Yesterday we ran Part 1 of an interview with Winterhawks General Manager & Head Coach Mike Johnston about the team’s recently-completed prospects camp.

Today the interview continues with Johnston discussing the upcoming CHL Import Draft, next week’s NHL Entry Draft and how the roster is shaping up for next season.

The import draft is June 29, and you hold the seventh pick after the Sbisa trade with Lethbridge. Are you targeting anyone in particular or looking for the best player available?
Mike Johnston: “We’re trying to find the best player at seven. We’re still open as far as positions go, but we’d like to get the best player available. It’s a process of finding out who’s interested in coming, getting scouting reports on all the players, talking to agents, talking to NHL teams who have met with kids and have an indication of who’s coming over, who’s not coming over. And then an NHL team might draft a player, sign him and ask him to come over, so we have to know all that information. It is a long, drawn-out process.

We have a priority list that we’ve assembled of the top 15, 20 guys, we’re only looking for one of them though, so we do have a priority list already established but it continues to change on a weekly basis. But it did last year too. Niederreiter was always at the top of our list, but we had other people that were promoting their guys, and we were investigating other guys, then we heard that Niederreiter wouldn’t go behind us, he’d go ahead of us, so we had to make a trade to move up because he became our priority guy in the end. But it continues to evolve quite a bit up until the day after the NHL Draft when you have all the information.”

How excited are you for the NHL Draft next week with so many Winterhawks ranked so high?
MJ: “I’m excited for all our players who get NHL opportunities, whether they get drafted or signed, or get opportunities at camps to show themselves. That’s what it’s all about. We’re about trying to provide these kids with the right environment to develop, and if they do develop the right way they’re going to get pro opportunities.

Certainly it’s going to be a thrill for them, but it’s going to be a thrill for us in Los Angeles watching our players get that opportunity to be drafted. It’s going to be exciting, and hopefully we have five or six guys that are in there and I still think there are guys who might not get drafted but who get tryout opportunities who have the potential to be like (Stefan) Schneider and get a free agent deal. It will be fun. I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully the Winterhawks can get two players in the top ten and possibly three in the first round and maybe six overall, and that would be great for our organization because it does really help. The first round of the draft is televised and kids out there that are looking at what they’re going to do with their future, hopefully they want to play in our league and hopefully they want to play here.”

Are you getting lots of calls from NHL teams looking for background information on the players?
MJ: “Daily. Scouts and management people are phoning daily about our guys. They’re really doing their homework, especially with the early picks. They’re asking every question they can think of just to make sure that they don’t leave anything out. They’re making an important decision for their organization and it has a huge impact on their success in the future, so that’s the reason they’re going their homework.”

Are you concerned that Ryan Johansen or Nino Niederreiter may not be back next season if they get drafted and their NHL team keeps them?
MJ: “I don’t know if there’s concern, if they do get that opportunity then it’s great for them. Certainly we’d love to have them back, it’s going to make our team a lot better, but our place is to develop players. If we do produce NHL players, then down the road it’s going to help our program, I’m convinced of that. It’ll help us recruit, it’ll help us get players NHL teams return to us as favors down the road. But certainly as a team we’d love to have both of them back, at least for one more year then as 19-year-olds maybe they do turn pro. It’s tough for an 18-year-old but some of them did it last year in the league, so it might not be impossible for either one of them.”

What kind of roster changes will we see next season?
MJ: “We have two key players injured to start the year – Ian Curtis and Taylor Aronson. They probably won’t be ready until October. That will provide some opportunities for other players and give us a chance to look at our whole roster. I don’t anticipate a lot of changes on defense other than the Pouliot and Hanson situation. We’ll maybe look for one other player as a depth player.

Up front, I think we still have a real good group of forwards, but there are some unknowns out there. Will Walker sign (with an NHL team)? Will Bennett sign? Tayler Jordan, the three overagers that could come back up front, could all sign. Niederreiter, Johansen and Ross could get NHL opportunities. We really don’t know where we’re going to be, it’s probably going to be undetermined until the end of September I would think. So it’s going to be a different start to the season. Last year we had everybody in place, we had a few guys in (NHL) camps but we had everybody in place right away and we got a good start. It’s going to be a little more of a juggling act this season.”

What are your priorities for the rest of the offseason?
MJ: “The first thing is we’re trying to sign players from our spring camp. We’ll try and sign a couple more players to give us more depth, players that we’re convinced can play, and we’ll continue to recruit players on our list that we haven’t got committed that we feel have the ability to step into our lineup either this year or next year. Certainly we’re looking more at next year than this year unless there’s one or two ‘92s that are still on our list that were going to go to college but may not go to college. We’re always looking to fill holes and the most important holes right now are the Euro position and then recruit a couple of kids on our list and sign a couple more out of Spring camp.”