June 23, 2010
Notre Dame, Ind. – The National Hockey League will hold its annual Entry Draft this weekend, Fri.-Sat., June 25 and 26th in Los Angeles, Calif., at the Staples Center. The first round of the draft will be on Friday night, starting at 7:00 p.m. (EDT) and will be televised by Versus in the United States and TSN and RDS in Canada. Rounds 2-7 will be held on Saturday, beginning at 1:00 p.m. (EDT) and will be televised on the NHL Network.
If NHL Central Scouting’s final rankings hold up, no fewer than six players with ties to the University of Notre Dame could hear their names called with sophomore center Riley Sheahan (St. Catharines, Ont.) and freshmen defensemen Stephen Johns (Wampum, Pa.) and Jarred Tinordi (Millersville, Md.) all possibly going in the first round on Friday night.
Sheahan, a 6-2, 200-pound center, was ranked 22nd among North American skaters in Central Scouting’s final rankings. Johns, a 6-3, 215-pound defenseman, was second among Irish players in the rankings as he was ranked 35th among North Americans. Tinordi, a 6-5, 202-pound blueliner, who teamed with Johns on the USA Under-18 team this season, was ranked 38th on the list of North American skaters. All three players have appeared at various spots in mock drafts done by NHL scouts, NHL.com and various publications leading up to this weekend.
Notre Dame has had just two players in the program’s 43-year history selected in the first round – defenseman Ian Cole in 2007 (18th overall by St. Louis) and sophomore Kyle Palmieri in 2009 (26th overall by Anaheim).
Joining Sheahan, Johns and Tinordi on Central Scoutings’ list are forward Matt Rust (Fr., Bloomfield Hills, Mich.), defenseman Kevin Lind (Homer Glen, Ill.) and forward T.J. Tynan (Orland Park, Ill.).
Rust is a 5-11, 191-pound right wing who was a teammate of Johns and Tinordi on the USA Under-18 team last season. He was ranked 80th among North American skaters by the NHL.
Lind is a 6-3, 200-pound blueliner who was a member of the United States Hockey League’s (USHL) Chicago Steel in the 2009-10 season. Central Scouting ranks the left-shot defenseman at 139 among North American players.
Rounding out the group is Tynan, a 5-9, 160-pound center who played last year for the Des Moines Buccaneers of the USHL. The high-scoring center was ranked 210th overall among the players rated by the National Hockey League. Lind and Tynan are expected to join the Irish for the 2011-12 season but signed national letters-of-intent in November of 2009.
Two other incoming freshmen – Jeff Costello (Milwaukee, Wis.) and Anders Lee (Edina, Minn.) – were both drafted in the 2009 entry draft. The Ottawa Senators selected Costello in the fifth round, 146th overall and the New York Islanders made Lee a sixth-round pick, 152nd overall last season.
Since 1969, teams in the National Hockey League have drafted 60 Notre Dame players. Going into this weekend’s entry draft, the Irish roster includes seven players that have heard their names called in either the 2007, 2008 or 2009 drafts.