NHL announces draft lottery and 2023 Entry Draft dates

On Wednesday morning, the National Hockey League announced some key dates for the remainder of the 2022-23 season.

This included the first day of the playoffs on Monday, April 17th; the tentative start of the Stanley Cup Final on June 3rd; the NHL awards on June 26th; the NHL scouting combine from June 4th-10th; and most important for Canucks fans, 2023 NHL Entry Draft information.

First, the draft lottery will take place on May 8th, meaning that Canucks fans will have plenty of time to discuss and read about which player the Canucks should use their first round pick on. North Vancouver’s Connor Bedard is obviously the holy grail, but there are plenty of solid options in this year’s draft for the Canucks to potentially draft.

We anticipate right shot defenceman David Reinbacher will be a major riser in the months leading up to draft day, and could be available to the Canucks if they draft in the 6-9 range. That’s just one example though, as the top 10 is very forward heavy.

At the time of this writing, the Canucks have the eighth-best odds at 6.5% of winning the draft lottery and drafting the hometown kid Bedard. Also at the time of this writing, the Canucks are on a five game winning streak, so it’s tough to project where they’ll finish when the season comes to a close.

It’s tough to imagine they’ll catch up to the likes of the Detroit Red Wings or Ottawa Senators in the standings, meaning they likely won’t finish with worse than the ninth-best odds at landing the first overall pick, but stranger things have certainly happened.

As for the draft itself, round one of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft will take place on Wednesday, June 28th at 4 PM Pacific Time from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Rounds 2-7 will take place on June 29th and will start at 8 AM Pacific. Here’s hoping day two doesn’t take seven hours to complete again!

All three draft-related events will be televised on Sportsnet.