Koekkoek pumped up about NHL Draft
It should come as no surprise that Slater Koekkoek has leaned on Ottawa Senators prospect Matt Puempel for helpful advice during the past few weeks and months.
Puempel, who has played alongside Koekkoek with the Peterborough Petes for the past two seasons, has a pretty good idea of the anxiety Koekkoek is dealing with.
Puempel, coming off a season cut short because of a hip injury, was selected by the Senators 24th overall in the 2011 National Hockey League draft. Now here comes Koekkoek – from Mountain, south of Ottawa – aiming to be a first-round selection at the 2012 draft at Pittsburgh on June 22 following a season in which he played only 26 games after tearing a labrum in his left shoulder on Nov. 27. He had surgery in January.
“I’ve talked to (Puempel) quite a bit. He’s a pretty good friend,” Koekkoek said Wednesday via telephone during a brief break from the interviews he had with 11 NHL teams at the league’s scouting combine in Toronto.
Koekkoek, a defenceman blessed with offensive skills, also interviewed with six teams on Tuesday and expects to meet with another “seven or eight” on Thursday. He will also go through a series of 13 physical tests on Friday, along with the other 100 teenagers perceived as the top prospects for the draft.
Koekkoek – pronounced Kook-Kook – was fully prepared for the questions about his health. He’s only too happy to report that he’s “100 per cent” and that he should have no problem completing the physical exams.
“They are normal questions, but it gets repetitive after a while,” he acknowledged. “They have been pretty similar (from team to team) and lots of questions about my shoulder, obviously.”
Koekkoek scored five goals and 13 assists in his 26 games with Peterborough last season, following a 2010-11 Ontario Hockey League rookie season where he netted seven goals and 16 assists in 65 games.
Yet the uncertainty surrounding his health has resulted in a wide range of opinions about where he might be selected in the draft, similar to the situation Puempel faced last June.
Koekkoek was considered a potential top-10 selection at the start of the season. The International Scouting Service rates him now rates him 18th. TSN scout and former NHL general manager Craig Button ranks him 34th. The Hockey News lists him at No. 23.
There have been suggestions that some teams selecting late in the first round might trade up in order to secure Koekkoek. If that happens, it will be also be similar to the case with Puempel, who was acquired after the Senators swapped two second-round picks to the Detroit Red Wings in order to nab him in the first round.
Koekkoek is trying not to get lost in all the speculation.
“That’s the hard part, waiting for it to happen,” he said. “It’s the teams that are drafting. If a team likes you, they’re going to take you.”
Koekkoek is confident and he believes that NHL teams will look beyond his injuryshortened 2011-12 season and also at his rookie season with Peterborough and his impressive midget season with the Notre Dame Hounds midget program in Saskatchewan, where he scored 16 goals and 27 assists in 44 games. He was selected seventh overall by Peterborough in the 2010 OHL draft.
“I’ve played for Canada at the (world) under 18-tournament and Peterborough last season. I’m the same player as then, but even better.”
If there’s one positive from his injury ordeal, Koekkoek says it comes from learning how to deal with a major injury early in his career.
