Post-Draft Wrap-Up

• In his post-draft wrap-up on HIW, DPlaya includes (among other things) links to articles with quotes from Chase Drake (who wasn't drafted) and Patrick Wiercioch (who was drafted by the Sens). He also mentions that the Sens will be buying out Ray Emery's contract, perhaps opening the door for top goaltending prospect Brian Elliott.
  
  
• Uwbadgers.com can't comment on the recruits who haven't signed LOIs yet, so they indicate that 4 Badgers were chosen in the draft. Milewski has the complete list of the 7 Badgers who were selected, and he wasn't kidding when he said it was a long wait between the 2nd and 7th rounds.

• With 5 picks in the top 2 rounds (picks 17, 37, 42, 43, 51) and 4 defensemen chosen in the top 2 rounds (picks 17,37,42,43), Milewski argues that this might be the best draft ever for the Badgers. Baggot takes it a step further and argues that this might be the best draft ever for a college program, as no school has ever had 5 players taken with the top 51 picks. The UW record for number of Badgers chosen in a single draft is 8 (1982: Eric Faust, Patrick Flatley, Tony Granato, Jim Johannson, Dave Maley, Ted Pearson, Ernie Vargas, Marty Wiitala), but only two those players went in the top 2 rounds.



• Overall, the 2008 draft was the "Year of the Defensemen" and that seems to hold for the Badgers this year as well. Baggot points out that in the last 3 drafts the Badgers had 8 defensemen taken in the first 2 rounds, to which Mike Eaves says ,"It's a growing reputation. The proof is in the pudding." And Anaheim GM Brian Burke (who selected 3 Badger defensemen in this year's draft) says, "The thing that sold it for us is that Wisconsin is a top program for developing players." (So, does this mean they'll let the 3 players they picked stick around for a bit?)
  


• In the above Baggot post, Baggot expresses suprise that Thurber was not selected as the RLR listed him 84th and called him and "underrated gem". And apparently Baggot lost a friendly wager with Ray Thurber when he guaranteed Ray that Matt would be selected.