Panthers head into the NHL Draft Lottery after a tough season, so we examine their history with the Lottery and some of the choices that shaped the franchise.
In less than a week, hockey fans across the globe will tune in to the NHL Draft Lottery.
That’s when we’ll find out the order of the first half of the first round of 2026 NHL Entry Draft, which takes place on June 26 and 27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
Thanks to an injury-laden season like none the franchise had ever seen, the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers find themselves in the Lottery mix.
Florida finished the season with the eighth-worst record in the league.
That means the Panthers first-round selection will either be first, second, eighth, ninth or tenth, depending how the two Lottery draws go.
If Florida wins either of the draws – there is one for the first overall pick and one for the second pick – they’ll move up and select there. According to the NHL, Florida has a 6.0% chance of moving up from eighth to first.
If a team behind the Panthers wins either draw, they would move up and bump Florida back one spot to ninth. If two teams behind the Panthers each win one of the draws, that would bump the Cats back two spots, and they would pick tenth.
This year’s NHL Draft Lottery is set for Tuesday, May 5 and will be broadcast live from the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Looking back over the past 30 years of the NHL Draft Lottery (the first lottery draw was held in 1995), the Panthers have some limited history with the league’s ping pong balls.
Be warned, though…it’s not much, and it starts a bit frustratingly.
In 2002, the Panthers won the NHL Draft Lottery, moving up from the third-worst record.
Fast forward two months to the 2002 NHL Draft and the Panthers decided to trade down, swapping picks with Columbus, who had the third overall pick, in exchange for “future considerations” which were that Florida would have the right to swap picks again with the Blue Jackets the following year if they so desired. That didn’t happen, and we’ll get into why in a moment.
Columbus ended up taking Rick Nash first overall while the Panthers selected Jay Bouwmeester with the third pick.
The following season, Florida finished with the fourth-worst record while Columbus finished third-worst, but for the second straight year, the Panthers ended up winning the Draft Lottery.
That meant those “future considerations” would not be needed, as the Panthers would be keeping their 2003 top pick instead of swapping with Columbus.
Once again, the Panthers decided to shop their shiny new first overall selection.
This time, they swapped picks with the Pittsburgh Penguins, again moving down from one to three.
Pittsburgh took goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and the Panthers snagged Nathan Horton.
Perhaps learning from the previous year, Florida also acquired a player (Mikael Samuelsson) and a second-round pick (55th overall, Stefan Meyer) in the trade, while sending Pittsburgh a third-round pick (73rd overall, Daniel Carcillo).
So yeah, the hindsight view says the Panthers could have just kept their picks, selected Nash and Fleury, and who knows what may have happened.
Perhaps ‘the dark ages’ of Panthers hockey, where the team went 12 years between postseason appearances and 26 years between playoff series’ wins, would not have been a thing.
But alas, let’s move on.
It wasn’t for another 11 years that the Panthers would find themselves back in the Draft Lottery spotlight.
When the dust settled on the 2013-14 season, Florida finished with the second-worst record in the NHL, ahead of only the lowly Buffalo Sabres.
Then came the Draft Lottery, which saw the Panthers leapfrog Buffalo and slide into the top pick.
This time, Florida hung onto their selection and took defenseman Aaron Ekblad first overall.
It was a decision that has panned out nicely for the Panthers, as Ekblad has become a cornerstone player for the franchise and a big part in Florida’s current championship pedigree.
We’ll have to wait and see whether the Lottery gods once again smile on the Panthers when the ping pong balls are let loose next Tuesday in Secaucus.
While that would be amazing for Florida and their prospects of remaining a Stanley Cup contender for years to come, the rest of the league would likely have some not-so-nice thoughts about the development.
We shall see.
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Photo caption: Jun 27, 2014; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Aaron Ekblad puts on a team jersey after being selected as the number one overall pick to the Florida Panthers in the first round of the 2014 NHL Draft at Wells Fargo Center. (Bill Streicher-Imagn Images)