On June 25 in Los Angeles, Calif., Seve Yzerman will oversee his first NHL draft as a General Manager... Oversee it, yes. Contribute to the selections? Likely not. Yzerman stated in a Q and A yesterday with local beat reporters that he will default to the scouting staff regarding selections in this years draft:
I'm relying on (the scouting staff) 100 percent, and it's going to be my thinking going forward, I believe that if you are going to have input in the draft, you have to have lived it. Certainly at the end of the day I can make a determination, but you really have to hire people to do it and they live it. They are at all the games watching. For me to be involved and say that I've seen this guy play once, I like him so we're taking him, that would be a fatal mistake.
His goal is to build depth in the system and trading the pick is a remote option.