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2018 Draft Weekend: Day 2, Day 1 Synopsis

June 23, 2018, 10:38 AM ET [409 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • RSSArchiveCONTACT
FLYERS 2018 DRAFT WEEKEND: DAY 1 SYNOPSIS

On the first night of the NHL Draft, the Philadelphia Flyers stood pat with the 14th and 19th overall picks of the first round. Once Oliver Wahlstrom and Noah Dobson went to the New York Islanders with the 11th and 12th picks, it was pretty clear that USNTDP left winger Joel Farabee would still be on the board for the Flyers with the 14th pick.

By that point, Farabee was a rather clear-cut BPA (best player available), and the Flyers pounced. For my pre-Draft profile of Farabee, click here.

At 19th overall, I thought the Flyers would opt for a defenseman. K'Andre Miller, Rasmus Sandin, Jared McIsaac and Mattias Samuelsson were still on the board. Instead, the Flyers opted for Thayer Academy star center Jay O'Brien.

Contrary to what many have said, O'Brien was not THAT much of a reach. I profiled him in my pre-Draft series (click here) because there was buzz in some circles that O'Brien was a first-round level talent who just needed a team to be willing to step up on him in the latter half of the first round or early in the second round. His pre-Draft rating were held down by low exposure. His Draft spot projections were held back the level of competition at which he played and, as a late birthday player (Nov. 4, 1999), was not eligible for the U18 Worlds. His coach, former NHL star Tony Amonte, has said that O'Brien has the talent, speed and moxie to become an NHL impact player.

Below is Ron Hexall's media availability transcript after the end of the first round.

Expected how you thought the first 19 was going to unfold?

No, it wasn’t. I think probably the top ten was the guys we thought would go and after that there was some things that happened that we weren’t- you predict some and others you don’t.

What do you like about O’Brien, to take him there?

He’s a really smart player, really good hockey sense. He’s competitive, he’s strong, he’s got a little agitator in him. High skill. He’s got a really good shot and sees the ice well. He’s a really good hockey player. He’s a little bit undersized but we think he’s going to be a fit kid and a strong kid. We really liked him. His energy, he’s got a really good motor.

You got two kids that are, I guess you could say undersized, was it just a matter of taking two players with strong character that checked off a lot of those boxes that you talked about

When we’re looking in the first round, we want hockey players. We want guys with hockey sense. We also want character. We want good hockey players. Skill. If you don’t draft them in the first round it’s hard to find them so, philosophically, that’s the way we approach things. Forwards and ‘D’ it depends on how our list falls and that’s the way our list fell.

O’Brien is listed as a center is that the force you see him as?

We believe he can play center, even though he’s a little bit undersized now. Again, he’s smart, he’s thick, he’s strong, so we view him as a center.

Centers were not supposedly the strongest position [this year] but there was a lot of centers in the top 20, were you surprised at all?

It’s hard to find centers. Everybody’s looking for centers right now and I say it all the time that it’s hard for wingers to move to the middle. It’s easy for a centerman to move to the wing, it’s a lot less thinking. You’d rather have more centers than wingers and there’s obviously a premium put on it there’s some guys who were ranked lower that went higher and they’re darn good players.

Farabee is a natural winger, but does he have some of those center-like qualities in terms of his overall game, back checking and attention to detail?

Yes. He’s a real attention to detail player, he competes hard, he’s got speed, he’s got skill. He can score, he’s a good player. He’s also got size in his family, so I still think there’s a chance he can grow but he’s certainly going to put a lot of beef on.

Was he a tough decision or was he somebody you targeted at 14?

We weren’t sure if he was going to be there, we thought he’d go right in that area- 13, 14, 15- somewhere in there. We didn’t know but we liked him, obviously.

Were you considering moving up at all? Was that something that you tried to explore?

Well, there wasn’t really much there.

It looked like somebody had contacted you to try to move into that 14 spot. Is that true? To try to slide in there?

There’s a couple things people tried.

A guy like O’Brien who hasn’t necessarily played extensive time against top competition. What gives you the confidence that when he does take that step up he’s going to excel?

He just has all the traits of a hockey player. Again, his hockey sense, his timing of passes, when to shoot, when to pass. He just has that hockey sense. If you want to say there’s a concern that he hasn’t played at a high level, yeah. People call that a risky pick because he hasn’t played at a high level and quite honestly, it’s a tough evaluation, there’s no doubt about it. I feel confident. Our scouts do a great job and we felt really strong about him.

Is it safe to say Veleno might have been a safer pick but you like the upside of O’Brien more than Veleno?

Well, yeah, we liked him more than Veleno or we would’ve picked Veleno. It’s upside. But we don’t feel there’s as much risk probably. The history is, there is risk when you take a kid out of that level but we’re just going to go by the board we don’t need scouts right? Like I said, our guys have done a real good job, they see things the way they are, we talk about it, we beat it up and we come to conclusions.

You also said you had a strong development system to allow you to be a little more creative with a pick like O’Brien?

I’ve never been one to be safe. I don’t think it’s a good philosophy, I don’t think you can be successful that way, so if we believe in something we do it. We believed in picking Jay O’Brien higher than most people thought he should go and we feel good about it.

You said he felt like you targeted the fact that he was being drafted higher than the projection that you guys were really excited about him.

We are excited. This is a good draft, there’s going to be a lot of good players come out of this draft. You look back in 10 years from now and you’re kind of like, oh boy. That’s why people look at it and go, 'Wow, geez you took a guy from a lower level,' then you look back in 10 years -- and I’m not saying this is true with Jay -- and you go, 'Hey, you should’ve taken that shot at him despite the fact that the hockey world felt like he should go later.' There was a number of guys today that went like that. This is one of those drafts. There’s a lot of really good players. Probably a little bit light on the high-end players but there’s a lot of really good players, which is why players go in a lot of different orders.

In addition, Hextall confirmed that the Flyers have reached an agreement with Samuel Morin on a three-year contract extension. The deal will become official on Monday. It is believed, although not yet confirmed, that will carry a $700,000 cap hit. Hextall acknowledged that it is a lower cap figure than it otherwise probably would have been before Morin had an injury-plagued 2017-18 regular season and then tore his ACL in the Calder Cup playoffs. He is anticipated to return to action in February.

League-wide, there was not much of anything going on trade-wise. There were a couple of pick swaps in the latter part of the first round, and that was it. Hextall deemed it an unusually "boring" day in terms of the phones ringing or anything happening outside of making picks. It remains to be seen if things pick up on day 2.

The Flyers currently hold the following picks on day 2.
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2nd round: 50th overall
3rd round: None
4th round: 112th overall
5th round: 127th overall (Arizona), 143rd overall
6th round: 174th overall
7th round: 190th overall (Montreal), 205th overall

Tune in to FlyersRadio247.com for more live coverage of the 2018 Draft from a Flyers' standpoint.
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