Official 2013 NHL Draft Order

Official 2013 NHL Draft Logo. Mandatory Credit: NHL

San Jose, CA– Today the National Hockey League officially released the draft order that will commence this Sunday June 30th in Newark, NJ at the Prudential Center as the Devils organization play hosts to this years draft. The start of the draft will begin at 12p local time with all seven rounds being completed on that day. In addition, the draft will be televised on the following networks, for US viewers, tune in on NBC Sports Network and for Canadian viewers it will be broadcasted on TSN and RDS (French speaking audiences). Live coverage will go from 12p-5p.

Here’s what San Jose Sharks General Manager Doug Wilson had to say regarding the upcoming draft.

“This is viewed as just a really, really strong draft,” Wilson said Monday during a news conference. “You’re going to get really good players all the way through the second round. You go back to the ’03 draft, the quality of players and where they were picked.”

The following players selected in the draft class of 03, Sharks forward/defenseman Brent Burns went to the Minnesota Wild at No. 20. Patrice Bergeron (Boston Bruins) and Shea Weber (Nashville Predators) lasted until midway through the second round. Ryan Suter (Nashville), Zach Parise (New Jersey Devils), Ryan Getzlaf(Anaheim Ducks), Ryan Kesler (Vancouver Canucks), Corey Perry (Anaheim), Dustin Brown (Los Angeles Kings) and Marc-Andre Fleury (Pittsburgh Penguins, No. 1) were part of a star-studded first round.

Doug Wilson added this about his stockpile of picks.

“We have the extra second-round picks to jump up if we want,” Wilson said. “If things fall the way they have, we might not need to. If you can get quality and quantity, that’s your ultimate goal. We’re in a really good position for that, and we think next year’s draft is going to be pretty good too. But this year in particular, it factored into the decisions we made prior to the trade deadline. To lose some players and not get really valuable picks in the year of a strong draft would have been a double whammy.”

***Quotes courtesy of NHL.com***

Official Link: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=675095#&navid=nhl-search 

It remains to be seen who San Jose will select as their first round pick. Will it be a scoring forward, a defenseman, or a goaltender? As of right now it’s a mystery and something that will keep us guessing until it’s finally revealed on draft day. Last year in Pittsburgh, San Jose selected Tomas Hertl in round one at the 17th overall spot. According to Wilson he firmly believes that Hertl will make a strong push to try and crack the 2013-2014 opening night roster during training camp.

Since being eliminated for this years playoffs against the LA Kings, Doug Wilson has been busy with his preparations to this Sundays draft.  Furthermore, he also has been fielding several calls from fellow general managers in a attempt to acquire some of San Jose’s high round draft picks.

Below is the official draft order by round.

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