Owners Fantasy Draft

The Players are not going to be the only ones with a lot at stake when Blue Jackets training camp begins September 13, but the owners will as well.

On Tuesday night at a private function in Nationwide Arena, majority owner John P. McConnell and minority owners Ron Pizzuti, Jay Crane, and John F. Wolfe held a fantasy hockey draft in which they each drafted a 16-player team from the Blue Jacket’s training camp roster.

Each team was required to select three centers, seven wingers, and six defensemen. Goaltenders were not drafted but instead will be assigned to a team on a daily basis.

When asked for the motives behind the fantasy draft, Jacket’s head coach and brainchild of the draft Ken Hitchcock cited unequal opportunities in previous year’s camps, and an opportunity for players to meet owners as main reasons.

The rosters for each team were released, but the draft order and order in which players were selected was not. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the teams, broken down by forwards and defensemen, are as follows:

Team Wolfe

F:Rick Nash, Derek Mackenzie, Kristian Huselius, Tom Sestito, Michael Blunden, Jared Boll, Daniel Steiner, Andrew Clarck, Tim Miller, Jon Mirasty

D:Kris Russel, Mike Commodore, Grant Clitsome, David Savard, Tim Filangieri, Spencer McAvoy

Team Crane

F: Derick Brassard, Sammy Pahlson, Derek Dorsett, Pascal Pelletier, Trvor Frischmon, Tom Cavanagh, Matthew Calvert, Darren Archibald, Brock McBride, Zak Ray

D: Fedor Tyutin, John Moore, Mathieu Roy, Doug Lynch, David Liffiton, Dylan Reese

Team McConnell

F: Antoine Vermette, R.J. Umberger, Raffi Torres, Chris Higgins, Thomas Kubalik, Alexandre Picard, Stefan Legein, Andrew Aggozino, Kevin Harvey, Cass Mappin, Matt Caria

D: Jan Hejda, Rostislav Klesla, Brent Regner, Steven Delisle, Cam Brodie

Team Pizzuti

F: Jake Voracek, Nikita Filatov, Jason Chimera, Fredrik Modin, Jared Aulin, Maksim Mayorov, Andrew Murray, Scott Tanski, Ian Duval, Tayler Jordan, Tyler Murovich

D: Marc Methot, Jonathan Sigalet, Andrei Plekhanov, Kevin Roeder, Paul Bezzo

The teams will play a four-team playoff in which the winners of the first game advance to the championship match while the losers battle it out for third place.

The matchups are as follows:

September 13, 10:30 am

Team McConnell vs. Team Crane

September 13, 2 pm

Team Wolfe vs. Team Pizzuti

September 14, 10:30 am

Third Place Game

September 14, 2 pm

Championship Game

“It’s going to be good,” Hitchcock said. “It’ll be fun, and we’ll get a good evaluation.”

We know that it was a snake style draft in which the order reverses after each round. With that being said, we can only assume that Team Wolfe had the first selection since he has Rick Nash listed on his roster. Other than that though, the rest of it is pretty unclear.

I’ll let you decided who has the best team.

-T17M