In the first QMJHL Draft since the CHL ruling, which allowed prospects to play in Canada's three major junior hockey leagues (the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, Ontario Hockey League and Western Hockey League) and still be eligible for NCAA Division 1 hockey, there were almost too many storylines to track.
Multiple questions were on the mind entering the two-day event.
Which New Englander would go first? How many New Englanders would go? How would QMJHL teams handle players already selected high in USHL Phase 1 or 2 Drafts? Would any teams select players committed to the U.S. National Team Development Program? Would teams be hesitant to select New Englanders?
Those are only some of the big questions. We got answers to most on Friday and Saturday, as QMJHL teams took turns picking players born from 2006-09.
These are some of the biggest takeaways from the draft. Many questions remain.
A lot of New Englanders were selected. Will this become the norm?
In all, 37 New Englanders were picked. That's a lot for a 12-round draft. By comparison, 21 locals were picked in this year's USHL Phase 1 Draft and 32 were taken in Phase 2. The Phase 1 Draft went from 10 to 15 rounds this season, and Phase 2 lasted 21 this year.
There is one caveat.
The QMJHL was only drafting players from Quebec, Atlantic Canada and New England — the three places the league has regional rights to. So, New England was going to be well represented.
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There were 197 New England names eligible to be drafted into the QMJHL, and thirty-seven were picked. Roughly 19 percent of listed New England names were selected. In terms of the draft, roughly 17 percent of players picked were from New England.
Those percentages — 19 percent of listed New Englanders picked, 17 percent of drafted players were from New England — will now be the standard for next season.
I'd expect those numbers to stay around the same, given drafted players can only come from certain regions, and it's over a large span of birth years.
How many locals were picked from each birth year?
Early last week, we ran stories wondering if any of the listed '06s or '07s would be picked since the draft was thought to mainly be about '09s and then a good chunk of '08s.
Of the 37 locals picked, 21 (56.75 percent) were '09s and 14 (37.83 percent) were '08s. That's 35 of the 37 New Englanders. For those keeping track, only one '07 and one '06 were picked.
It wasn't a surprise to see Everett Baldwin (Providence, R.I.) selected by the Saint John Sea Dogs with the 38th pick. My guess would be he ends up at Saint John next season, but that's far from official.
The lone '06 taken was Niko Tournas (Redding, Conn.), who was a force for the Danbury Jr. Hat Tricks in the NAHL this past season, scoring 39 goals and tallying 74 points. The Moncton Wildcats took a flier on Tournas in the 10th round, and I put it that way because Tournas was a first-round pick (12th overall) by the Sioux Falls Stampede in the USHL Phase 2 Draft this season.
The big question: Should we expect similar percentages by birth year next season? That would mean 56.75 percent of locals picked will be '10s, 37.83 percent will be '09s, and the '08 and '07s will hover somewhere around two percent each.
Diving deeper into the percentages by birth year, 21 of the 100 (21 percent) listed '09s from New England were picked, while 14 of the 70 (20 percent) of the listed '08s from New England were selected. There were 12 listed '07s and 15 listed '06s, which meant 8.3 percent of '07s were taken and 6.67 percent of '06s were picked.
Carter Meyer gets picked by Québec in the first round
The Québec Remparts had three first-round picks and decided to swing for the fences. After taking defenseman Thomas Charbonneau with the fourth pick, the Remparts took Chicago Steel tender James Scantlebury ninth and Meyer at No. 17.
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Having Meyer picked that high was a shock. The Rivers star made the NTDP team for next season and is headed there for his U17 year. Québec taking him at the end of Friday's first round didn't change that.
Still, it definitely gives Meyer options — and Québec knows that.
Meyer, in my opinion, was the best player at NTDP Evaluation Camp in March. In all likelihood, he will be a top player for them for the next two seasons. He projects as a lottery pick in the 2027 NHL Draft. But if that doesn't happen and things don't go so well, Québec would be more than happy to take him in.
Québec also selected Sam Pandolfo (Winchester, Mass.) in the fourth round. Pandolfo and Meyer have been longtime best buds and have played together with the Boston Junior Eagles, Rivers and now the NTDP next season. They will likely try to recruit them as a package.
The Remparts couldn't, however, secure Finn Sears (Medford, Mass.), the other part of the trio, as Saint John snagged the speedy winger in the sixth round.
Meyer likely never plays for Québec. But never say never.
Best value finds
One agent observed to me that it looked like players who were more likely to go to the QMJHL were drafted earlier than those who might be better. Still, it's early June and we don't yet know where each player will end up next season. We have to take the draft as it is.
Getting value later in the draft is the objective of every team in any draft. I consider anything from Rounds 5-12 to be eligible to be a value pick.
Moncton getting Noah Survilas (Winthrop, Mass.), one of the top non-NTDP '08s in the United States, in the fifth round is strong value. Halifax took Mount St. Charles defenseman and NTDP Evaluation Camp snub Brody Berard (Cumberland, R.I.) in the sixth round.
A phenomenal one is the Drummondville Voltigeurs picking Lovell Academy defenseman Cooper Campbell (Cohasset, Mass.) in the sixth round. Campbell, an '08, went undrafted in the USHL Phase 1 Draft last year and the Phase 2 selections this year. He's a 6-foot-3 defenseman who just had a strong Mass. Hockey Festival and made Select 16 Camp.
Two massive value picks came in the 10th round when the Gatineau Olympiques took Belmont Hill forward David Bosco (Winchester, Mass.) and the Cape Breton Eagles snagged St. Mark's forward Caiden Pellegrino (Uxbridge, Mass.). Bosco, an '08, tried out for the NTDP team last year and has progressed as a top player in prep. Pellegrino, an '09, had 41 points in his first prep year this past season. I thought both were locks to go somewhere in the top five rounds.
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Owen McHale (Charlestown, Mass.) was also selected in the 10th round by the Chicoutimi Saguenéens. Like Campbell, McHale has gone undrafted in both USHL Drafts he's been eligible for and was a standout at the Mass. Hockey Festival, leading to him being picked for Select 16 Camp.
One last one was Mount St. Charles defenseman Gavin Callahan (Lexington, Mass.) in the 12th round by Drummondville. I've always been a fan of Callahan's game. An '08, he wasn't picked in either of the two USHL Drafts he was eligible for.
The recruiting battle between the USHL and QMJHL
Many of the players mentioned above were picked in the USHL, too. Survilas was picked in the third round of last year's USHL Phase 1 Draft by the Muskegon Lumberjacks, while Bosco was also picked in Round 3, but by the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders. Bosco even played a game for Cedar Rapids this season.
Berard was picked in the second round of this year's USHL Phase 1 Draft by the Youngstown Phantoms. Pellegrino went later in the seventh round to the Sioux Falls Stampede.
This is the dilemma all QMJHL teams will face: How to compete with the USHL — and vice versa.
Brunswick defenseman Cam Minella (Darien, Conn.) was picked early in the second round by the Halifax Mooseheads on Saturday. But Sioux Falls took him in the second round, too, in the USHL Phase 1 Draft in May. I'd have to imagine those two teams will duke it out to get him.
Mount St. Charles forward Paulo Gualberto Jr. (Barnstable, Mass.) went to Halifax in the third round this past weekend. The Sioux City Musketeers picked him relatively high in their draft, too, selecting him in the fifth round.
These are only some of the many examples.
"Each player is different, as is each organization," Another agent told me. "Each league will have its [recruiting] wins and losses."
Other NTDP players picked
Along with Meyer and Pandolfo going to Saint John and Sears going to Saint John, Gatineau picked Mid Fairfield defenseman Jake Boguniecki (Orange, Conn.) in the ninth round (150th overall). Obviously, if Boguniecki wasn't headed to the NTDP, he would've been a first-round pick. The same is true for Sears and Pandolfo.
It will be interesting to see how aggressive QMJHL teams are in trying to flip NTDP players to go north of the border, both now and in the future. Almost everything I mentioned with Meyer applies to Pandolfo, Sears and Boguniecki.
If things don't go well in Plymouth, Mich., is that when those QMJHL teams deploy a full-press recruiting strategy? Time will tell.
Biggest snubs
Given the percentages I wrote about earlier, there were always going to be big snubs from each birth year.
In the '09s, I was stunned that Cushing forward Chase Warsofsky (Northboro, Mass.) wasn't taken. He was an eighth-round pick by the Omaha Lancers in this year's USHL Phase 1 Draft. I was also surprised defenseman Preston Abbott (Middleton, Mass.) and goalie Alex Wang (Concord, Mass.) weren't taken.
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St. Mark's forward Will Manchuso (Concord, Mass.) was my big snub among the '08s. I thought he was arguably the top '08 forward at the Mass. Hockey Festival, and he is a fantastic skater. He was an 11th-round pick by Sioux City in the USHL Phase 2 Draft in May.
It's harder to judge snubs with the '07s and '06s, since they were only a small portion of the draft. I didn't see any egregious ones among the local '07s. The only one that stood out was Kyle O'Leary (Medfield, Mass.) with the '06s. He was fantastic this past season and a tenacious power forward. It's entirely possible that QMJHL teams saw he was picked in the 12th round by Youngstown in the USHL Phase 2 Draft and passed on him.
