{"id":568385,"date":"2026-05-06T16:03:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T16:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/568385\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T16:03:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T16:03:16","slug":"florida-panthers-land-ninth-pick-in-nhl-draft-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/568385\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers land ninth pick in NHL draft lottery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panthers general manager Bill Zito <\/a>has a task on his plate that he has not had to deal with for years: He will have a first-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

Florida received the No. 9 pick in the draft lottery on Tuesday night, falling one spot from its original No. 8 position after San Jose won the No. 2 spot and moved up seven spots. It is the first time the Panthers have had a first-round pick since 2021.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Maple Leafs won the lottery and have the No. 1 pick. They will likely select heralded prospect Gavin McKenna, an 18-year-old forward who starred in junior hockey and at Penn State, or Ivar Stenberg, a Swedish prospect who has performed well in the Swedish Hockey League.<\/p>\n

The Panthers have not picked in the first round since they\u00a0selected Mackie Samoskevich with the 24th pick in 2021<\/a>, as Florida has opted to use its top picks as trade pieces to help build its roster in recent years.<\/p>\n

The Panthers traded their 2022 first-round pick in the deal to get Sam Reinhart.<\/a> Florida traded away its 2023 first-rounder as part of a deal for defenseman Ben Chiarot. The Panthers\u2019 first-round pick in 2024 went to the Flyers for Claude Giroux, and their 2025 first-rounder went to the Flames as part of the Matthew Tkachuk trade.<\/a><\/p>\n

Florida traded its 2025 first-round pick to Chicago for defenseman Seth Jones<\/a>, but the pick became protected because of the Panthers\u2019 performance this year. Chicago will get Florida\u2019s first-round pick next year. The Panthers also dealt their 2028 first-rounder to Boston to acquire Brad Marchand.<\/a><\/p>\n

Past Panthers first-rounders who are still on the team include Aaron Ekblad (the top pick in 2024), Aleksander Barkov (the No. 2 pick in 2013) and Dmitri Kulikov (No. 14 in 2009).<\/p>\n

The Panthers are slated to have seven picks in this year\u2019s draft, with three picks in the first two rounds.<\/p>\n

The NHL draft will be held in Buffalo this year. The first round is on June 26, and Rounds 2-7 are on June 27.<\/p>\n

Here are the teams that hold the first 16 picks in the first round of the draft, as announced during Tuesday\u2019s lottery:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Toronto Maple Leafs
2.\u00a0San Jose Sharks
3.\u00a0Vancouver Canucks
4.\u00a0Chicago Blackhawks
5.\u00a0New York Rangers
6.\u00a0Calgary Flames
7.\u00a0Seattle Kraken
8.\u00a0Winnipeg Jets
9.\u00a0Florida Panthers
10.\u00a0Nashville Predators
11.\u00a0St. Louis Blues
12.\u00a0New Jersey Devils
13.\u00a0New York Islanders
14.\u00a0Columbus Blue Jackets
15. St. Louis Blues
16.\u00a0Washington Capitals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panthers general manager Bill Zito has a task on his plate that he has not had to deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[1879,62,57,5141,5,1180,14735,4,63,43],"class_list":["post-568385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida-panthers","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-florida-panthers","tag-floridapanthers","tag-hockey","tag-latest-headlines","tag-miami-hurricanes","tag-nhl","tag-panthers","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116528480487759699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568385","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=568385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}