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The 2021 NHL Draft is less than two weeks away and the Minnesota Wild are going to have a crazy time during the 24-hour bonanza.
Aside from having five picks in the first three rounds, the Wild are now under immense pressure to get some top talent that can hopefully be with the first team in the next few years — because, you know, the Wild bought out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter and will now have giant hunks of dead cap for three consecutive years.
Aside from thumb-twiddling nervousness, the Wild and the greater NHL, released the exact order of the picks for the upcoming draft.
#mnwild 2021 NHL Draft picks
— Minnesota Wild PR (@mnwildPR) July 14, 2021
1st Round - #22 and #26
2nd Round - #54
3rd Round - #86 and #90
4th Round - #118
5th Round - #150
6th Round - #182
7th Round - #214
While technically the Wild have the 22nd and 26th overall picks in the first round, due to the Arizona Coyotes forfeiting their 11th overall pick because of their scandalous prospect testing, the Wild will have the 21st and 25th picks of the draft.
There is going to be extremely interesting players available around those picks. They could go for the young undersized skilled players like defenseman Olen Zellweger or winger Logan Stankovan, or they can go for more dependent players like Brennan Othmann or center Xavier Bourgault — there’s going to be players and enough of them to like the dude they select.
At least we know the order of picks now, so we can really plan out what we think the Wild should do on draft night.