The Portland Winterhawks moved from the 5th pick in the CHL Import Draft to the 2nd, swapping picks with the Moose Jaw Warriors (in exchange for a 4th Round Bantam Pick in 2010 and a 6th Round Bantam Pick in 2011) and selected 1992 born forward Nino Niederreiter from Switzerland.
Niederreiter becomes the first Swiss born player to be selected by Portland, and the first in the CHL since Luca Sbisa went to Lethbridge in the second round of 2007.
He is 6′1″, 203 and shoots left. He was the only 1992 born player on the HC Davos Elite Jr. A Team in 2008-09, here are his career statistics:
| 2006-2007 |  Davos U18 |
Elite Novizen |
32 | 43 | 19 | 62 | 38 |
| 2007-2008 | Davos U18 |
Elite Novizen |
32 | 39 | 26 | 65 | 62 |
| Davos U20 |
Elite Jr. A |
5 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 4 | |
| Switzerland U18 |
WJC-18 |
6 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | |
| 2008-2009 | Davos U20 |
Elite Jr. A |
30 | 20 | 14 | 34 | 44 |
| Davos U18 |
Elite Novizen |
6 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 6 | |
| Switzerland U18 |
WJC-18 |
6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 16 |
Head Coach and GM Mike Johnston saw Niederreiter up close and personal at the most recent U18 Championships in Fargo, where Niederreiter was a point a game player for the Swiss team.
Also, Niederreiter was named the Best Forward at the European Youth Olympic Festival in February.
The Hawks own a second round pick that they could use later this afternoon in the CHL Import Draft.
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In their history, the Hawks have had 24 players from Europe play in Portland…here are their stats, ranked by most points as a Hawk:
1 – Jozef Balej — 176 GP, 105-85-190, 103 PIM
2 – Jiri Beranek — 142 GP, 56-124-180, 105 PIM
3 – Richard Zednik — 126 GP, 79-88-167, 243 PIM
4 – Marcel Hossa — 188 GP, 65-99-164, 182 PIM
5 – Andrej Podkonicky — 135 GP, 55-90-145, 208 PIM
6 – Marian Hossa — 53 GP, 45-40-85, 50 PIM
7 – Radim Valchar — 139 GP, 30-35-65, 77 PIM
8 – Jannik Hansen — 64 GP, 24-40-64, 67 PIM
9 – Jakub Klepis — 70 GP, 14-50-64, 111 PIM
10 – Ondrej Vesely — 80 GP, 20-36-56, 64 PIM
11 – Thomas Bjuhr — 39 GP, 28-26-54, 23 PIM
12 – Stanislav Balan — 67 GP, 14-23-37, 102 PIM
13 – Viktor Sjodin — 102 GP, 19-18-37, 125 PIM
14 – Dmitri Markovsky — 57 GP, 9-17-26, 22 PIM
15 – Jan Koznar — 67 GP, 9-10-19, 56 PIM
16 – Tomas Jansson — 32 GP, 1-16-17, 122 PIM
17 – Stefan Langwieder — 59 GP, 2-14-16, 91 PIM
18 – Roman Prazak — 58 GP, 6-9-15, 43 PIM
19 – Ivan Dornic — 62 GP, 6-9-15, 33 PIM
20 – Tomas Fojtik — 65 GP, 2-13-15, 48 PIM
21 – David Turon — 36 GP, 3-6-9, 38 PIM
22 – Per Elofson — 15 GP, 2-6-8, 4 PIM
23 – Max Brandl — 12 GP, 1-2-3, 6 PIM
24 – Martin Bucek — 38 GP, 2-0-2, 18 PIM
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