Late Round Selections Doing Well

By pbadmin
In most cases, attention tends to be focussed upon only the top draft choices within any organization. Although this is also the case in Toronto, I’d like to draw your attention to a couple of late round picks that seem to be doing fairly well for the Maple Leafs.

2000 8th Round pick Lubos Velebny and 9th Round pick Jean-Philippe Cote are both progressing nicely at this time. Both players have become important defenders this season with Waterloo of the USHL and Cape Breton of the QMJHL respectively.

Velebny, who many believed to be still playing in the Slovakian Jr. League, has been placed with the USJHL team in Waterloo, IA by the Maple Leafs. He had been reasonably impressive in limited duty at the team’s Rookie Camp in September. Velebny has played in half of the (Waterloo) Black Hawks’ games has one goal and one assist with 8 PIMs.

Cote, who was traded from Quebec last year to Cape Breton, is the (Cape Breton) Eagle’s 2nd highest scoring defensemen after 16 games. He has one goal and nine assists to go along with 15 PIMs. Like Velebny, Cote possesses prototypical NHL size, plays a physical style and navigates the ice fairly well.

With the recent success of other late round picks such as Kaberle, Markov, and Berezin, the Maple Leafs will be well advised to remain extremely patient with both of these youngsters.