Stamkos goes No. 1. Will he be the answer in Tampa?

I like Steven Stamkos. He's an extremely fine young man. I met him last winter when I did the Scott Oake/Elliotte Friedman between-periods thing for Shaw TV's Soo Greyhounds Hockey telecasts  in Sault Ste., Marie Ontario.

Stamkos and the Sarnia Sting were playing the Greyhounds back on February 16 and while Stamkos did pick up an assist in a 6-3 loss to the Soo, he was minus-2 and for 55 minutes that big Soo defence turned him into the Invisible Man. Honestly, you could not find him on the ice with a GPS.

Two weeks earlier, we did a Soo-Guelph Storm game from the Steelback Centre and the most impressive hockey player I saw all winter (wearing a uniform other than Sault Ste. Marie's) was Storm defenceman  Drew Doughty. Doughty was big, at 6-foot-1, 215-pounds, strong on his skates and he moved the puck quickly. He was smart and demonstrated leadership abilities that belied his age. Friday night, he led the Storm to a 4-3 win.

During the winter, I had the pleasure of interviewing both young men and they were both impressive. Smart, confident, they carried themselves like professional adults, not like cocky kids. All of the people working the broadcast on those nights thought they'd be great young pros.

I bring this up because this past Friday night, Stamkos was chosen No. 1 overall by Tampa in the NHL draft while Doughty went No. 2. to Los Angeles.

Stamkos, a guy I watched disappear in front of a hard-ass crowd, in a very tough building after a long bus trip against a big, intimidating defence, has been sold as the saviour of the last-place Tampa Bay Lightning, even though he's going to be a second line centre behind the great Vincent Lecavalier.  

Doughty, on the other hand, is considered a tremendous prospect by the Los Angeles Kings, a bad team that is trying to rebuild from the ground up. He's not considered a saviour, but a kid who can help the process in a market that has not been successful for many years. In fact, when the Kings traded to get the 13th pick and selected Colton Teubert, another defenceman, from the Regina Pats, TSN's Pierre McGuire gushed: "This is such a good pick. Put that pick with Drew Doughty on defence and you've really got something in Los Angeles. He's physical and he loves to get after people. The Kings are building the smart way — strength on the back end, just like Detroit."

Pierre McGuire is dead right. A lot of people might not like McGuire's style on television, but he knows the game and the things he says are almost always correct and insightful. 

In the first round of the draft, L.A. was a real winner. Both Doughty and Teubert will help make the Kings a better team. They won't save the franchise but they'll make the Kings a better team and that's what the draft was meant to accomplish Frankly, the same goes for Stamkos.

Steven Stamkos is a terrific young man who will help the Tampa Bay Lightning improve, but unless Mike Smith turns out to be the goaltender they need — the goaltender that warranted sending Brad Richards to Dallas (and believe me Steven Stamkos is NOT as good as Brad Richards, at least not yet) — the Tampa Bay Lightning will be back at next year's draft picking first again.

NOTE: We'll analyze the entire 2008 draft tomorrow.