LOS ANGELES — Auston Matthews is the consensus first overall pick, but it could also be the Year of the Finn at the NHL entry draft, the annual selection of top prospects that helps clubs replenish their rosters.
Matthews is generally considered to have a lock on the No. 1 spot which is owned by the Toronto Maple Leafs. But right behind him is Finnish goal scorer Patrik Laine and another hard-shooting right winger Jesse Puljujarvi.
If the Leafs do as expected Friday and select Matthews, then the hockey-mad city of Toronto would make the 18-year-old American the first player from the desert city of Phoenix, Arizona to be picked No. 1.
Matthews just missed out being eligible for the 2015 entry draft by two days and scouts say he would have been a top three pick in that draft as well.
Matthews scored 24 goals and 46 points in 36 games while playing for Zurich in the Swiss elite league last season.
He also led the USA to a bronze at the World Junior Championships and played on the US national team that finished fourth at the men’s IIHF World Championships last month in Russia. He posted nine points in 10 games at the Worlds.
Because Matthews comes from the hockey outpost of Phoenix he was slow to get on the radar of the USA’s National Team Development Program. He joined the USNTDP in 2013-14 after spending several seasons playing triple A travel hockey with the Arizona Bobcats under Montreal-born coach Ron Filion.
He comes from a sports family as his father played baseball and his uncle Wes Matthews played gridiron football for the Miami Dolphins in 1966.
Laine is expected to go No. 2 to the Winnipeg Jets who like the 18-year-old right winger’s flair around the net. Laine was named tournament MVP at the World Championships after being picked MVP of the Finnish league playoffs following his championship season with Tappara Tampere.
What impresses scouts most about Laine is his ability to score goals and he showed that at the Worlds by posting the most points of any draft-eligible player during the tournament.
Puljujarvi had surgery on his knee in May but that shouldn’t scare off the Columbus Blue Jackets who have the third pick.
Puljujarvi was a teammate of Laine at the World Juniors where Finland won the gold.
Another Finnish young gun, defenseman Olli Juolevi, is expected to go in the top 10 of the draft which takes place in Buffalo, New York.
This year’s draft could also see a number of Americans selected high.
Matthew Tkachuk, who was also born in Arizona but raised in St Louis, could hear his name called by the Edmonton Oilers who have the fourth overall pick. Tkachuk is the son of former player Keith Tkachuk who played more than 1,000 games in the NHL.
Center Pierre-Luc Dubois is the top rated Canadian in the draft and could go in the first five. Russian defenseman Mikhail Sergachev and Swedish forward Alexander Nylander are also rated in the top five.
Las Vegas gets expansion team
US gambling haven Las Vegas was awarded its first team in a major professional sports league Wednesday, when the National Hockey League granted the Nevada city an expansion team that will take the ice next year.
The NHL Board of Governors unanimously voted to approve the granting of the league’s 31st franchise during a meeting in Las Vegas while also voting to defer an expansion application from Quebec City, citing in part the devaluation of the Canadian dollar as a factor in the decision.
Billionaire Bill Foley will own the Las Vegas club, which will play in a new 17,368-seat arena that opened just months ago.
Foley and other investors will pay a $500 million expansion fee that will be distributed equally among the other 30 NHL teams.
The Quebecor group, which also hoped to put a new team in a new state-of-the-art arena, was frustrated in its dream to return NHL hockey to the Canadian city after the Quebec Nordiques moved in 1995 to Denver and became the Colorado Avalanche, breaking even more hearts in Quebec City by winning the Stanley Cup the very next season.
