Blue Jackets draft recap
The 2015 NHL draft took place over the weekend and the Columbus Blue Jackets were in the the thick of things making nine selections overall. Team GM Jarmo Kekalainen grabbed a defenseman with the club’s first pick in the opening round, the 8th selection of the draft, University of Michigan freshman Zach Werenski. Actually, the CBJ took five defensemen but Kekalainen is looking for someone who can step in and make a difference right away. So, the thought is that he’ll be looking to free agents. Still, the Jackets say that they feel good with the way things fell at the draft.
“It was a really good <draft> for us. We got a lot of guys from high on our list, and like I said, we wanted to get defensemen because we were light on that side of the depth chart…We got a lot of good defensemen that we had high on our list; we got some size, we got some forwards that have size, so we feel pretty good right now.”
– Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen
On his first round selection, Werenski tweeted this:
What an unbelievable feeling it is waking up apart of the @BlueJacketsNHL today! Such an honor! Exciting times for my family and friends!
— Zach Werenski (@ZachWerenski) June 27, 2015
The Blue Jackets draft selections:
- Round 1 Zach Werenski, D (University of Michigan)
- Round 1 Gabriel Carlsson, D (Linkoping JR/Sweden JR)
- Round 2 Paul Bittner, LW (Portland/WHL)
- Round 2 Kevin Stenlund, C (HV 71 JR/Sweden JR)
- Round 3 Keegan Kolesar, RW (Seattle/WHL)
- Round 5 Sam Ruopp, D (Prince George/WHL)
- Round 5 Veeti Vainio, D (Blues JR/Finland JR)
- Round 6 Vladislav Gavrikov, D (Yaroslavl, Russia)
- Round 7 Markus Nutivaara, D (Karpat, Finland)
(jj)
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