The 2025 NHL Draft Lottery flopped like a dead catfish on the Nashville ice on Monday night, as a previously typical lottery process turned into 30 minutes of bad Game Show Network reject nonsense.
As ping pong balls fluttered about in an air machine, NHL fans across the globe looked on in utter confusion as the fate of their team’s draft status depended on an unnecessarily complicated process.
2025 NHL Draft Order: Where each team will pick in the first round.
Apparently, the sequence of balls drawn somehow sent the New York Islanders to the top of the NHL Draft and the Utah Hockey Club to the fourth pick. We’re sure fans of those teams are thrilled, but the rest of the world had to watch this bewildering hodgepodge of airballs decide the order of the 2025 NHL Draft.
Like… what is this?!?!
Look, if this is really how top draft picks are decided, this just makes the process look all that much worse. Draft lotteries are inherently evil, but this process just made it all the more confounding. Plus, it was just bad television.
2025 NHL Draft: 5 top prospects in this year’s class, including Matthew Schaefer.
It was just too hard to understand how the live draft lottery worked in the moment, zapping any of the intrigue out of the process. You were left scrambling to figure out what each result meant, and the Islanders winning the first pick just made the whole ordeal that much more bizarre.
The NFL does a lot wrong, but its draft process is at least simple to understand and doesn’t rely on floating ping pong balls pumping out the serial number from the Lost hatch. What are we doing?
Lots of fans really didn’t like this, and it’s hard to blame them. This was a confusing disaster for ESPN and the NHL, and it’s really hard to see this coming back next year.
This is the New Coke of draft lottery television; NHL commissioner Gary Bettman needs to make an executive decision to rework this for the future… or just get rid of the lottery system, for goodness’ sake.
“Gary, the fans think the draft is rigged. They’d like more transparency.”
Gary: “Ok. How about the most convoluted draft lottery ever, but we do it live.”
“Uhhhhhh….” #NHLDraftLottery
— Ryan Turner (@rturner17) May 5, 2025
The #NHLDraftLottery is the perfect example of how bad the @NHL is at marketing and content. Convoluted system. Cutting to a commercial mid draw. Team branding removed from the balls so they can’t go viral after. Just incredibly bad all around.
— Fentoozler (@forevermusing) May 5, 2025
We don’t get it 🤷♂️
— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) May 5, 2025
The NHL Draft lottery is literally the most confusing thing in the world
— jacob (@jacobnyr) May 5, 2025
The NHL Draft lottery should have stayed behind closed doors. This is awful television.
— Sam Ali (@SamAliSports) May 5, 2025
This is the WORST draft lottery format I have ever seen. I have watched & watched and have not learned a single flipping thing on how it works. @NHL what the damn hell is this 😭
— 𝕃𝔼𝔸𝔽𝕊 𝔽𝕆ℝ𝔼𝕍𝔼ℝ (@BlueBuds34) May 5, 2025
I’m not sure I’ve ever watched a dumber, more convoluted, over-dramatized production than the 10 minutes of the NHL draft lottery I just saw.
But hey, the @NYIslanders won the top pick, so … pic.twitter.com/tJmseZgcw6
— Ralph Vacchiano (@RalphVacchiano) May 5, 2025
NHL draft lottery is the dumbest, most complicated way to decide a draft order I’ve ever seen.
— Rob Gallik (@CoachGallik) May 5, 2025
This is painstakingly bad television. Do we really need to see 14 ping pong balls being dropped into the machine? #Isles #NHLDraftLottery
— Gil Martin (@IceWarsNYRvsNYI) May 5, 2025
The NHL Draft Lottery is absurd. Get rid of it. #NHLDraft
— Arthur J. Regner (@ArthurJRegner) May 5, 2025
They even lost a guy who loves math. A literal math nerd!
As a math nerd, the #NHLDraftLottery was cool until they cut away from the last ball. Now I’m just skeptical of it all over again
— Nick Gratton (@thenickgratton) May 5, 2025
Please, for the love of all that is good in hockey, just go back to the big cards next year. This stunk.