Troops take Klejna in Import Draft
BRAMPTON, Ont. The Brampton Battalion chose right winger Michal Klejna of Slovakia with the 40th overall pick in the Canadian Hockey League’s Import Draft on Wednesday.rrA left shot, the six-foot-one, 180-pound Klejna, who turns 18 on Oct. 8, played last season with the Pardubice under-20 team in the Czech Extraleague, scoring 12 goals and adding 13 assists for 25 points along with 85 penalty minutes in 49 games.rrKlejna, who’s eligible for the National Hockey League’s 2006 Entry Draft, played for Slovakia at the World Under-18 Championship in the Czech Republic in April, scoring one goal in six games.rrThe people I’ve spoken to tell me he’s a skilled player, said Stan Butler, Battalion director of hockey operations. rrHe’s a very smooth skater who handles the puck extremely well, and he should be a fairly good offensive player for us. Many NHL people have him rated in the second round in 2006.rrButler said he thinks Klejna will prove to be a versatile forward in the Ontario Hockey League.rrHe usually plays right wing, but he can play centre too, and it’s important for us that he can play a couple of different positions.rrThis is the latest we’ve ever picked in the first round, but I think that, given where we picked, we got a pretty decent player. His numbers were good last season, and the league he played in is a pretty good one.rrKlejna, the first Slovakian to be selected by the Battalion in the Import Draft, joins defenceman Tomas Stryncl of the Czech Republic in making up the Troops’ two-player import contingent for 2005-06. Stryncl, chosen with the 17th overall pick in the 2004 Import Draft, had five assists in 38 games last season.rrMartin Lojek, a 1985-born defenceman from the Czech Republic, was the Battalion’s other European import last season.rrThe draft sees teams from the OHL, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and Western Hockey League conduct two rounds of selections via telephone. The Battalion, the 14th OHL team to draft, did not exercise its second pick.r
