Ville Siren and Trevor Timmins Break Down the Blue Jackets Picks in the 2025 NHL Draft!

hey guys uh yeah this will be for both of you actually um I’m just curious you know first of all like how much experience did either one of you have you know with Don Wadell before he got the job did you know him very well and secondly you’ve had two drafts with him now what’s it been like you know working with Don um you know as the GM of this team and draft days i didn’t know him before before he came here so I knew Don uh years and years ago and I was with the Ottawa Senators rick Dudley was our general manager who was uh good friends and still good friends with Don i was looking after the farm team for Ottawa which was Grand Rapids and the IHL and Don was involved in the IHL i forget what team anyway so but that goes way back i’ve never worked with him before but um to answer the second question and I don’t want to speak for Vle v can speak to but he’s been very good to to work with that running the draft you know if we have players um you know high on our list and we want to make a trade uh to be able to achieve to get those players he’s he’s done a great job of of managing our picks and getting us into a position where we can acquire the players that we have targeted and want to acquire at that point in the draft yeah nothing to add with what Trevor said and he has trusted us to make the picks thank you next we go to Aaron Portzline go ahead good afternoon gentlemen um Don told us that the three the first three guys that you drafted including uh Voss at 76 were on the the top 14 on your master list and I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen a guy drop uh that far that was that high on your list that you could grab him at 76 not what I can remember it has not happened for me to be
with other teams because I have guys that have dropped uh or not there like I’ll take a good example and we can it’s a good example to use in this situation because we drafted Alexander Romanov in Montreal and we really had a strong affinity for him we really wanted him and uh we were able to get him I think it was in the second round but we had him a lot higher on the list so it happens uh there’s 30 there’s 32 teams in the league out there and we all have different opinions and project players differently and uh you know hopefully uh looks like you know hopefully if we were right we got great value
this week so time will tell as Vle says I don’t want to steal his quote but that’s his famous line so uh as of today like all most of the teams probably all the teams were happy with the hall that we had here um now these again makes these are prospects i mean we hand them over now to our development team our development coaches uh to help them develop their their young men their prospects hopefully they become future NHL players for the Columbus Blue Jackets yeah
there were 27
we feel great now like every other team
and Malt you know it was weird uh he only played one game at the under 18 world championships in in in Dallas this spring but we have seen him you know through throughout the year and uh different tournaments and plus his own league and I you know I have liked him the way he has defended he know knows his identity
and he plays with it every game he doesn’t try to be something else what he
you know what He’s not so
last season
that that Billy’s talking about
multas mult
he’s going to be so that was a little bit held against him maybe in his home country but uh that’s where he’ll be playing next year
i see yeah um last season there were 27 players drafted who were 6’5 or taller which was an NHL record this year they were 31 and I’m wondering if there are just bigger players out there or if you if you guys and others are looking for bigger players and maybe drafting guys that wouldn’t have gone in years past i don’t think we’re looking for anything different i don’t know what’s in the water nowadays but they seem to be growing bigger maybe uh players that were going to be football players or basketball players are now hockey players but it’s just a coincidence i mean you look at the teams that are you know get to the finals and they’ve they’ve got a big uh defense core uh so I that’s probably one affinity that all 32 teams have now towards NHL defenseman also you know Jackson Smith and Maltas they are big guys but they can skate that’s Yeah
thank you next we’ll go to Mark Shag go ahead Mark unmute yourself Mark
okay there we go i have a question for each of you um Billy you just talked about Jackson Smith and I’m just wondering when there’s a lot of really good defenseman in that range of the draft what was it about him that put him in that spot on your master list what made him stand out the most to you you know he can he can you know he has very good size first of all and he can he’s a very good skater and he can beat the forcheer he can transport the puck out of Done and he has offensive instincts you can he can beat the beat the four checkers you know oneonone and Trevor for you talking about um Andreanov and what are the challenges these days that you guys have to overcome to make sure that you get the most out of viewing Russians especially when a lot of teams have to depend on video and maybe not necessarily as many live looks well first of all we we uh we do have a Russian scout all season long there so he was furnishing reports and uh met with some met with some of the prospects throughout the season secondly we have a goalie uh team or group that uh does our work for us um and then uh thirdly Dan Milstein has a camp summer uh camp in June that he brings all his Russian clients to in Fort Lauderdale that’s a good a good uh place for us to be able to see these not only goalies but skaters on the ice um you know it’s not a a game per se they they more or less scrimmage there’s three on three four on four five on five in practices but it’s good to get live looks and to make sure that what we saw in video is is what they look like live um so that that’s a great uh um thing that Dan Milstein’s brought up to uh from his company Gold Star to to allow all the NHL scouts and GMs and goalie people to get a live look at his clients and the other the fourth thing is the NHL combine they this year was the first year they’ve allowed Russians back so there were a few Russians at the NHL combine unfortunately we didn’t get to see them live on the ice but we got the uh all the fitness testing and interview process and medical testing there next we go to Jeff Sabota go ahead Jeff uh thank you for either of you uh whoever may know more about Owen Griffin uh you look at his playoff numbers and the end of the season and you know he was a guy that caught a lot of eyes um what kind of maybe stood out about him and and especially at the end of the season when it kind of clicked for him and the success that he had uh you know I know he’s a guy that really you know central scouting moved him up like 130 spots as the season went on uh what what did you see really work for him to allow him to get to that point at the end of the season you know he he played very well in the playoffs and uh a little bit smaller size but he he played hard he competed hard against bigger players and he was able to produce that’s
yeah he’s a little bit of a a late developer last year uh he was inserted into the lineup there in Ashawa he was probably wasn’t ready for it physically um he struggled a little bit but this year he grew into the role and they put him in a top six role in Ashawa and he thrived there with better players like Becket Senaki and uh Kay and Richie and he did a great job bobby fit right in there he was a driver of their offense and like Billy said he his stature is a bit undized but he plays hard he he’s uh not afraid to go into the hard areas and retrieve pucks or take hits to make plays or get that front and uh really his intangibles are really strong and hopefully you know that’ll drive him and hopefully can grow a little bit um and become a a bigger body down the road he was very noticeable in the playoff game
you didn’t have to look for it nice uh I want to ask also uh my second question uh just about uh the sixth round pick uh Victor Hadin Ralph Time um a guy that that you know you you Google him and there’s not a whole lot out there but what did you guys see in him uh that attracted you to to make that choice you know our Swedish scout Oscar Ostrom he’s he’s working for that team also in Sweden and he he highly recommend him he’s a big body left-handed D yeah he’s another late developer uh he really came along this season his his I know his dad personally he’s a a strength coach in Sweden and uh so he’s under the proper guidance there and uh as Billy said Oscar Akerland really pushed for him and uh he’s that’s the main reason that we drafted him at the point that we did
all right thank you next we’ll go back to Brian Hedger go ahead Hedge uh another fun two-parter here uh first one will be about Jeremy is it Lauron do I have
We saw
out there in BC uh tell tell them tell us a little bit about him uh to start off and then just generally you know getting back to the you know draft with a lot of big bodies in it a lot of big defenseman do you think that you know teams taking a lot of those big guys sort of pushed a little bit of the the more skilled maybe quote unquote undersized guys down a bit for you for teams that had later picks well to get the bigger bodies that are good hockey players they usually go you know in the top two rounds so that pushes the undersized players back into the later rounds and if you look back in history a lot of the players that have had success and and became NHL players that were late round picks a lot were Europeans a lot were smaller players a lot were players that uh ended up going to the NCAA route and had a little bit more time to develop now with Lauron Jay from T Riviera in Quebec he took his craft out to play in the BC Hockey League uh but in Alberta at Sherwood Park he won this so he’s a rookie there in that league and he won the scoring championship by a mile there was nobody even close to him the second place was uh his linemate uh you guys can look up the figures but he was well behind Jeremy he’s going to uh UNO University of Nebraska Omaha so that gives him uh some good development time but he’s a skilled forward that has grit he has a grit package um again he goes into the hard areas a little bit like Griffin and uh so there’s upside there he’s got the time to develop and he’s got what the undersized players need to survive at the pro level that’s the grit package and the tenacity and the courage and the skating ability to get in and play in the hard areas
when and just to quickly follow up and when you draft guys like him and and Owen I mean I see center on there you know for the positions but they can also play wing is the preference always you know let’s see if he can handle the middle and then you know take it from there well that’s up to the coaches wherever he plays they can decide lastly we’ll go back to Mark Shai
go ahead Mark
thanks Todd last question for you guys is what do you guys think of how the decentralized draft worked do you guys prefer to go back to the old way and how different was it this year in preparation preparation was same you know we had our meetings we made our list but it you know the the event event was a little different and I would prefer the old style if you ask my opinion yeah the one the one thing you know it’s a it was a unique situation we’re having the centralized draft that we’ve had in the past where the that’s basically the only time the entire hockey world comes together you’ve got the NHL teams with the scouts the coaches the pro scouts amateur scouts um management and then you have all the player agents are there the media all the fans and it’s uh it’s people look forward to that including ourselves some it’s some of the times that we only chance we get to meet other people in the business that are on the pro side of things the one thing it it did take away was our ability to interview players the week of the draft because most of the draft prospects go to the centralized draft and we’re all there you know four or five days before the draft and we can bring players in for another interview whether we want them to meet Don if Don hasn’t met the prospect yet or we want to rein the player so it it took away from that uh ability that we used to have

Director, Amateur Scouting, Ville Siren, and Assistant Director, Amateur Scouting, Trevor Timmins, break down the Blue Jackets picks in the 2025 NHL Draft,

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