{"id":17488,"date":"2014-06-29T13:19:44","date_gmt":"2014-06-29T05:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=17488"},"modified":"2014-06-29T12:24:07","modified_gmt":"2014-06-29T04:24:07","slug":"canadiens-cant-resist-skills-of-daniel-audette-son-of-former-nhler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/06\/29\/canadiens-cant-resist-skills-of-daniel-audette-son-of-former-nhler\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens can\u2019t resist skills of Daniel Audette, son of former NHLer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Daniel<\/a>
Daniel Audette. Photo from ca.sports.yahoo.com.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PHILADELPHIA\u2014The Montreal Canadiens got bigger in Saturday\u2019s NHL draft but couldn\u2019t resist the allure of five-foot-eight Sherbrooke centre Daniel Audette.<\/p>\n

Its other five picks were all six foot or better, with three at 6-1 or above. Third-round pick Brett Lernout stands six foot four and weighs 206 pounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a big strong strapping defenceman,\u201d Trevor Timmins, Montreal\u2019s director of amateur scouting, said of Lernout. \u201cHe\u2019s tough as nails and has a heavy shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Timmins had talked prior to the draft about the Habs wanting to \u201cget bigger, stronger, faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut at the same time if there\u2019s a player that\u2019s undersized there and he\u2019s a good hockey player, then he\u2019s hard to pass. That\u2019s the situation here with Daniel\u2014similar to a Brendan Gallagher in his draft year. You simply can\u2019t go by a player with that much ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallagher is five foot nine and 180 pounds but plays much larger.<\/p>\n

The 175-pound Audette had 21 goals and 55 assists in 68 games last season.<\/p>\n

Audette, the son of Habs amateur scout and former NHLer Donald Audette, went in the fifth round. Timmins said Audette Sr. had not been involved in any of the pre-draft discussion on his son.<\/p>\n

In fact, Donald was told to spend the afternoon in the stands with his wife and son until Daniel got drafted.<\/p>\n

Donald collected 260 goals and 249 assists 735 career NHL games with the Buffalo Sabres, Los Angeles Kings, Atlanta Thrashers, Dallas Stars, Montreal and Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens traded up to get Lernout, a Swift Current defenceman.<\/p>\n

They gave up their third-round pick (87th overall) and fourth-round pick (117th overall) to get Arizona\u2019s third-rounder (73rd overall).<\/p>\n

\u201cI looked at the team picking in front of us and I thought there was a good chance that he wouldn\u2019t be there (by Montreal\u2019s pick) … We wanted to add some size on defence and he was a good fit for us there,\u201d said Timmins.<\/p>\n

Montreal took AJHL defenceman Nikolas Koberstein (125th overall) and Audette (147th overall) in the fifth round, USHL goalie Hayden Hawkey (177th overall) in the sixth round and Ontario Junior Hockey League forward Jake Evans (207th overall) in the seventh round.<\/p>\n

Montreal used its first-round pick Friday to take Russian forward Nikita Scherbak of the Saskatoon Blades 26th overall.<\/p>\n

Thanks to reaching the Eastern Conference final, the Canadiens\u2019 draft position was well down this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you take a look at our picks in every round, they\u2019re pretty late. So the asset value of the picks we had wasn\u2019t near as high as last year or the year before,\u201d Timmins said. \u201cThat\u2019s why we had to make that trade in the third (round) to move up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to wait out turn pretty long in each round. I\u2019ll tell you (how we did) a few years down the road. But we\u2019re happy with the guys we got. They\u2019re the guys we targeted and we still had guys left on the list that we wanted to draft.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Habs went \u201cunder the radar\u201d on Koberstein, according to their scouting director.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this guy has good upside and long-range projection,\u201d he said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great kid and has tons of character but he\u2019s a good hockey player too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koberstein is committed to play at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks after one more year with the Olds Grizzlys of the Alberta Junior Hockey League.<\/p>\n

Timmins sees him as a five-year player, meaning he has one year at Junior A and four at college.<\/p>\n

Hawkey, USHL goalie of the year, is committed to play collegiate hockey at Providence. \u201cHe\u2019s like money in the bank,\u201d said Timmins.<\/p>\n

Evans is headed to Notre Dame. \u201cHe\u2019s a skilled centre with great playmaking ability,\u201d said Timmins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA\u2014The Montreal Canadiens got bigger in Saturday\u2019s NHL draft but couldn\u2019t resist the allure of five-foot-eight Sherbrooke centre Daniel Audette. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":17489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-neil-davidson","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}