{"id":761877,"date":"2026-06-26T16:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761877\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T16:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T16:11:08","slug":"nhl-draft-starts-friday-with-stanley-cup-champion-hurricanes-holding-no-31-overall-pick-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/761877\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Draft starts Friday with Stanley Cup-champion Hurricanes holding No. 31 overall pick :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While most of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/news\/local\/150k-caniacs-celebrate-carolina-hurricanes-stanley-cup-parade-downtown-raleigh-june-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">North Carolina is still celebrating the Carolina Hurricanes&#8217; Stanley Cup victory<\/a>, the NHL calendar waits for no one.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL Draft begins Friday at 7 p.m. (ESPN) with the next six rounds being held Saturday (NHL Network).<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/hurricanes\/news\/need-to-know-canes-at-the-2026-nhl-draft\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">hold the No. 31 overall pick<\/a> in the first round and the team has just three other picks \u2013 one in the fourth round and two in the sixth round.<\/p>\n<p>The Hurricanes open the preseason Sept. 20 at Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Carolina has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/sports\/archive\/22067913\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">traded out of the first round<\/a> in each of the last two drafts. General Manager Eric Tulsky has used draft picks in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wral.com\/sports\/hurricanes-general-manager-eric-tulsky-moves-stanley-cup-final-june-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">significant trades<\/a> in recent years, including trading a first-round pick as part of the package for defenseman K\u2019Andre Miller.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly all of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/hurricanes\/team\/contract-tracker\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hurricanes\u2019 roster is under contract for 2026-27<\/a> with goaltender Frederik Andersen and reserve defenseman Mike Reilly as the lone unrestricted free agents. Defenseman Alexander Nikishin is a restricted free agent.<\/p>\n<p>Free agents<\/p>\n<p>Frederik Andersen (unrestricted), Mike Reilly (unrestricted), Alexander Nikishin (restricted)<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2026-27<\/p>\n<p>Jordan Staal, Jordan Martinook, Pyotr Kochetkov<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2027-28<\/p>\n<p>Taylor Hall, Mark Jankowski, Nicolas Deslauriers, Shayne Gostisbehere, Jalen Chatfield<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2028-29<\/p>\n<p>Andrei Svechnikov, Eric Robinson, Sean Walker, Brandon Bussi<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2029-30<\/p>\n<p>Jesperi Kotkaniemi, William Carrier<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2030-31<\/p>\n<p>Nikolaj Ehlers<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2031-32<\/p>\n<p>Sebastian Aho, Seth Jarvis<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2032-33<\/p>\n<p>Jaccob Slavin, K\u2019Andre Miller<\/p>\n<p>Signed through 2033-34<\/p>\n<p>Jackson Blake, Logan Stankoven<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While most of North Carolina is still celebrating the Carolina Hurricanes&#8217; Stanley Cup victory, the NHL calendar waits&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,7322,107127,59840,85],"class_list":["post-761877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft","tag-nhl-preseason","tag-nhl-prospects","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}