high which is unusual.
- Another kid from California (Emerson Etem, considered a steal of the draft at the time) get drafted by one of his local teams in Anaheim.
- And most importantly, the Coyotes get SO LUCKY to draft a projected top-5/top-10 pick in Brandon Gormley. Fortunately missing out on Cam Fowler, as he was riskier.
Not sure why I'm sharing this with you guys, but moral of the story, go experience a draft live if you get the chance. It's fun.
EDIT: I'm noticing the Coyotes have a lot of ties to this draft. Taylor Hall, Bjugstad, Burmistrov, Tinordi (which was a pick we traded to Montreal, ironically) Etem (although he only played in Tuscon), and of course, Gormley. The 2nd round had a few Coyotes in it as well including Tyler Pitlick,Johan Larsson, Calvin Pickard, Patrick Nemeth, and Oscar Lindberg (our guy.)
Edit 2: Oh man going through the later rounds it just doesn't stop. We really liked this draft.