If, as expected, he is taken with the first pick of the NHL draft on Friday in Montreal, John Tavares will have the weight of Long Island on him.

The New York Islanders are a franchise coming out of two of the toughest seasons in their history and they need a face – a real star in the making – to be the answer towards finally helping them out of what has been a very dark hockey basement.

But are the expectations of the junior star, probably the biggest name to come into the sport since Sidney Crosby, too high assuming he beats off late competition from Victor Hedman and Matt Duchene to become the No 1 pick.

Although Tavares has put up gaudy numbers on his way to finally entering the draft (a year later than he wanted to) and managed to draw quite ludicrous comparisons to Wayne Gretzky, the transition to the professional ranks is going to be tough, most likely on a team that has forgotten how to win.

Continue reading "Pressure on John Tavares"

While most people know about Blake Griffin, Hasheem Thabeet and the rest of the guys expected to go at the top of Thursday’s NBA draft, what about those likely to be taken later on but who could still offer their new teams plenty of value.

There has been a long list of much-hyped picks who have failed to produce – in recent seasons the likes of Darko Milicic and Danilo Gallinari – so many teams have become wary about believing college and European form too much.

This year’s draft seems to lack a little bit in depth and the second round could see teams taking risks on some deep projects, either to store in Europe for a couple of years while they develop or perhaps in the D-League.

Chief among them could well be Eric Maynor, whose stock has been rising over the last couple of weeks and may see him lift towards the back edge of the lottery if a team decides it wants a pure point guard.

Continue reading "Maynor could be a major sleeper"