Why Kris Draper rocked out on Detroit Red Wings’ haul at 2022 NHL draft

MONTREAL — The Detroit Red Wings left the 2022 draft hopefully and maybe just a tad regretful.

They drafted nine players over two days at Bell Centre, in the first in-person draft since 2019. Prize center Marco Kasper, taken at No. 8, projects to lead the class’ impact on the rebuild, but the eight players selected Friday added to the organizational depth at center and defense.

The Day 2 acquisitions numbered left wing Dylan James at No. 40, left wing/center Dmitri Buchelnikov at No. 52, defenseman Anton Johansson at No. 105, center Amadeus Lombardi at No. 113, left wing Maximilian Kilpinen at No. 129, defenseman Tnias Mathurin at No. 137, center Owen Mehlenbacher at No. 201, and center Brennan Ali at No. 212.

“All in all, we’re all excited,” general manager Steve Yzerman said. ” We just finished the draft and hopefully some of these players turn into players.

“We needed some help at center. The players we had in the later rounds were centers. Some of the kids have played wing, too. It was just kind of the way the list worked out.”

Kris Draper, the team’s director of amateur scouting, announced the picks, and was tempted when No. 113 came up.

“I actually almost went off script and did the ‘Rock me Amadeus‘ when I was going to introduced him, but I backed out of that,” Draper said.

The Wings chose Lombardi because he’s a fast skater and hard worker. Their top pick on Friday, James, appealed because of his complete game. The 6-foot, 177-pound forward spent this past season with the United States Hockey League’s Sioux City Musketeers, earning Rookie of the Year honors after recording 61 points (28-33-61) with a plus-18 rating and 39 penalty minutes in 62 games. He followed up with a plus-eight rating in 10 playoff games to help the Musketeers earn a Clark Cup championship. He is committed to North Dakota for the 2022-23 season.

“We’ve very excited about him,” Draper said. “He had himself a big year. We really like the 200-foot game that he plays. Used in all situations. He’s off to North Dakota — when you commit to North Dakota, you know you’re going there to play hockey. Factor all those things in, we’re excited to get him.”

Draper relied on video and reports from the team’s Russia-based scout, Nikolai Vakourov, to assess Buchelnikov, because the war in Ukraine hampered scouting there. Buchelnikov played with SKA-1946 St. Petersburg in Russia’s top junior league (MHL), where the 5-10, 163-pound forward led his team in scoring with 75 points (41 goals) while accumulating a plus-33 rating and 22 penalty minutes in 56 games.

Buchelnikov posted 14 points in nine playoff games en route to a MHL title. On the international stage, the Nizhny Tagil, Russia, native won a silver medal representing his country at the 2021 IIHF World Under-18 Championship, contributing a goal and two assists.

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“Nikolai saw him quite a bit,” Draper said. “We had a lot of good conversations over the last couple days about where we’d probably have to take him and Nikolai was really comfortable with our second second. He said it’s a player he’d really like to get for our organization so with that, we think we got a very skilled, very smart hockey player. He’s a real good kid, too. Nik talked to him when we selected him and he was very honored to be a part of the Detroit Red Wings organization.

“He loves to play hockey and that’s what we like about him.”

Draper made multiple trips to Sweden to scout, and he and chief European scout Hakan Andersson both liked what they saw from Johansson, a 6-4 right-handed shot who spent much of last season with Leksand’s under-20 team, recording 10 points (six goals) and 12 penalty minutes in 22 games. He led all defensemen in goals in Sweden’s top junior league.

“We identified him as someone we wanted,” Draper said. “We like his size and right-shot, and the fact he’s a puck moving defenseman.”

With their third selection in the fourth round, the Wings chose Kilpinen, a 6-0, 165-pound forward who spent the majority of last season with Örebro’s under-20 team. Kilpinen notched 25 points (14-11-25) and a plus-four rating in 27 games in Sweden’s top junior league, followed by nine points in six playoff games.

“He was hurt the first half of the season, and we think that hurt his opportunity to play for Sweden at the World Championship,” Draper said. “We like his skating and hockey sense.”

The Wings rounded out their draft with Mathurin, a 6-2 blueliner who played with OHL’s North Bay Battalion (15 points in 44 games) and Mehlenbacher, a 6-2 blueliner who has spent the last two seasons with the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks (42 points, 56 penalty minutes in 56 games last season). Mehlenbacher is committed to play in college at Wisconsin next season, where he will play under former Red Wings assistant coach Tony Granato.

The Wings used their last pick on Ali, a 6-0 forward who played part of the season with Plymouth’s USNTDP program.

Now the challenge is to wait and see who develops.

“That’s the way it is,” Yzerman said. “We’re starting to see some of the kids from the ’19 draft come to North America. We’re slowly seeing them go through the system and trickle up to the system in Detroit. You have to be patient.”

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her book, The Big 50: The Detroit Red Wings is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.