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Tyrel Seaman of the Brandon Wheat Kings (21) was selected 206th overall by the St. Louis Blues in this year’s NHL Entry Draft.
Tyrel Seaman’s nerves were getting the best of him the more he kept tabs on Saturday’s NHL Entry Draft online from his home in Choiceland, Sask.
As each selection was posted and one round went into the next, the 18-year-old Brandon Wheat Kings centre started to worry more that his name would never appear on that board. Seaman was finally able to relax when the St. Louis Blues picked him in the seventh round, 206th overall.
"It was getting a little nerve-racking," said Seaman, who went fishing afterward to celebrate. "I kept seeing names go by and then the list at the bottom was getting smaller and smaller for names left to be picked."
"I was excited (when I saw my name)," he continued. "It was one of those things that you dream about since you were a kid."
Most pundits had the 6-foot-2, 207-pound Seaman being selected late in the draft. He came in as the 104th-ranked skater in North America by NHL Scouting, even though he was rated 97th among all players in the independent Red Line Report.
Seaman’s stock in the NHL Scouting ratings dropped as the season went on as he was 50th in the middle of the season. However, he was out of the Wheat Kings lineup from Nov. 25 until March 10 with a concussion.
Seaman, who played 32 regular-season games, scored six goals and tallied 19 points, wasn’t sure if his concussion was the cause for him falling in the draft, but he’s not too worried about it.
"It’s hard to say on that issue how much it affected me or didn’t affect me, but I still got drafted, so that’s a positive thing," he said. "Now I just have to move on from the year I had in the past."
Wheat Kings goalie Corbin Boes and left winger Alessio Bertaggia were also listed as possible draft candidates, as well as Killarney native and Spokane Chiefs defenceman Reid Gow, but they were not chosen.
This is the eighth consecutive year a Wheat King player has been selected in the draft and the second straight year one went in the seventh round. Jordan Fransoo was picked by the Ottawa Senators 186th overall last season.
While Seaman would have liked to be chosen higher in the draft, he’s not worried about where he was taken. He said the important thing is he was selected and that he has a chance to prove himself at the Blues’ training camp in the fall.
"That number really means nothing. It’s just a matter of how hard you work from here on in," Seaman said. "(The draft position) makes you want to go there and compete with the players they viewed as being the best."
» cjaster@brandonsun.com
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition June 25, 2012
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