On Monday evening, the fourteen teams who did not qualify for the NHL playoffs were placed in a lottery to determine the draft order in the 2013 NHL Draft. While the Edmonton Oilers have won the lottery each of the last three years, it was the Colorado Avalanche who won it this year, meaning they will have the first overall selection in the upcoming draft. The Florida Panthers, who had the worst record in the league and had the best odds to pick first, will pick second. From three to fourteen, the draft order matched the order that the teams finished in during the regular season.
NHL Central Scouting released its final rankings last week and Seth Jones, the Portland Winterhawks defenseman, still topped the list of North American skaters while Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin, forwards for the Halifax Mooseheads, finished two and three, respectively. It’s widely believed that the Avalanche will select Jones with their pick, but it won’t be definitive until the draft takes place in Newark. On the international side, Aleksander Barkov of Finland finished as the top ranked international skater in this draft with Valeri Nichushkin of Russia and Elias Lindholm of Sweden rounding out the top three.
Jones would be a great addition to a Colorado defensive corps which finished fourth-worst in goals allowed with 150 this past season. He is a physical two-way defenseman who was a part of this past year’s Team USA World Junior Championship squad that brought home the gold medal from Ufa, Russia. Jones tallied 14 goals and 56 points this past campaign and has helped lead Portland to the Western Hockey League finals, where they are set to take on the winner of the series between Edmonton and Calgary.
Here are the results of the draft lottery. The last sixteen spots will go by which teams are eliminated from the playoffs:
1. Colorado
2. Florida
3. Tampa Bay
4. Nashville
5. Carolina
6. Calgary
7. Edmonton
8. Buffalo
9. New Jersey
10. Dallas
11. Philadelphia
12. Phoenix
13. Winnipeg
14. Columbus