Avs Talk - A Colorado Avalanche Blog

The Avalanche stick to their U-18 US hockey roots and choose the captain of the U-18 team, Kevin Shattenkirk. He's a 5'11" defenceman who currently weighs in at 193 lbs so he's a tad undersized. He put up 34 points in 48 games so is a very offensive undersized d-man. I can't quite put my finger on who it reminds me of but maybe someone can help me out.

The players that Colorado could have taken still included Alexei Cheraponov and Angelo Esposito who, by the way, is still unpicked 2/3 of the way through round 1. But if there's one thing the Avalanche have, it's a lot of quality up-and-coming forwards. The one thing they don't have is a lot of up-and-coming quality d-men. So stocking the pool a bit with a defenseman with obvious leadership qualities is a great move.

This pick won't make any of the current d-men any more expendable than they already were as Shattenkirk will be playing for Boston University come fall. So this move likely picks at the nerves at some fans as it doesn't bring immediate relief to the defensive corps. However no pick would have helped them out this season.

Shattenkirk will put on more size as he will easily bust past the 200 lbs barrier and has a chance at clocking in at 210. He is known to be a very smooth and mobile defenceman who is extremely smart and aware of where he is at all times. Reminds me a little bit of someone else. A man who's thinking of retiring after doing it all in hockey this year.

No, I'm not comparing Shattenkirk to Niedermeyer. In fact, I hate the "He reminds me of..." talk. But, this is a good pick and has a chance at turning into a great pick 2 or 3 years down the line. So why did I say it? Well, it seems it's the thing to do. Just ask Mr. McGuire who can't talk about any prospect without comparing them to a pseudo-random possibly soon-to-be/current hall of fame player.

Here are some scouting reports on Shattenkirk, in case you don't want to take my word for it. But why wouldn't you?

http://www.redlinejunior.com/html/sam_60profiles.html
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?fid=11069&hubname=
http://www.hockeysfuture.com/prospects/keith_shattenkirk

And a chat with the young man himself:
http://mckeenshockey.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=677784

EDIT: Esposito finally went at #20 to the Penguins. Good thing b/c they don't have enough young centermen.