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What we're hearing ahead of the 2021 NHL Entry Draft

NHL Entry Draft 2021
The big day is finally here. The NHL's 32 teams are set to conduct the second consecutive virtual draft, this one a mere nine months after last year's talent auction.

It's a draft unlike any before it, just like last year's. The Seattle Kraken joined the league in earnest on Wednesday, and that makes for 32 picks in each round -- that's new! Many scouts were forced to rely on game tape rather than in-person viewings, and they had far smaller samples than usual to work with.

The draft is always unpredictable -- raise your hand if you had Yegor Chinakhov going to the Columbus Blue Jackets at No. 20 last year -- but this year is going to be more volatile than most.

That could make an article like this one a fraught exercise, but such is the nature of any sort of pre-draft predictions. A lot can change quickly. What seemed like iron-clad intel one moment is outdated the next.

Nonetheless, we carry on, and in this article, we'll try to share what we've heard from industry sources in the lead-up to tonight's draft.

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