The lottery balls have spoken.
On Tuesday night, the National Hockey League held its annual Draft Lottery inside the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, New Jersey.
The Florida Panthers entered the event holding the eighth-best chance at winning the lottery and moving up to either the first or second overall selection at next month’s NHL Draft.
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While the Panthers did not win either of the draws, two other teams did, meaning two teams were lucky enough to move up in the draft order.
Those teams were the Toronto Maple Leafs, who moved from fifth to first, and the San Jose Sharks, who jumped from ninth to second.
With the Sharks moving up from behind Florida, that bumped the Panthers back one spot, from eighth to ninth.
In their history, the Panthers have only selected ninth overall once. That was in 2002, when Florida selected Czech forward Petr Taticek with the ninth selection.
The pick turned out to be a bust for the Panthers, as Taticek didn’t make his NHL debut until January of 2006 and only played a total of three games for the Panthers before taking his talents overseas the following season.
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Now we’ll have to wait and see what Panthers General Manager Bill Zito chooses to do with the pick ahead of the NHL Draft, which is set for June 26 and 27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo.
Next season the Panthers are expected to re-join the top teams in the league competing for the Stanley Cup, and Zito may want to explore flipping the top-10 pick for a player or players who can help the team win now, as opposed to a young prospect still two or three years away from reaching the NHL.
We’ll see how things play out in the coming weeks.
Stay tuned.
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Photo caption: Jun 28, 2023; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; The draft board after round one of the 2023 NHL Draft at Bridgestone Arena. (Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images)
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