Dougherty is a pretty funny kid. He was cracking jokes left and right. His best line? Taken by Nashville nine picks after the Preds also took Russian Vladislav Kamenev, who speaks no English, Dougherty said, "We're speechless right now, especially him."
-- The Wild, which tried to trade for a second-round pick to no avail, traded the No. 79 pick to Tampa Bay to move down one spot and also picked up Vancouver's seventh-rounder next year. With the 80th pick, the Wild took Skokie, Illinois' Louis Belpedio from the USA Under-18 team. He's a 5-10 defenseman who has 20 points in 53 games last year.
On what he knew about the Wild? "Rivals with the Blackhawks being a Chicago kid. Definitely switched to the other side already."
Quick scouting report from Future Considerations Draft Guide:
The top U.S. defenseman at the U18 tournament in April, Belpedio's
game really solidified in the second half of the season and he is a riser for it. Belpedio is a very
strong two-way player, with excellent offensive skills and awareness, as well as the ability to
work as a shutdown player in his own end. Belpedio is a superb skater with tremendous footwork
and fluidity in his stride. He is powerful and balanced on his edges, and is superb when it
comes to stopping and starting to quickly edge his way around pressure or to work his way in
from the point with the puck. He is intelligent and cerebral at both ends of the ice, and is able
to make strong plays with and without the puck. He does a great job at cutting the ice in half on
forwards coming down the wing, and he steps up effectively to take away time, space and options.
He closes players out with his physicality and can easily force a man off the puck with his
strength. He also uses an effective defensive stick and takes away the slot on the PK. Belpedio
handles the puck well on offense with above-average stick skills and good hockey sense. He
makes a good first pass out of his zone and supports the offense well from the point, pinching
at good times and getting involved. He has a hard wrist shot, but needs to work on getting it
through to the net. Pretty solid on the PP as he is more of a shooter than puck mover.
-- In the fourth round, at 109, the Wild took Espoo, Finland, goalie Kaapo Kahkonen, the fourth-ranked European goalie in the draft and the fourth-ranked goalie in the draft by Future Considerations. He'll play on the pro team after playing on the junior team last year. He expects he'll need a couple years before he can turn pro with Minnesota.
