Stupid McKee Question

[RatushnyFan]

Why wasn't McKee ever drafted?  I read in some board (seemed to be part speculation) that he didn't even "register" for the draft the year that he was eligible.  I've only seen him play a couple of times, but obviously he looked pretty sharp.  Is he considered a legitimate pro prospect?  He seems tall enough for the pros and his positioning is excellent.  Some of the message boards for pro teams with other Cornell prospects in their systems are drooling over him.

INCH and other hockey references seem to view him as a prospect.  I guess I'm a little surprised that no one has tried to "steal" him with money since he's a free agent.  Maybe they have and we're just lucky.

[pfibiger]

I think that the issue is that he's a little older (Pokulok came to Cornell relatively young, so he was drafted after a year at CU, but plenty of other CU players (Sawada, O'Byrne, etc) are/were drafted after playing junior hockey, before ever playing at Lynah.

McKee played in a weaker junior league (generally the NAHL is considered not as strong a league as the USHL) that probably wasn't scouted as heavily.

I have to imagine that he's beening looked at pretty seriously by a lot of NHL teams, and he'll have his choice of suitors when he goes pro, like Yann Danis did a couple of years ago. That said, I think he's said that he's planning on staying in school for four years.

[DeltaOne81]

You have to opt in to the draft when you're 18, but doing so makes you lose your amateur eligibility. The next year, at 19, you're automatically in. Not sure if there's any kind of official 'registration', but I don't think so. Even if there was, that wouldn't stop much. If a team had someone on their list, even for a late late round and found he hadn't bothered to fill out some little paperwork, they'd probably fill it out for him and ask him to sign it and send it on their next scouting trip.

Yeah, McKee played in the secondary american junior league. Also, when he got here, he wasn't all that great, guys. I was quite unimpressed with him freshman year, it's not that he was bad, just not impressive. There was a distinct turn around with him mid last winter, right as the team went on the winning streak (coincidence? no). He looked a lot more solid and gave up less soft rebounds and soft goals. Took him a good nearly season and a half to get to the level he's gotten to, and by then the draft had long since passed him.

[Jim]

Stupid McKee answer!  You do not opt in our out of the draft, as a player you have nothing to do with it.  Between the 15th and 20th birthday anyone can be drafted,  the player can not control it.  Once chosen a player is that "teams property" until one year after his class graduates from college if he does not sign within the year after he then becomes a free agent.  In reality he will never play because no one would really be interested any longer.

Moulson is a good example of a bad deal, he was drafted 246 and is certainly better than that.

Delta 181 is unimpressed with McKee his freshman year after he went MVP and first team in the NHAL then second team ECAC as a freshman.  I am glad the coaches know more than Delta.

[KeithK]

Jim, you're just wrong.  Players can't be drafted until their 18 year old year (MHL anyway, juniors are different).  McKee was *not* highly touted coming to Cornell, at least in the sense of being a great pro prospect.  After all, he was supposed to sit on the bench behind LeNeveu for two years.  He's simply elevated his game dramatically.  Take a look at some of Schafer's quotes from the beginning of last season - it's clear that Schafer felt McKee needed to improve and challenged him to do so.  Happily for us, David has done that.

As has been noted plenty of times before, lots of good players do not get drafted.  Drafting is an inexact science.

In the new NHL CBA rules teams lose rights to players they have drafted only a few months (three?) after graduation rather than a year.  Thus increased pressure to sign players early and not let them have the leverage of a pending free agency.

[calgARI '07]

McKee was available to be drafted but was passed over the years in which he was eligible.  At the time he was eligible, he was in the NAHL.  How many players, let alone goalies have you seen drafted straight out of the NAHL?  Not unordinary for some of the best college players and more specifically goaltedners to be passed on and become free agents.  More recently Yann Danis, but Ed Belfour and Curtis Joseph also were undrafted college goaltenders.

[Trotsky]

[Q]Jim Wrote:
You do not opt in our out of the draft, as a player you have nothing to do with it.  Between the 15th and 20th birthday anyone can be drafted,  the player can not control it.  Once chosen a player is that "teams property" until one year after his class graduates from college if he does not sign within the year after he then becomes a free agent.[/q]

These are the eligiblity rules for Canadian juniors (CHL), not the NHL draft.

[DeltaOne81]

About the only thing I agree with Jim on is I'm glad that I'm not on the coaching staff either. Obviously Schafer saw a lot of potential and I'm in no position to disagree with that - in Schafer we trust.

All I knew is that, having witnessed McKee's freshman season in person, and much of his sophomore fall too, he was letting up what would be considered 'soft' goals for a Cornell goaltender. Just shots from the point that he could have and should have seen and stopped. He still had a very nice GAA and Sv%, but playing behind the Cornell defense doesn't hurt that. His GAA dropped 30% (1.84 to 1.24) and his Sv% jumped .027 points, meaning ~35% of the shots he was letting in before were now being stopped.

Perhaps we were spoiled  by Lenny and even a mostly impressive senior season for Underhill, but McKee's first season, not by the numbers, but by the style and timing of goals, was far from what we'd been used to. Remember this is the goalie that Schafer apparently sent a message to through the press before last season saying he needed to be more consistent and let up fewer soft goals. So, I'm not the only one.

[jkahn]

[Q]DeltaOne81 Wrote:

 You have to opt in to the draft when you're 18, but doing so makes you lose your amateur eligibility. The next year, at 19, you're automatically in. [/q]

Fred is correct about the opt-in age as quoted above.  If you are 18 by Sept. 15 of the draft year you can opt-in.  The next year you are automatically eligible.  I believe in 2004 the NCAA changed its stance, and now players may opt-in without losing eligibility, as long as they don't hire an agent.

That being said, McKee is obviously in a strong position by being overlooked in the draft and now being a free agent.  There's no doubt in my mind that he's been approached by several teams this summer, and his decision to stay in school is much appreciated by Big Red fans.

[The Rancor]

I think McKee is a classic diamond in the rough. plus hes from friggin Texas.
I am too lazy to look it up but who were the goalies and forwards in McKee's draft year? if it was a strong year he could have easily been overlooked when he might have been a late round pick in others.

[David Harding]

[q]After all, he was supposed to sit on the bench behind LeNeveu for two years.[/q]
He was supposed to spend a year playing in Nanaimo, then sit behind LeNeveu.

[Steve Rockey]

I think both points of view have some merit.  McKee did indeed improve his game significantly his sophomore year. However, I was very impressed with his play as a freshman and the .920 save percentage can not be lightly dismissed.   I  think he was not an obvious draft choice at the end of his freshman year but I thought he was going to be a very good college goalie.  In my opinion his freshman year the defense was not as good as it had been the year before in front of LeNeveu.  McKee faced 23.7 shots per game versus the 20.2 LeNeveu faced the year before.  I also think the defense more often let down and allowed a larger number of dangerous shots than they had the year before.  The number of shots per game he faced was about the same his sophomore year as his freshman year but he played better and I think the defense was better and did not break down as much.  It is not just how many shots you face it is how difficult they are.  

[KeithK]

[q]I think he was not an obvious draft choice at the end of his freshman year but I thought he was going to be a very good college goalie.[/q]I don't disagree that McKee had a very solid freshman season.  But he wasn't eligible for the daft after his freshman campaign - he was already 20 by that point, past draft age.  Draft decisions were made solely based on his juniors performance and as some have pointed out it's hard to impress enough when playing in a lower tier junior league.

[cbuckser]

After his freshman season, David McKee was eligible for the 2004 NHL draft as a previously undrafted 20 year old.  The Canadiens surprised many of us and drafted Jon Gleed that year though Gleed was 20.   This year, the Oilers drafted 20-year-old Danny Syvret, a late-blooming defenseman for the London Knights (OHL).

On another note, the opt-in procedure for the NHL draft  has been eliminated.  Now all players who turn 18 by September 15 of the draft year are automatically eligible for the draft.

[KeithK]

He was eligible at 20?  Could've sworn you weren't after your 19 year old year, but I trust you Craig.  My bad.