Halifax Mooseheads win QMJHL draft lottery. Who will go No. 1?

HALIFAX – The Halifax Mooseheads are set to pick first overall in the QMJHL draft after having a capsule containing the team’s logo picked in the draft lottery today. The odds of picking first were 50-50 for both Halifax and the Baie-Comeau Drakkar, the lone teams to miss out on the post-season.

The Mooseheads went into full rebuild mode this season, trading away Timo Meier, Cavan Fitzgerald, Danny Moynihan and a handful of other players. It continued a process that began last season with the Zachary Fucale trade to the MasterCard Memorial Cup host Québec Remparts. With the picks acquired in trades the past couple years, the Mooseheads now own the first, seventh and 15th-overall selections of the 2016 QMJHL Entry Draft on June 4 in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Baie-Comeau will pick second after a disastrous season that saw them compile a 14-49-2-3 record and finish last with 33 points, 17 fewer than the Mooseheads. Besides the losing record, the team also had a sequence of home games postponed due to power failure and a game called early because a linesman decided to try some DIY ice repairs in Charlottetown.

The Drakkar also have a trio of draft picks in the first round. Aside from the second-overall pick, they have Moncton’s from the Vaclav Karabacek trade (13th overall) and Saint John’s from last year’s Bokondji Imama trade.

Here’s how the rest of the first round breaks down:

Flashback to 2011

The last time both the Drakkar and Mooseheads missed out on the playoffs was in 2011. The Drakkar ended up with the No. 1 selection, taking Nathan MacKinnon and the Mooseheads picked Jonathan Drouin. After asking for a trade before making his QMJHL debut, MacKinnon was flipped to the Mooseheads in a blockbuster in July of 2013.

Now a member of the Colorado Avalanche, MacKinnon chimed in with a tweet congratulating his former team of winning the lottery.  

Drakkar bring in new coach

After a coaching change late in the season, the Drakkar brought in Martin Bernard as head coach on Monday. He signed a two-year deal with an option. Bernard was the head coach for the Shawinigan Cataractes up until mid-February after a surprise firing despite the team being in second place at the time.

Best bets for top pick

As for who will go first overall, there’s a good chance it’ll be Benoit-Olivier Groulx or Jared McIsaac. Groulx is the son of Gatineau Olympiques head coach Benoit Groulx and had 21 goals and 30 assists in 41 games with the Gatineau L’Intrépide in midget AAA.

The Mooseheads may be tempted to nab local defenceman Jared McIsaac, a 6-foot-1, 203-lb. beast with the Cole Harbour Wolfpack. He had 14 goals and 22 assists in 33 games in his second season of major midget.