The 2015 NHL Draft will be held in South Florida. The NHL officially announced on Tuesday morning that the Florida Panthers and BB&T Center will host the event over two days beginning on Friday, June 26 and concluding on Saturday June 27.
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More Panthers coverage
It'll be the second time the Panthers have hosted the draft, having previously done so in 2001. The Atlanta Thrashers selected Ilya Kovalchuk first overall that year -- which is a sentence that just feels weird to write now.
The Panthers asked the Broward County government for a big, pretty new scoreboard at BB&T Center last summer, and they basically promised the economic boost provided by an event like the NHL Draft as a return on the investment of taxpayer dollars. They got their scoreboard, and now they're getting the draft.
Who knows, maybe they'll get projected top pick Connor McDavid, too?
The 2015 Draft will be the fourth straight draft hosted by an Eastern Conference team. The 2011 event in St. Paul, Minn. was the last one to be held in the West. Pittsburgh hosted in 2012, New Jersey hosted in 2013 and Philadelphia will host in June 2014. It seems pretty likely that the event will be heading back West in 2016.
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