The Portland LumberJax made Mike Hominuck the first player selected in the expansion draft today, plucking the forward from the Buffalo Bandits.

San Jose Stealth goaltender Rob Blasdell, a popular choice around the league to go first, was then selected by the Edmonton Rush with the second pick.

"Blazer" will not be playing for the Rush, though -- he was traded a short time later to the Arizona Sting for a 2007 first-round entry draft pick.

That was just one in a flurry of trades this afternoon, including a pair of deals in which Buffalo acquired Cory Bomberry and Lindsay Plunkett.

First, though, Portland and Edmonton had to complete their selections, a total of eighteen. Each of the nine pre-existing teams lost two players, and was able to recall one exposed player after its first loss in the draft.

The selections of Hominuck and Blasdell led to Bryan Kazarian and Kevin Olson, respectively, being pulled back.

Portland followed by drafting Brock Boyle (Minnesota) and Edmonton grabbed homegrown forward Kevin Howard, who was a victim of numbers in Calgary.

Toronto then lost its allotted two players in the third round, with the LumberJax snagging Luke Forget and the Rush selecting Sandy Chapman. That made the Rock the first club out of the pool, just as it had been in the four-team expansion draft of June 2001 (that took seven picks to happen).

A handful of notables were selected the rest of the way, including Mat Giles (Rochester) with the ninth pick and Del Halladay (Colorado) with the seventeenth, both by Portland.

Edmonton's big late-draft acquisition was Bomberry, the sixteenth selection.

Bomberry didn't last long in Alberta, flipped to Buffalo for a third-round pick in this year's entry draft.

The Bandits weren't done, though, picking up Plunkett and Troy Bonterre from Arizona for forward Jason Crosbie and a first-round pick in the upcoming dispersal draft. Buffalo also moved down five spots in this year's entry draft as part of the trade, giving up the fifth pick and acquiring the tenth.

Toronto made two trades to bolster its roster, sending Jim Quinlan home to Edmonton for defenseman Scott Campbell and picking up Giles for a first-round dispersal draft pick.

Full draft results follow:

   TEAM       PLAYER SELECTED           (PROTECTED)
 1 Portland   Mike Hominuck    F BUF    (Bryan Kazarian)
 2 Edmonton   Rob Blasdell     G SJ     (Kevin Olson)
 3 Portland   Brock Boyle      D MIN    (Michael Kilby)
 4 Edmonton   Kevin Howard     F CAL    (Andrew Leyshon)
 5 Portland   Luke Forget      D TOR    (Dan Ladouceur)
 6 Edmonton   Sandy Chapman    F TOR 
 7 Portland   Ryan Sharp       D CAL
 8 Edmonton   Pat Campbell     G ROC    (Buck Stobart)
 9 Portland   Mat Giles        F ROC
10 Edmonton   Brad Dairon      F SJ
11 Portland   Brock Robertson  D ARZ    (Troy Bonterre)
12 Edmonton   Randy Daly       F COL    (Tom Ethington)
13 Portland   Tom Montour      F BUF
14 Edmonton   Scott Campbell   D MIN
15 Portland   Nick Schroeder   G PHI    (Rich Brzeski)
16 Edmonton   Cory Bomberry    F ARZ
17 Portland   Del Halladay     F COL
18 Edmonton   Jeff Spano       D PHI