The Canucks entered Saturday with all six of their picks remaining, but that ended quickly when they moved their  second-round pick to the Wild in exchange for their 3rd round (71st overall) and 4th round (101st overall) picks. That should give you an indication of how deep the draft is and Vancouver's bet the guys they targeted wouldn't be around near 60. Cue the dark horses!

At 71st Gillis drove right back to the Q well with 17 year old goalie David Honzik, a 6'2'', 207 lb prospect from the Czech Republic. He played for the Victoriaville Tigres this past season, going 17-12 with a .884 SV%. If you feel like rosterbating like a meth addict, he's been compared to Pekka Rinne. Hockey's Future adds: 

A big goaltender, Honzik moves very well in the crease. Playing a butterfly style, he sometimes drops down too quick, but thanks to his large frame, he takes up a large part of the net even when on his knees. With such noticeable improvement over the course of the season, some think that Honzik is just scratching the surface of his potential.

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The road to the next Stanley Cup Champion begins with the NHL Entry Draft this weekend. A year ago Gillis gave up on Steve Bernier and coughed up two prospects (the 25th pick overall plus Michael Grabner) to acquire Victor Oreskovich and Keith Ballard. If the intent at the time was for Oreskovich to play more playoff games than Get-Baumgartner-on-the-line-because-no-one-trusts Ballard and Grabner to be up for rookie of the year, then roll out the banner because mission fucking accomplished.

Starting tonight and continuing into tomorrow, Gillis and the scouts jump into the spotlight to address the franchise's short and long term needs. It also means that Missy, eightseven and the other NM ladies get to oogle the kids (you know I'm right) who will struggle with comically large jerseys in front of the hockey world before being ushered quickly off stage for even more comical photo spreads. See above.

After the jump, we'll look at what GMMG may do with his selections. Naturally since we're guessing none of it will come true and instead he'll draft a broken table leg from OHL Whitehorse. Book it.

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While we were caught up in the push for the Cup, the rest of the league was busying themselves with the upcoming NHL Entry Draft. As we did last year, SBN has been running a mock draft and - son of a bitch - Vancouver went on the clock the day after the Game Seven loss. So I was slightly distracted.

I'll have more on this tomorrow in the draft thread, but my immediate guess was they still need to stockpile defensive prospects. As luck would have it, one of the higher ranked guys slipped into our laps at the 29th slot.

Meet WHL Portland Winterhawks defenseman Joe Morrow.

If you're interested in the simple, Morrow's father Dave Morrow was selected by Vancouver 56th overall in the 1977 draft. Huzzah.

Moving away from that, Morrow is projected as a puck moving defenseman who maintained a point per game pace in the 2011 WHL playoffs. At 6'1'' and 198 lbs, Morrow is a good passer, had a great shot and a bit of a speedster.

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Okay, so obviously the big action happened yesterday, when we traded our #25 pick with Steve Bernier and Michael Grabner to the Panthers for Keith Ballard and Victor Oreskovich.  We also didn't have a 2nd round pick (we traded that for Bernier originally) or a 3rd round pick (traded for Andrew Alberts).  So, in other words, this was a very boring draft for us.  But here's who we did eventually get:

4th round (115th overall): Patrick McNally (D)
Originally from Glen Head, New York, Patrick played for the Milton Academy in Massachusetts last year, earning 35 points.  He plans on attending Harvard either this fall or in 2011.

5th round (145th overall): Adam Polasek (D)
Originally from Ostrava, Czech Republic, he played for the PEI Rockets in the QMJHL last year.  At 6'2 and 194 lb, he played 66 games last year, earning 13 goals and 28 assists for 41 points and getting 91 PIM.

6th round (172nd overall): Alex Friesen (C)
At 5'10 and 187 lb, he has played for the Niagara Ice Dogs in the OHL for the last 3 seasons.  The Niagara-on-the-Lake native had 23 goals and 37 assists for a total of 60 points this year, as well as 94 PIM.

6th round (175th overall): Jonathan Iilahti (G)
Originally from Vaasa, Finland, he played 14 games for the Espoo Blues in the Finnish Junior League last year, with a 2.67 GAA and a .904% sv.  His bronze-medal performance at the U-18 World Championship turned heads this year, and he was ranked 6th overall for European goalies by Central Scouting for this draft.

7th round (205th overall): Sawyer Hannay (D)
Originally from Moncton, New Brunswick, he plays for the Halifax Mooseheads of the QMJHL.  In 54 games last year, he had 6 points, 158 PIM, and a -17.  By the way, those penalties come from the fights that have already earned him a profile page on HockeyFights.com.

Well, looks like Gillis stocked up on young defensemen in the bottom rounds.  That goalie looks like someone to keep an eye on.  Canucks.com has a lot more on the picks, and so does the Province.

A few days ago we polled the NM faithful as to who they wanted to see picked in round one and the answer was a blueliner. So congrats folks, you win!

Moving on to day #2. Gillis doesn't have a pick until the fourth round but that isn't stopping him from trying to move up. Rumors towards the end of the yesterday suggested Bieksa for a pick could be in the works with a team like Boston who have two second round picks. If he stands pat, Vancouver won't make a selection until the fourth round (#115) followed by a fifth (#145), two in the sixth (#172 & #175) and one in the seventh (#205).

For the sake of comparison, notable Vancouver selections from deeper in the draft include Pavel Bure (#113, 6th round, 1989), Gino Odjick (#86, 5th round, 1990), Adrian Aucoin (#117, 5th round, 1992), Scott Walker (#124, 5th round, 1993) Brent Sopel (#144, 6th round, 1995), Matt Cooke (#144, 6th round, 1997), Bieksa (#151, 5th round, 2001), Jannik Hansen (#287, 9th round, 2004) and bubble prospects Sergei Shirokov (#163, 6th round, 2006) and Prab Rai (#131, 5th round, 2008).

Should be another interesting day around the league and a nice build up heading into next week's frenzy.

Update (3:30 PM): Matthew Sekeres is tweeting that Florida is asking Mike Gillis for the Canucks' 25th pick in exchange for defenceman Keith Ballard. Bob McKenzie is more or less confirming this. (h/t andrew21nz)

Update: As we get closer to the buzzer, be sure to check out Western College Hockey Blog as they have compiled a great list of prospect profiles. Most of the notables should be there.

crap·shoot (krap′s̸ho̵̅o̅t′)

noun

- a situation or undertaking whose outcome involves a high probability of failure or loss; gamble

Such is the vibe we get from our bossman heading into the 48th NHL Entry Draft tonight starting at 7 PM ET (Versus in the U.S., TSN in Canada). Saturday's action includes rounds 2-7 and will begin at 1 PM ET on the NHL Network.

Though Gillis doesn't think it's a great year for blueliners, our pulse check yesterday overwhelmingly indicates we'd like to see one scooped up at #25. Of course guys will slide up and down and it's always possible Gillis owns his crap shoot by taking Kirill Kabanov if he's available. Vancouver doesn't stand in the strongest of bargaining positions but anything can happen.

Time for Gillis to shine or - failing that - not stumble off a cliff.

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Hopefully there's been enough time to get that nasty taste of failure out of our collective mouths because this next week is crucial to how Mike Gillis and company adjust this team and begin the long uphill climb into 2011. Free agency starts in exactly a week, but before then we have the draft which kicks off tomorrow night in LA.

A quick note on that - I had hoped to be in LA to bring a bit closer perspective on Vancouver's moves over the weekend, but some travel issues kept me from making it. Very frustrating. So my humble apologies to the SBN crew as well as the NM community. Next year we'll get it right, I don't care if they have the damn thing on Mars.

After the jump we'll take a quick look at Vancouver's world heading into tomorrow.

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I thought I'd list off where, when and by whom the current Canucks squad was drafted. I added some retro links to the players as well. (Players' age in brackets). Just a little eye candy for you. Enjoy.

ROBERTO LUONGO (30): Drafted in the first round, 4th overall by the Islanders in the 1997 draft.

-Interview with Hockey's Future after his rookie season in Florida (March 2001).

-Hockey's Future's rookie season review for Lou (April 2001).

ANDREW RAYCROFT (29): Drafted in the 5th round, 135th overall by the Bruins in the 1998 Entry Draft.

-Raycroft gets his chance in Boston (January 2003). He went on to win the Calder Trophy after that season.

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