After an injury-plagued season, the defending champion Florida Panthers hold a six percent chance at the top pick at this year's NHL Draft.
The NHL Draft Lottery is upon us.
Tuesday night in New Jersey, the NHL will host its annual Draft Lottery, where we find out the order of the first 16 picks for the 2026 NHL Entry Draft.
In what has been of the more surprising developments of the 2025-26 season, the back-to-back defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers are one of the teams in the thick of the lottery race.
An injury-plagued season unlike any seen before caused the Panthers to miss the playoffs for the first time in seven years, dropping a team that is expected to contend for the Cup again next season right in the thick of the mix for the number one overall selection.
When the dust settled on the regular season, Florida held the eighth-worst record in the NHL.
That gave the Panthers a 6% chance at landing the first overall selection.
The way the NHL Draft Lottery works is a very interesting process.
Here is how the NHL breaks it down:
“There are four balls numbered 1 to 14 and 1,001 possible four-number combinations. One combination is designated as a redraw (11, 12, 13, 14), allowing the NHL to divide by 1,000 among the 16 teams that did not make the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“Based on the final NHL regular-season standings and the draft lottery odds determined by the Board of Governors, each team receives an allotment of randomly assigned four-number combinations. Essentially, the lower you finish, the more lottery tickets you receive.”
The NHL Draft Lottery actually consists of two separate draws; one for the first overall pick and one for the rest of the draft order.
A team can only move up a total of 10 spots, so only the bottom-11 teams are eligible to move up to first overall.
For Florida, that means they have the possibility of ending up with the first, second, eighth, ninth or tenth overall selection.
The Panthers will receive the first or second pick if they win either draw, but they’ll get bumped back to ninth or tenth if one or two teams below them win one or both of the draws.
In their history, Florida has actually won the Draft Lottery three times.
They won in both 2002 and 2003 but traded down each time. In 2014, Florida again won the Lottery and selected Aaron Ekblad with the first overall pick.
This year, whoever lands the top pick is expected to select elite forward Gavin McKenna, though Swedish star winger Ivar Stenberg is also under consideration by some for first overall.
Regardless of where Florida lands in the draft order, it will be interesting to see what the Panthers end up doing with their pick.
With Florida seemingly in win-now mode for the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Panthers General Manager Bill Zito explore trading the high-end asset for a player or players who can contribute to the team immediately.
The NHL Draft Lottery will air at 7 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN.
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Photo caption: Jun 27, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; A general view of the draft board after the first overall pick in the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft at Peacock Theater. (Kirby Lee-Imagn Images)