Hockey’s draft season wrapped up last week with the final two events of the year.

The NHL draft yielded some interesting results from a Quebec Major Junior Hockey League perspective on the weekend, as did the Canadian Hockey League import draft later in the week.

From a purely numbers standpoint, this wasn’t a great year at the NHL draft.

Only 19 players from the QMJHL were selected and only 15 them were Canadian kids. The top selection, Mikhail Grigorenko, is Russian and three others, Marty Frk, Tomas Hyka and Anton Zlobin, are also from overseas. But there’s really no reason for alarm.

The Q averaged 24 players per NHL draft in the first seven years since it went to seven rounds in 2005, so 2012 was nothing more than a slightly down year. Five QMJHL players went in the first round last year and 2013 is expected to be one of the best Q crops in a long time, so the league is still producing its share of top pro prospects.

For my money, Grigorenko at No. 12 to the Buffalo Sabres was excellent value, as was Halifax Moosehead Frk at No. 49 to the Detroit Red Wings, Moncton Wildcats defenceman James Melindy at No. 88 to the Phoenix Coyotes and Victoriaville Tigres goalie Brandon Whitney at No. 191 to the Chicago Blackhawks. Those are four players who could turn out to be solid steals down the road.

But as I alluded to earlier, 2013 will be the league’s most exciting draft year in quite some time.

Cole Harbour’s Nathan MacKinnon is an early favourite to go first overall and his Mooseheads teammates Zachary Fucale and Jonathan Drouin are also considered first-round candidates. With the Quebec Remparts trio of Anthony Duclair, Adam Erne and Nick Sorensen also touted as potential first-rounders, this will be a fascinating crop to follow.

The import draft usually features dozens of names that are unfamiliar to most major junior followers, but there are always a few picks that excite the people who track the CHL closely.

The Moncton Wildcats made the most noise, selecting Russian star Ivan Barbashev first overall and Czech winger Dmitri Jaskin 22nd overall. Those two players will step in and immediately make an impact for the Wildcats.

Adding them to a revamped lineup that already includes Melindy, Yannick Veilleux, Jonathan Racine and twins Alex and Allain Saulnier makes Moncton a legitimate threat to challenge for the league title.

Of course, European players are often less predictable commodities than homegrown players, as the Wildcats know as well as anyone. They thought they had a sure thing when they drafted Kirill Kabanov seventh overall in 2009, but he never panned out the way they had hoped in Moncton. The Wildcats also tabbed Slava Voynov with the fifth overall pick in 2008, but he wound up opting for pro hockey instead, so Moncton wound up with a huge hole in its lineup.

But based on enthusiastic remarks from Barbashev on Twitter and similar comments from Jaskin in various published reports, both players look like promising bets to show up and make plenty of noise.

The Gatineau Olympiques appear to have made a solid pick with Martin Reway at No. 4, as did the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles with Adam Veliky at No. 7. The Shawinigan Cataractes’ selection of Patrik Koys at No. 25 was perhaps the most intriguing. At one point a year or two ago, the Slovakian sniper was being touted as the next big prospect after producing some huge numbers against players who were a year or two older than him.

Assuming he reports to Shawinigan, Koys will get prime ice time on a team that is gutted after winning this year’s Memorial Cup. He is also not eligible for the NHL draft until 2014 because of his birthday, so fans in Shawinigan may at least get to enjoy one elite player on a bad team for the next two years.

(wpalov@herald.ca)