After a lacklustre 2012 NHL Entry Draft, one of the NHL’s most anticipated calendar dates was looking to live up to the hype for the 2013 edition. For much of the year, forward Nathan MacKinnon and defenceman Seth Jones shared the spotlight, akin to what we saw in 2009 with Tavares/Hedman. Late riser Jonathan Drouin played the dark horse role like Matt Duchene in that both catapulted up the ISS rankings as the year progressed, eventually solidifying a Top-3 consensus rank. 2013 would go on to be one of the best drafts of the decade, so have a look at the slides and see all the budding stars before they became NHLers!
by TylerBlozak
39 Comments
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Lazar listed as “character forward”, huh
I remember Jones dropping to #4 and Barkov going #2 absolutely shocking a ton of people. Everybody thought whoever was going #1 was going to get the next Duncan Keith.
Also both funny & depressing to see Hagg and Morin rated so highly knowing they topped out as goofy 3rd pairing physical guys. Morin obviously had a lot of injury trouble but he never showed much potential beyond that anyway.
A pretty decent draft class. Lots of players that have carved out solid NHL careers
I like how Barkov is classified as an offensive forward and MacKinnon two-way forward
I was like damn Seth Jones still looks young!
Didn’t catch at first it wasn’t a Blackhawks jersey…
wow, who goes 3rd in that draft now?
Did they release this mid-season or without scouts or… something? I, in no way, remember this being a general consensus for that draft (and I’ve only read the first 9 entries). Sure Jones was set to be a high pick, but did anyone else not have MacKinnon as #1? And Barkov’s buzz was growing, especially heading into the draft, I was positive Tallon would take him.
*Edit- Ristolainen is not Erik Karlsson. Give that scout a raise!
What a year for the Halifax Mooseheads! They win their first ever Memorial Cup and see both Mack and Drouin get drafted top 3. The energy in the city was real.
I love wasting time reading these every morning. To sit here and read what it was like back then and thinking about it now has seen so much change and potential in players that you’ve never expected
Doug Wilson completing his holy trinity of underwhelming first round defenseman this year. Wishart, Petrecki, then Mueller all in a span of six years. Ugh. In the other three years, he took Couture, Hertl, and Charlie Coyle. I get you win some, lose some, but that’s a pretty stark contrast.
Mueller was definitely rushed to the show and I think that forever stunted his development. I think he would have been a fine middle-pairing if he went elsewhere.
Little did we know how relevant that story of Sean Monahan playing through a back injury would be in terms of how his career turned out.
Good to see nothings changed with Mantha.
Damn this draft was loaded
Dolo was ranked 50th in this draft.
MacKinnon was touted as #1 years before this, or at least in contention with Jones. I feel like placing Drouin above him due to one stellar year is a hot take, and Mack was always a better all around player anyways.
The most shocking thing here to me is Drouin weighed more than Mac
Man some of these titles aged poorly really fast. Jones slam dunk to go number 1, and can’t fail nail. I know you need to make bold titles but it’s funny how quickly they turned out to be wrong
The “future” draft rankings on the last page are interesting. You’ve got a mix of stars who went top 10, players who dropped to the 2nd or 3rd round, and then Blake Clarke who has the big profile, was ranked 5th…and then dropped from 51 points to 12, went undrafted, and seemingly never played hockey after the OHL. Wonder what the story was there.
Did the Avs/Sakic just put this draft board up in their room and start throwing darts until they accumulated as many as possible? (not a criticism, it clearly worked!)
Mak, Drouin, Nuke, Burakowsky, Lehkonen, and J.T. Compher.
Legendary mooseheads run
Max Domi the power forward?
I am going to say that I completely forgot about Sean Day.
Flames with 3 first round picks in this draft and 2 were complete busts.
Jonathan Drouin is my favorite current player, used him endlessly in gm modes in nhl 13-20 (haven’t bought chel since) wish his career turned out differently but I love him always and he balled tf out on the Avs last year
The Nate Dogg two way forward
I felt at the time like I was taking crazy pills for the Zach Fucale takes. Everyone was hyping him as this generational level goalie prospect whereas I was like “wait a minute, he’s playing behind this juggernaut team and his numbers are *fairly* pedestrian”
Turns out I was onto something because he never really developed from there. Won a WJ gold and Memorial Cup but it certainly wasn’t because of him, it was because of stacked teams.
The real goalie prize in this draft wasn’t in the THN top 100. But he did get taken within the top 100 in the draft as the Preds snagged Juuse Saros at 99.
Kinda funny too that this article hyped the 2013 Q class, because aside from MacKinnon none of them became all-star level guys (though there’s still some decent talent with Drouin, Mantha, and Duclair)
Jets did decently picking up Morrissey at 13th.
No one had Guentzel on their radars.
Lots of current/former Avs lol
I remembering owning this magazine and thinking anyone would be stupid not to take MacKinnon 1st overall
I’ve looked through every one of these and the Sabres inevitably had picked the worst players on the list.
This takes me back. So much talk of Colorado getting our hometown Jones since we needed D badly….. and then we got stuck with that MacKinnon guy.
Crazy how Mack, Drouin and Val all are on the same team. Val is truly a talented player when he’s on but obviously has a lot of personal issues.
Why does Bo Horvat seem infinitely older?
How many picks did we have that year. I feel we drafted half these guys.
Been loving these throwback magazines
There was a strong rumour that Patrick Roy insisted on Nathan Mackinnon since he played against him so much in the Q.
Pretty damn good draft class. A Hart Trophy winner. A two time Selke winner, multiple all stars and bonafide every day NHLers through the class.
I also will never miss the opportunity to reminisce on Don Cherry’s rants after the Panthers took Barkov. I think we got the right player there. Dude was the start of this Franchise moving in the right direction. We take Jones or Drouin and things are very different for us today.