Gulls’ Kvartalnov Goes 16th in NHL Draft

Dmitri Kvartalnov, the Gull forward who led the International Hockey League in scoring last season, was the 16th selection in the NHL draft Saturday--a day Europeans made a big splash.

Led by Roman Hamrlik of Czechoslovakia as the overall No. 1 pick by the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning, a record 11 Europeans were selected in the first round as NHL teams went big for foreign players.

“Everyone knew there would be a lot of Europeans taken,” said Boston Bruins General Manager Harry Sinden, whose team picked Kvartalnov.

“Since the political climate has changed, it makes it easier to get them over here. There are a lot of good players there.”

Kvartalnov had 60 points and 58 assists in 77 games to earn the IHL Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player awards.

For the first time in the history of the NHL draft, Europeans went 1-2. Until this year, the most Europeans picked in the opening round was five last year, when the NHL set a record by picking 55 international players. On Saturday, there were 19 taken in just the first two rounds and 86 overall.

A cheering crowd of 14,323 at the Montreal Forum watched the proceedings, which featured the first draft picks by the expansion Lightning and Ottawa Senators.

“I’m so happy it’s hard to describe my feelings,” said a thrilled Hamrlik, who pulled on the black and teal Tampa Bay jersey that featured a logo of lightning breaking across the face of Florida.

Hamrlik was quite a marked contrast to last year’s No. 1 pick, Eric Lindros, who refused to wear the jersey of the Quebec Nordiques.

Detroit Coach Bryan Murray was not surprised by the large number of Europeans picked in the draft.

“Coming into the draft, we speculated that 11 or 12 Europeans would be picked in the first round,” Murray said. “I wasn’t surprised. Our strategy was to just get the best players available, no matter where they were from. I think everybody did that.”

After the Lightning selected Hamrlik, a 6-2, 190-pound defenseman who starred in the Czech senior league, the Senators made forward Alexi Yashin the No. 2 pick.

Yashin, a 6-2, 195-pound center-left wing from the Soviet Elite League, was one of four players taken from the Dynamo Moscow team in the opening round.

The others included defenseman Darius Kasparaitis, selected No. 5 by the New York Islanders; left wing Andrei Nazarov, selected No. 10 by San Jose, and defenseman Sergei Bautin, picked No. 17 by Winnipeg.