Blazers draft two Slovaks

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
The Kamloops Blazers dipped into Slovakia twice in Thursday’s CHL import
draft, selecting centre Dalibor Bortnak and defenceman Michal Siska.
“The guys we were wanting were there so that was good,” said Blazers general
manager Craig Bonner, who hasn’t seen either player in action so had to rely
on player agents for his information.
The Blazers used their first selection, 18th overall, on Bortnak, a
17-year-old who played last season with Liberec of the Czech junior league.
In 26 games, Bortnak, who is said to be 6-foot-2 and 177 pounds, had 32
points, including 11 goals. He is eligible for the NHL’s 2009 draft.
Bortnak, whose hometown is Presov, played for Slovakia in the 2008 U-17
World Hockey Challenge that was played in Ontario from Dec. 29 through Jan.
4. In five games, he had two goals and two assists.
In 2006-07, he had 52 points, including 16 goals, in 44 games with a Liberec
under-18 team.
Bortnak is represented by agent J.P. Barry, who works out of CAA Sports’
Calgary office and represents, among other players, Mats Sundin of the
Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Bortnak is a big centreman,” Bonner said. “He’s a good skater for a big
guy, competitive with good skill. As far as NHL teams go, he’s definitely on
the radar in Slovakia. He’s one of the better players over there.”
With their second pick, the 30th selection, the Blazers took Slovakian
defenceman Michal Siska, who turned 18 on March 30.
“He’s a solid, steady, competitive guy,” Bonner said. “He’s a guy who can
play in a lot of situations for us. He’s in the top two defencemen in his
age group over there . . . hopefully, he’ll be a solid guy for us.”
Siska played for Zvolen in the Slovakian U-20 league last season, putting up
18 points in 40 games. Siska, 6-foot-0 and 172 pounds, was eligible for the
NHL’s 2008 draft — NHL Central Scouting rated him 156th among European
draft-eligible skaters — but he wasn’t taken. He had been ranked 128th in
the mid-season rankings before slipping in the final ratings.
Siska has consistently played in older leagues. At the age of 13, he played
five games in a U-18 league. The next season, at 14, he got into 35 games
with Zvolen in a higher U-18 league. In 2005-06, as a 15-year-old, he played
19 games with Sareza Ostrava in the Czech Republic‚s top U-18 league and 19
with Sareza Ostrava in the U-20 league.
Siska is represented by Gerry Johannson of the Edmonton-based The Sports
Corporation, an agent with whom Bonner has a long-standing relationship.
The question now, of course, is whether Bortnak and Siska will be at the
Blazers’ training camp.
“I am told they will,” Bonner said. “That, to me, is the part about building
relationships (with player agents).”
Bonner knows Barry and Johannson and said: “I know they’ll do their best to
get them over here.”
The OHL’s Sudbury Wolves opened the draft by taking left-winger Nikita
Filatov of CSKA Moscow. Filatov had been selected sixth overall by the
Columbus Blue Jackets in the NHL draft on Friday.
One of the CHL draft’s more interesting selections was made by the Kelowna
Rockets, who traded centre Milan Kytnar, 19, and defenceman Colin Joe, 20,
to the Saskatoon Blades for the 24th selection in the import draft and a
2009 fifth-round bantam draft pick.
The Rockets used the import pick on right-winger Stepan Novotny, a native of
Prague, Czech Republic who will turn 18 on Sept. 21. Novotny spent last
season with the USHL’s Indiana Ice — he had 11 points in 44 games — after
playing for a season at Shattuck St. Mary’s, the prep school in Faribault,
Minn., that has a tremendous hockey program.
At one point, Novotny was said to be considering the U of Denver as his next
spot but he apparently has told the Rockets that he will attend their
training camp.
JUST NOTES: The Blazers had acquired the 30th overall selection last summer
in a swap with the Rockets. Kelowna got the Blazers’ first pick in the 2007
import draft in exchange.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca