Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey

Red Wings receive No. 9 pick in 2017 NHL Draft Lottery

Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey


By @MichaelCaples –

For the first time since its inception in 1995, the Detroit Red Wings were participants in the NHL Draft Lottery, and they ended up moving down instead of up.

The league conducted its selection process to decide the 2017 NHL Draft order for the first 15 picks tonight, and the Red Wings will be selecting No. 9 overall. Without a reseeding process, the Red Wings would have selected No. 7 overall, after finishing with the sixth-worst regular-season record (and allocating a top-three spot for the expansion franchise in Las Vegas).

The Draft Lottery consisted of three selections to choose the top three draft spots; from there, the teams were placed into a draft order in reverse order of their regular-season finish.

The Red Wings had the seventh highest percentage chance (6.7 percent) of winning the lottery after finishing 25th in the NHL in the final regular-season standings. The expansion Los Vegas Golden Knights were inserted into the draft lottery with the third-best odds (10.3 percent) of receiving the top pick.

The NHL list of top draft prospects displayed during the TV broadcast on NBC/CBC has Cale Makar, a defenseman with the Brooks Bandits of the AJHL, as the No. 9 overall prospect. Other notable names in that range according to draft projections and rankings include Casey Mittlestadt of Eden Prairie (Minnesota) High School, Martin Necas of HC Kometa Brino (Czech Republic) and Klim Kostin of the Moscow Dynamo.

Stay tuned for a full list of potential draft picks for the Red Wings.

Detroit hasn’t had a top-10 pick since they claimed Martin Lapointe at No. 10 in the 1991 NHL Draft. The year previously, the Wings picked Keith Primeau at No. 3.

Kris Draper was the Red Wings’ representative at the Draft Lottery; Shawn Horcoff was also spotted in the television broadcast.

Philadelphia, New Jersey and Dallas moved into the top three with the draft lottery process. The Devils received the top pick, with the Stars receiving the No. 2 pick and the Stars receiving the No. 3 pick.

Official order from tonight’s Draft Lottery:

  1. New Jersey
  2. Philadelphia
  3. Dallas
  4. Colorado
  5. Vancouver
  6. Las Vegas
  7. Arizona
  8. Buffalo
  9. Detroit
  10. Florida
  11. Los Angeles
  12. Carolina
  13. Winnipeg
  14. Tampa Bay
  15. New York Islanders