The other night, Curtis and I were having a conversation about the Oilers draft picks when we accidentally stumbled upon a conspiracy involving the post-lockout drafts, specifically the '05 and '06 draft years.
Everyone remembers the first round in 2006.
The top three picks were Erik Johnson, Jordan Staal and Jonathan Toews.
(aside: look at the bitchface on Toews, haha)
And after that there were quite a few decent guys picked: Nicklas Backstrom, Phil Kessel, Jonathan Bernier, Patrik Berglund, etc.
Fair enough. The first round had some decent picks. They are guys who are now part of their organizations and important.
The second round had some gems too: Michal Neuvirth, Jamie McGinn, Cory Emmerton, Milan Lucic just to name a few.
As you dig deeper though, something seems off. There are more and more names that don't seem to make sense. There are more and more players that we have no idea who they are.
And it happens, we kn6w, as the draft gets deeper and deeper there are less of a chance that these players will actually make the big show.
Then we dug deeper, going to the 2005 draft. Everyone knows who was first overall.
But after that, we're lucky we even know the top ten.
There were a lot of decent guys taken in the first round. But after that, the quality seems to drop off.
And then there are the names that even we don't know. They are players that we've never heard of or even seen.
Names that sound fake.
That's how we uncovered the conspiracy and how the NHL pads the draft. Maybe they don't have enough guys or something but there are some names that just can't be real.
The names are weird. Let's take a look at the 2006 draft. The guys aren't real, they can't be with names like:
Riku Helenius. The name sounds like a Die Hard Muppet villain or something. Where does he play? In Tampa's farm teams? Right? Has anyone even seen him in real life? We don't think he exists either.
Igor Makarov. He is literally a bad guy in Call of Duty.
Bryce Swan. Just stop. We know you're not real
Joe Ryan. You can never trust a man with two first names. Didn't your mother teach you anything?
Keith Seabrook. That's just a defense pairing, come on.
We know.
Dick Axelsson. klsdjfkljsdklfjds WHO EVEN NAMES THEIR KIDS 'DICK' ANYMORE? COME ON, NHL! GIVE IT UP!
Aaron Marvin. Another two first names dude, doesn't have a Wikipedia page. Doesn't exist.
Matt Marquardt. What? Isn't that a name from 'Shrek'?
Jay Barriball. Nope. Cannot exist. A last name like that, no.
Kevin Koopman. Obviously fake. There is no way a kid with a name like wouldn't have been beat up every day.
There are basically eighteen real guys from the first round of the '06 draft:
E Johnson, Jordan Staal, Toews, Backstrom, Kessel, Brassard, Okposo, Mueller, Frolik, Bernier, Little, Grabner, C Stewart, Giroux, Varlamov, Berglund, and Foligno.
Out of 30. It just gets worse after that.
Stefan Ridderwall. Niko Snellman. David Kveton.
Korbinian Holzer. Now they're just messing with us. That's a Star Trek species.
It's like the NHL just picked names out of a hat and then threw them together. Some of these just sounds made up.
Hugo Carpentier. "Look, I'm Canadian and we don't name our kids 'Hugo'." - Curtis
Brent Gwidt. Cannot be real. Cannot. That's a keyboard smash.
Tyler Ruegsegger. Too many 'g' to be real.
Juuso Puustinen. Okay, we can't. That's enough.
The 2005 draft is just as bad. A bunch of good players and ones that we definitely know exist and then BAM! a bunch of made up dudes.
Robby Dee. Is this the spawn of Ricky Bobby and Gerry Dee?
Hmm? Is that how you thought of this, NHL?
Bobby Bolt. Uh, what? That cannot be a real name. There is no way that's a real name. Apparently the NHL even went so far as to make a Wikipedia page for the fake kid. No picture though so he doesn't exist.
Jordan Lavallee-Smotherman. Okay, oh my god we can't. First, it's hyphenated and second, SMOTHERMAN. SMOTHERMAN? ARE YOU KIDDING? He sounds like a comic book villain or superhero.
Matt Butcher. Another movie villain.
Luciano Aquino. He sounds like he founded a religion.
Trevor Hendrikx. At first we thought it was a typo but nope, that's his last name. And Curtis was super upset to find out that he played five years in Junior.
You can't do that. How did this happen?
Matt Generous. This isn't even creative, NHL. Come on, we could have done a better job.
On some level, this terrifies us.
The fact that the NHL can just make up players to pad a draft year amazes us. Like, we know that the '03 and '08 drafts were flukes in how many great players were drafted those years but come on, you can't fool us all the time.
Maybe there is a more sinister reason why the players do not show up for the rounds after the first. Maybe we stumbled onto to the real reason that the NHL draft isn't televised after the first round.
Think about it. It all makes sense now, right?
Love,
Mulder and Scully (aka Noodles and Curtis)
(This post is all in jest. We're putting this disclaimer here for the idiots that don't get humor.)
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