With wins on Thursday night by the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks, the Florida Panthers clinched retaining their first-round pick in the 2026 NHL draft.<\/p>\n
The pick had been in question since the Seth Jones trade last season as the Panthers sent a first-round selection to the Chicago Blackhawks as part of the transaction.<\/p>\n
The draft pick was top-10 protected in 2026, and with the Panthers owning the eighth-worst record in the NHL this season, the worst that pick can be after the draft lottery is 10th, as a maximum of two teams can potentially move up past the Panthers in that lottery. A team can move up a maximum of 10 spots if it wins either draw in the NHL draft lottery, but only the first draw has the possibility of a team (ranked 2-11) usurping the Vancouver Canucks for the first pick.<\/p>\n
With that assurance, the first-rounder is confirmed to be sent to Chicago in the 2027 draft.<\/p>\n
Now, Florida can pick first, second, third, eighth, ninth or 10th in the June 26 first round. The draft lottery is Tuesday, May 5.<\/p>\n
The last time the Panthers had a top-10 pick was nine years ago, when they selected Owen Tippett 10th.<\/p>\n
The bottom 11 records in the league, from worst to best:<\/p>\n
Vancouver Canucks: 58 points*<\/p>\n
Chicago Blackhawks: 72<\/p>\n
Calgary Flames: 75*<\/p>\n
New York Rangers: 77<\/p>\n
Toronto Maple Leafs: 78<\/p>\n
Seattle Kraken: 79*<\/p>\n
Winnipeg Jets: 82<\/p>\n
Florida Panthers: 84<\/p>\n
San Jose Sharks: 86<\/p>\n
St. Louis Blues: 86<\/p>\n
Nashville Predators: 86<\/p>\n
*Playing their final game late Thursday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With wins on Thursday night by the St. Louis Blues and San Jose Sharks, the Florida Panthers clinched…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[62,57,5141,5,1180,4,63,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-554420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-panthers","10":"tag-floridapanthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116419352373553606","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}