With the No. 14 overall pick in the 2011 NHL Draft, the Dallas Stars selected defenseman Jamieson Oleksiak from Notheastern University. Oleksiak certainly has size, as the defenseman is listed at 6'7, 244 lbs - and he's only 18 years old.
Brad Gardner over at Defending Big D offered some analysis of the Stars' selection.
He's a defensive defenseman, and makes no mistake about it when he tells media that he models his game after Chara. He wants to use his size to his advantage to cover a lot of ice and limit scoring chances.
American or Canadian, more important to Joe Nieuwendyk likely was the fact that he's a college man, like Joe was himself (Cornell) and we've already seen Nieuwendyk comb the college ranks for talent in his short sting as GM.
When you add Oleksiak to names like Patrik Nemeth, Brenden Dillon, Philip Larsen, Alex Theriau and John Klingberg you start to see a hopeful future on the blue line in the coming years, but now Stars fans will inevitability turn their attentions to the center position, which many had hoped #14 would address on Friday night.
We won't judge this draft yet of course, because only one of six picks has been made, but suffice it to say that most of Stars nation is a little happier with this one than they were with Mr. Campbell last year, through no fault of his own.
For more on the Stars and their draft, head over to Defending Big D - who have excellent analysis on everything Stars.