CHL set for 2013 NHL Draft
By Paul Krotz/CHL
Excitement is building for the 2013 NHL Draft set for Sunday June 30 in New Jersey where many Canadian Hockey League players will take the next step in their careers and add to the league’s rich history of success at the draft.
With 28 of the top 30 North American prospects listed in NHL Central Scouting’s Final Draft Rankings, CHL fans can expect to hear many familiar names called by NHL clubs in the early stages of the draft with the hope of producing a seventh straight first overall selection.
Seth Jones of the Portland Winterhawks and Nathan MacKinnon of the Halifax Mooseheads top the list of prospects who could follow the likes of Nail Yakupov, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Taylor Hall, John Tavares, Steven Stamkos, and Patrick Kane in a string of consecutive top picks from the CHL when the Colorado Avalanche announce their selection on Sunday afternoon.
“It would be special to be the No. 1 pick (and) it would be pretty cool to be back where it all started, but there are lots of great players who were taken No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and a lot lower than that,” Jones, who grew up playing hockey in Denver, told the New York Daily News. “You don’t have to be taken No. 1 overall to have a great NHL career.”
Jones, the WHL Rookie of the Year and winner of the CHL’s Top Prospect award enters the draft as the number one ranked player by NHL Central Scouting, but MacKinnon’s MVP performance at the MasterCard Memorial Cup may have impressed the Avalanche brass.
“Anywhere you go, you just want to have a career one day,” MacKinnon told Postmedia. “I’m not too worried about where I go. I know I’ll be the same player coming out of it regardless of how high I go. Obviously, you want to go as high as you can. You don’t want sit there for too long. But at the same time, it’s not a huge deal to me, personally.”
MacKinnon’s teammate, CHL Player of the Year Jonathan Drouin, is ranked third overall by NHL Central Scouting and if both players are chosen as expected it would mark the second straight year for a pair of CHL teammates to be selected in the top-three picks.
Last year Yakupov and Sarnia Sting teammate Alex Galchenyuk were chosen first and third respectively becoming just the fourth pair in draft history selected in that range following the Sedin twins in 1999, Wilf Paiement and Rick Hampton of St. Catharines in 1974, along with Rejean Houle and Marc Tardif of the Montreal Jr. Canadiens in 1969.
Add top ranked goaltending prospect Zach Fucale of the Mooseheads to the mix and the Memorial Cup Champs have three potential first round picks to cheer for on Sunday which would match their Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Atlantic Division rivals, the Saint John Sea Dogs, who had three first round picks in 2011 after also hoisting the CHL’s top prize that season.
Last year a total of 99 CHL players were drafted in Pittsburgh bringing the CHL total to 4,985 players selected since 1969 representing over 50% of all players. 2,120 of those players are from the OHL (21.3%), 1,827 from the WHL (18.3%), and 1,038 from the QMJHL (10.4%).
The 2012 draft was record setting for the Ontario Hockey League as a whole with 48 players selected representing a modern draft record with their highest total since 1999 when 52 OHL players were picked in the nine-round process.
The Western Hockey League also made history last season with five defencemen selected among the first eight picks including Ryan Murray, Griffin Reinhart, Morgan Rielly, Mathew Dumba, and Derrick Pouliot contributing to the NHL Draft record of 13 total blueliners picked in the first round.
Heading into 2013, the Peterborough Petes continue to lead the CHL with 173 players selected and along with the London Knights and Plymouth Whalers have over 20 straight years of players chosen at the draft. In the WHL, the Portland Winterhawks and Saskatoon Blades each lead the way with 122 drafted players, while the Shawinigan Cataractes lead the QMJHL with 87 drafted players.
With 157 players listed among the 245 North American Skaters and Goaltenders ranked by NHL Central Scouting, the CHL is poised to have another terrific year as the top supplier of talent to the NHL.
Click here for a list of CHL players ranked by NHL Central Scouting.
