Well that was a little confusing, wasn’t it?
For the first time ever, the NHL held their Draft Lottery live on television as they unveiled how the first round would shake out for the 16 teams that did not make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Pittsburgh Penguins had good reason to watch tonight. They sat in the ninth spot in the pre-lottery order and held a 5% chance of winning the first overall pick in this June’s draft.
They also had another pick to keep eyes on. Pittsburgh is owed a first round selection from the New York Rangers, which they obtained from Vancouver in a trade headlined by Marcus Pettersson. With the order now settled, the Rangers have to decide whether or not to give the Penguins their first round pick this year, or next year. But we’ll circle back to that in a moment.
I’ll be completely honest, I’m not sure how to explain the format that the NHL used. Though seeing the process happen live was pretty cool — and something I would certainly encourage them to do again — the actual method by which the NHL determined the order was very confusing.
Nevertheless, here’s how it finished:
The New York Islanders, against pretty tough odds, won the lottery and now hold the first overall pick. San Jose, who finished dead last in the NHL for the second year in a row, will pick second. Chicago, who won the lottery two years ago, won the third and final draw of the night and now sit with the third overall pick.
This was pretty much a worse-case scenario for the Penguins. Pittsburgh will slide back from the ninth overall selection to the 11th overall pick in the draft.
Per the NHL’s odds board ahead of time, the Penguins had just a 1.5% chance of sliding all the way back to the 11th pick. Their only lower probability was the chance to draft third overall, which sat at 0.1%.
That end-of-year run where the Penguins won a decent amount of games really screwed them out of a higher pick. We can debate other areas where winning down the stretch may have been beneficial, but this is a pretty big detractor from that. Now, they won’t even draft in the top ten, barring a trade up.
Meanwhile, the Rangers sit right above the Penguins at 12th overall in the post-lottery order. With New York’s selection falling in the top-13, Rangers general manager Chris Drury now has a decision to make.
When the Rangers traded their first rounder to Vancouver as part of the JT Miller trade, they put a condition on the pick that allowed them to keep the 2025 first rounder if that pick fell within the top-13. It was a failsafe to protect the team if the bottom fell out on them down the stretch and they wound up with a high pick.
The Rangers can opt to keep that pick, but if they do, they must sent an unprotected first round pick in 2026 to Pittsburgh, who has since acquired their pick.
It all really comes down to how confident the Rangers, who just hired former Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan, are in next season being a bounce back year for them.
New York has until 48 hours before the draft to confirm their decision.
Regardless of which and/or both picks the Penguins opt to use, it will be the highest draft selection they make since 2012, when Pittsburgh hosted the draft at the then-Consol Energy Center. That year, they used a first round pick they acquired from Carolina on defenseman Derrick Pouliot.
Pouliot played parts of three seasons with the Penguins, but never truly panned out at the NHL level. A day before the season opened in 2017, the Penguins traded Pouliot to Vancouver for defenseman Andrey Pedan and a 2018 fourth round pick.
Pedan never played a game for the Penguins and that fourth round pick was eventually packaged to Vegas at the 2018 trade deadline as part of that ill-fated three team trade to bring in Derick Brassard from the Ottawa Senators.
And on that positive note, happy drafting!
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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