CH’s 1st choice: The former chief recruiter lends to the game

Alain Chinese, former director of amateur recruitment for Anaheim Ducks, loves to gather information from his former colleagues as each draft approaches.

This year he noticed an interesting thing when he mentioned the name of Slovak Juraj Slafkovsky.

“When I was left and right and asking questions of interest to him, there was a moment of silence,” said the wise hockey man.

In his successful career of over 20 years as a Scout and Head Scout, China has never had the right to draft with the first choice of auction. TVASports.ca gave him the opportunity to do so: the former scout surrendered to the game by making the much-anticipated choice of the Montreal Canadians.

“I saw five vintage highlights very closely in the video: Shane Wright, Slafkovsky, Logan Cooley, Simon Nemek and David Zirisek. Obviously, when you see a player in a video, you can always miss things like his defensive game and his body language when he comes to the bench. The puck follows the carrier.

However, the TVA sports analyst saw enough to move forward on the podium. With the first overall selection, Alain Chinese is proud to draft …

“Slafkovsky. He’s the one who hit me the hardest of them all. And I do not agree with those who say Shane Wright is good, nothing more than that. He’s a great player with a long and successful career, but I saw something else in Slafkovsky.

What fascinated our man was the rarity: How many 6’4 “power forwards are there in the National Hockey League with such talent? The pattern is unique.

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