from Tal Pinchevsky at the Wall Street Journal,

When the NHL’s 30 teams convene for the draft in Sunrise, Fla., on Friday, they’ll begin the two-day process of welcoming 211 new players to their ranks.

But the 2015 NHL Entry Draft is really about two of these players.

For close to a year now, the hockey world has anticipated the draft-day coronations of Connor McDavid of the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters and Boston University’s Jack Eichel—the pair of can’t-miss prospects being hailed as the league’s next two superstars.

And for better or for worse, they will be almost certainly heading to two of the NHL’s smallest and most remote outposts: Edmonton and Buffalo. The hockey-mad fans of the Oilers and Sabres are already hailing McDavid and Eichel as their respective saviors.

The Oilers haven’t made the playoffs since 2006, the NHL’s longest current postseason drought. Although this will be the fourth time the Oilers have had the No. 1 pick in six years, this one feels different. There is an overwhelming sense in Edmonton that McDavid is destined to resurrect a franchise that won the Stanley Cup five times between 1984 and 1990.

“They’re already setting a spot beside the [Wayne] Gretzky statue, I think,” said Jim Matheson, the Edmonton Journal columnist who has covered the Oilers since they joined the World Hockey Association in 1972.

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