Intro
With the draft just over now, I wanted to take a look at the last five drafts I spent in the Colorado War Room (not including the one that just happened where I replaced Jumbo in GM Chat since he was away). I'll give some hindsight on who we picked, who I suggested we picked (obviously drafting can be made to look easy in hindsight, but I remember vividly suggesting everyone of these picks). I want to stress how much I love the GMs that have been leading the team since I joined the War Room and that I'm not trying to undermine the job they do or make them look bad (except maybe in one pick in part 3 - S58, but that's only to tease them).

Part 1 - S56
Part 2 - S57
Part 3 - S58
Part 4 - S59
Part 5 - S60

S58 SMJHL Entry Draft
Round 1 - Pick 2

pick: Fedor Sotakov
Status: Inactive
TPE: 433

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Fedor Sotakov	RW	COL	66	13	16	29	-24	37	113	11.50%	16:18	31	23	0	1	40	57
59	Fedor Sotakov	LW	COL	66	14	34	48	18	20	150	9.30%	16:55	25	11	0	0	49	56
60	Fedor Sotakov	LW	COL	49	10	6	16	-2	12	62	16.10%	10:43	12	6	0	0	24	18

lespoils' choice: KEKW Kekkonen
Status: Active

Ah, the infamous Fedor Sotakov. I'm putting KEKW, who we ended up drafting with the next pick of the draft, because I was more inclined to take the chance that Sotakov would fall to #7 or even #11 (the pick we traded up to get #2) and that if not other good players would be available still. But the price to trade up was #43 that season and a 2nd in the next season which wasn't a whole lot for a player we really liked. We'll never know what would've happened with that. What we do know is that pick #11 ended being Daud Ramza and #43 was Ville Kurri, while Sotakov was... a self-obsessed crybaby. Trading up to draft him so high in the SMJHL draft probably didn't help keeping his ego in check, but the facts remain: he quit the site not long after his SHL draft in dramatic fashion, accusing every team that didn't pick him of nepotism. He still had a usable build so we kept him. He came back for a while not long before the update scale change then seemingly went away again. Not wanting to provoke him more, we didn't impose a new build on him with the update scale change, hoping he'd come back and change his build himself. Good intentions, terrible result. Sotakov is now playing on a 425 build according to the old scale, not sure how it translates to the new one. He's still good enough to help a team out and we managed to trade him to get back McDangle that we had lost to the Grizzlies in the expansion draft, so it's not a total loss, but it still stings to think about.



Round 1 - Pick 3

pick: Karl-Eric-Karl2-Wojtek Kekkonen @WannabeFinn
Status: Active
TPE: 673

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	KEKW Kekkonen	LW	COL	66	11	15	26	0	8	108	10.20%	14:54	49	22	0	0	49	24
59	KEKW Kekkonen	RW	COL	66	16	21	37	21	12	156	10.30%	16:52	28	23	0	0	61	52
60	KEKW Kekkonen	RW	COL	66	30	26	56	20	8	222	13.50%	17:37	41	20	0	0	18	73

lespoils' choice: KEKW Kekkonen
Status: Active

It's when KEKW fell from #1 that we pulled the trigger on the Sotakov trade, because otherwise we were set on hoping for Fedor at #3, but now we couldn't pass on that opportunity. KEKW has been a great player in his three seasons in Colorado, as was expected. It's unfortunate for us that he was called up by Buffalo after three seasons but that's just how business goes.



Round 1 - Pick 7

pick: Angus McFife XVIII @micool132
Status: Active
TPE: 783

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Angus McFife XVIII	RD	COL	66	5	15	20	0	18	92	5.40%	18:44	34	13	0	0	23	66
59	Angus McFife XVIII	RD	COL	66	7	25	32	4	26	135	5.20%	20:56	32	17	0	0	22	86
60	Angus McFife XVIII	RD	COL	66	12	27	39	5	36	208	5.80%	22:39	16	38	0	0	75	98

lespoils' choice: Angus McFife XVIII

Ô Capitaine mon Capitaine! An unanimous choice in the War Room at that point, only good things to say about that man as a player, a user, a captain, a friend. He's going to win the Cup, we have to give it to him this season.



Round 2 - Pick 19

pick: Reidar Gronkjaer
Status: Inactive
TPE: 217

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Reidar Gronkjaer	C	COL	66	9	17	26	6	10	61	14.80%	10:48	27	9	0	0	41	22
59	Reidar Gronkjaer	C	N/A	0
60	Reidar Gronkjaer	C	N/A	0

lespoils' choice: Reidar Gronkjaer


collective fail: Cormac Pònaire
Status: Active
TPE: 645

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Cormac P?naire	C	CAR	66	3	11	14	-23	22	46	6.50%	8:31	16	19	0	0	74	77
59	Cormac P?naire	LW	CAR	66	16	24	40	0	6	148	10.80%	16:56	59	13	0	0	104	80
60	Cormac Ponaire	LW	CAR	66	25	21	46	-2	24	152	16.40%	17:16	34	28	0	0	123	94

Everyone was on board with drafting veteran recreate Copenhagen with his player Reidar Gronkjaer and wait to pick our good friend wuma, still very active in the Colorado LR, with our next pick. Great blunder by us all, not only because Gronk ended up a very low-TPE top-tier inactive in the SMJHL but because Pònaire did not make it to be available for us in the third round. Both are still going to be playing this season, Gronkjaer in a supporting role with the Scarecrows while Pònaire will have a proeminent role with the Kraken this season.



Round 3 - Pick 31

pick: Niall Nails
Status: Inactive
TPE: 182

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Niall Nails	RW	COL	0
59	Niall Nails	RW	N/A	0
60	Niall Nails	RW	N/A	0

lespoils' choice: Slavakov Vladimirashenko
Status: Active
TPE: 720

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Slavakov Vladimirashenko	RW	NL	66	3	14	17	6	14	56	5.40%	8:57	32	10	0	0	30	58
59	Slavakov Vladimirashenko	RW	NL	66	8	19	27	1	31	109	7.30%	14:37	26	20	0	1	38	100
60	Slavakov Vladimirashenko	LW	NL	66	23	38	61	47	23	193	11.90%	16:08	39	23	0	1	40	95

collective fail: Viktor Zukal
Status: Active
TPE: 488

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Viktor Zukal	RW	DET	66	13	14	27	-3	28	126	10.30%	16:35	31	29	0	0	52	134
59	Viktor Zukal	RW	DET	66	9	15	24	-2	16	115	7.80%	14:53	44	13	0	0	39	130
60	Viktor Zukal	RW	DET	66	13	14	27	-3	28	126	10.30%	16:35	31	29	0	0	52	134

Niall Nails is another one that will not live long into people's memories. The first thing I want to address is how we did not learn anything from missing out on Pònaire and just took a gamble that another well-loved Colorado alumni would fall to our next pick, which didn't happen again. But more importantly, and I know the people in Colorad are tired of hearing me talk about it, is that I'm still salty over us not picking Slavakov. Sure, it's not the first time in this piece that I mention wanting a different player than who we went for, and it's not the last. I'm honestly okay with these other times; I would suggest a player that I liked but the GMs had someone they liked too, it was possible that my player fell to our next pick, and no one can see the future. But this one time I didn't like the player, I loved that prospect and was already suggesting we draft him in the second round. I can say with certainty, and I'm sorry to everyone else I might offend with this, that this is the player I've wanted us to draft the most that was ignored. He told me after the fact that he was sure he was coming to us given our chat, so much that he had told his girlfriend (there are people who play this and have girlfriends? couldn't be me). And yet he almost fell to us, being drafted #47 when we had #49. The end result, however, is that this absolute stud plays elsewhere and I'm still a tad salty about it. It doesn't make my love for Birdman and Jumbo any smaller, but I make sure to remind them (and now Ruggsy) from time to time about the risks of not listening to me.



Round 5 - Pick 49

pick: Jack Nishimori @qWest
Status: Inactive
TPE: 627

Season	Player	Pos	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	"+/-"	PIM	S	S%	ATOI	GA	TA	W	L	BLK	HIT
58	Jack Nishimori	RW	COL	66	4	13	17	3	8	67	6.00%	14:51	16	15	0	0	32	41
59	Jack Nishimori	RW	COL	66	13	20	33	24	28	138	9.40%	15:51	23	13	0	0	31	43
60	Jack Nishimori	RW	COL	66	17	27	44	1	30	189	9.00%	17:48	32	32	0	0	63	57

lespoils' choice: Jack Nishimori

We spotted Nishimori, played by a previous DSFL GM of mine, till available in the 5th round, and made him our redemption pick of that draft. He's going to be a huge part of our team again this season; him and Angus being all that's left for us of that class entering their 4th season of SMJHL eligibility isn't ideal, obviously, but they do a great job helping out and leading the newest classes of players.