(The scene in the lobby of the Soundstage Arena in Dayton, OH is one of about a dozen regional hockey media members and Musicman General Manager Bill Corfield.)
Mr. Corfield steps to the podium...
Good evening everybody. Thanks for coming back to the rink at such a late hour.
This press conference has nothing to do with the game earlier this evening, where we lost to the visiting Minnesota Norsemen. They're a damn good team and I suspect they'll be in the playoffs this year. Mr. Wendt is doing a great job over there. As you know, Blake is a protege of mine - he worked for me years ago in the minors. He started as a parking lot attendant, then got promoted to an internship in our marketing department, then was hired as the assistant marketing director of the old Macon Whoopee back in the early part of this century. He worked his way up through hockey operations the hard way. Long story short, Blake's a good hockey guy and I'm glad for his success this year.
We asked you to return to the arena because we have a deal to announce.
Earlier this evening, we came to an agreement with the Las Vegas Aces. The deal is as follows. The Aces will send Dayton prospects RW - Kasper Bjorkqvist, Defenseman Dennis Chowlowski and goalie Elvis Merzlikins.
Bjorkqvist was a late 2nd rounder in 2016, Chowlowski was the 20th overall in the same year - 2016 and Elvis Merzlikins was a 3rd round draft pick in the 202014 Entry Draft.
The Aces also agree to send us the following draft picks from the next two drafts:
LAS 5th-18, SIB 6th-18, LAS 7th-18 & NIA 7th-18, NIA 8th-18, NIA 9th-18, LAS 9th-18, LAS 10th-18, LAS 11th-18, LAS 12th-18, LAS 4th-19, LAS 5th-19, LAS 6th-19 & LAS 7th-19, LAS 8th-19, LAS 9th-19, LAS 10th-19, LAS 11th-19 & LAS 12th-19 all come to Dayton.
We now hold the rights to 46 picks in the upcoming 2018 CCHL Entry Draft and 49 picks in the 2019 CCHL Entry Draft. That's a total of 95 picks over the next two drafts. We expect to, by the end of the 2019 draft, have the largest and we hope the best prospect system the league has ever seen. We also have a few small deals still in discussions so we may eclipse the 100 pick mark in the coming weeks.
Dayton has begun the legal transfer of $19,000,000 to the Las Vegas Aces account. We're able to afford this, and we wanted the picks. The three prospects are also people our scouts loved so we're happy to acquire their rights.
I'll take a few questions...
Q: Why have you been so aggressive to acquire these mid and late round picks? Everybody knows the odds of a pick after the 3rd round are very small...
A: I mentioned at an earlier press conference this year that we revamped our scouting department dramatically in the offseason. Between our networks of professional scouts in both North America, Europe, Russia and Asia, we've embraced the new metrics of drafting. Our scouts assure us that the next two drafts are robust, with quality talent abundant enough to last until our very latest rounds.
Q: You've got at least four defensemen, Mete, Sanheim, Borgman, and Hagg projected to make the club next year. You're fairly deep as it stands today with forwards and we've seen you aggressively target quality netminders over the last couple weeks. What do you think will be your targets next draft?
A: Well, we have picks in every round - right now at least - so we'll assess where we stand heading into the drafts. I suspect we'll go for the best upside play with our first rounders and probably our second rounds as well. I do think its wise if we target at least one good goalie prospect in the second round each year. After that? I suspect we'll take a blended approach. By the time we're done the '18 draft, we want to have plenty of depth at all positions.
Q: What happens if a bunch of your draftees all hit the NHL and then our disk at the same time, might you actually run the risk of having too many kids?
A: No. Some of these draftees will play for Dayton. Some will be packaged with other prospects and sent elsewhere to bring another piece back to Ohio. Maybe some will be sold for straight cash? Who knows?
Q: Beyond your scouts, what other draft resources are you planning on using?
A: All the usual suspects. There's a handful of great hockey websites, publications, etc. that we'll utilize. We'll look at everything, trust me.
"Anymore questions?"
"Ok, thanks for coming. Stay tuned, we may have another couple deals we may be possibly announcing in the next 48 hours or so. Night everybody!"
No comments:
Post a Comment