Sneaky Jodi Beyonc at the controls as well and we'll keep the hockey vibes flowing with more of a focus on the upcoming NHL draft. As Steve Cornea knows, the draft analyst is his Twitter handle. Joins us Now on the West. Her hotline, Steve, It's Chris and sale here in Buffalo. Good to talk to you again. How are you? What's up, guys? How you doing today? And fantastic. Um, is it Is it cool to finally I know we're still like a month off schedule here with the with the draft and free agency, But we're getting closer. We're not going to deal with the draft in the winter or the fall or whatever. When? When was last year's draft, Remember, remember, now just sort of blew by in a covid induced haze, I think, but we're returning somewhat to normal. Um, but it's been a challenging year. I would think for teams to really get out and see these prospects even be comfortable with them. How How have you found that part of this job this year? Incredibly difficult, not just because of the travel aspect, but because you had leads that would just shut down entirely. You know you have the entire Ontario Hockey League season cancel that makes up about 30% of the of every draft class, if not more than that. You also had the lack of tournaments, you know, hockey prospect compared to other sports we have anywhere from. I don't know what like 7 to 15 tournaments in a given year. But for all these kids to play it and In Europe and North America, and we only had like one or two. So it was difficult. I think if you talk to scouts, they'll tell you that they would much rather be at the rink than watching the Games on video. There's just certain things that you really can't pick up. On film that you would see if you were there live and up close to the kids, but You've got to give the lead credit for getting it done last year. They had a trip in October something. What was it like? You know, Uh, 16 months after the previous one, and this one was a little bit shorter because of the the start of the seasons already in Europe. They're already ongoing when the last draft happened, so it's been Nothing but ketchup, really, for a lot of us since the season started. So how do you view the top of this draft? There's been a lot a lot written about. You know the quality of this draft and the depth of this draft. Where do you come down? As like an overall as far as draft years go if you're comfortable, even even making that kind of an assessment. Yeah. No, I think I'm pretty comfortable. I've done my research. It's not as I guess, uh, last year as we've seen in the past, we don't have well to start. We didn't have that that singular. Player at the top, right. That consensus number one pick to start the season. You know, we knew in 2000 and 18. Iraqi Stalin was going to be the consensus number one we knew in 19. It is going to be jack use are we doing? 2020 is going to be electoral opera here and you can even keep going further back. This year. We really didn't have that luxury. We thought it was the finished kid out Iraqi and within a month of the season, we realize okay, this is going to be a difficult process to find someone. So you know, within that vacuum, you had a player like going power step in. I think it's safe to say right now he's worthy of being considered the number one overall pick if that's where he goes, But, you know, we don't have a lot of centers in this draft, but not a lot of like elite franchise carrying. Center types, so that hurts it. We didn't have any outstanding performances in adult league play, which is really get from the European kids. A lot of these kids were pretty much stuck in junior the whole season. And those did not play against adults didn't do all that great. And oh, by the way, the World junior championship, which is the I guess, the benchmark prospect event that we have every year you you didn't have a kid go in there and really dominated mapping years had a good performance but was more unlike a Defensive mindset mindset, But, yeah, I'm not too comfortable with calling it a strong draft. But you know there's going to be one or two kids that get drafted late in the first early in the second, they're gonna come out. And be successful NHL players so but you know, it's heavy on defense, not heavy on centers don't have the consensus number one pick for most of season. I think that hurts the drafts reputation. On that note. Steve, are Are we making fans here in buffalo are you know they're natural reaction of getting the number one pick from any was great in a year that it's not a great draft. They finally you know, they win the lottery again. Is it? Is it too much being made of that that, you know, are we? Maybe not counting enough that there are some really high quality players they can still get and maybe making out to be more than it is. No, This is actually a good thing for Sabres fans that even though that this is a weak draft, you always say that we really talking about the overall general depth and maybe the lack of a real future superstar franchise carrying type, But no, you're going to get Borderline star player at the very top of the strap. Whether you're picking 12345. I do like the top 10, maybe top 15. You see some Different listings and rankings based on the various services and the opinions. But no, I think that the state is whether they go for defense. They go for both tending or they go for a vote. They're going to come away. With an excellent prospect, and probably that prospect whoever they take will be the number one prospect in their pool..