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 What seemed like iron-clad intel one moment is outdated the next.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.