from Terry Frei of the Denver Post,

The Avalanche is going to rue the day it passed on the chance to draft Seth Jones. I couldn't shake that feeling Sunday after attending the team's NHL draft watch gathering at Chopper's Sports Grill. Chopper Travaglini — the legendary former Nuggets trainer who died in 1999 — indirectly helped convince me. His picture hangs inside the restaurant named after him.

After the Avalanche claimed Halifax Mooseheads center Nathan MacKinnon with the first overall choice in Newark, N.J., I could see Chopper, gravelly voiced even when healthy, squinting and saying, as he often did, "Something here just doesn't feel right."

Something here just doesn't feel right.

For nearly a year, Jones — the American-born defenseman for major junior's Portland Winterhawks — was built up as the likely No. 1 overall choice in 2013. The comparisons flowed in, to Nick Lidstrom, to Chris Pronger, to more. Jones was poised beyond his years, he controlled games, he was an NHL great waiting to happen. And the kicker: He came with a greatstorythat was tied to Denver and to both the Nuggets and Avalanche.

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