Rangers win NHL's draft lottery, Penguins settle for 15th pick
Any hopes of the Penguins drafting another generational player were dashed on Monday.
The NHL held the second phase of its draft lottery, and the Penguins ended up with the 15th overall selection in this year’s draft. The top overall selection was claimed by the New York Rangers.
Alexis Lafreniere, a forward with the Rimouski Ocean of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, is projected to be the top overall selection.
As a result of losing to the Montreal Canadiens in their best-of-five qualifying round series, the Penguins had a 12.5% chance of landing the top pick.
The Penguins now have seven days to determine if they will keep the pick.
A condition of a trade they made with the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 11 to acquire forward Jason Zucker calls for the Penguins to chose if they send a first-round pick in 2020 or 2021 to Minnesota.
The Penguins have not had a first-round pick within the first 15 selections since 2012 when they acquired the eighth-overall selection in a trade with the Carolina Hurricanes and drafted defenseman Derrick Pouliot.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s draft is scheduled to be held Oct. 9-10 and will be staged remotely.
Lafreniere could become the first native of Quebec to be selected No. 1 overall since the Penguins selected Marc-Andre Fleury in 2003.
Rangers general manager Jeff Gorton was hesitant to say his team would indeed select Lafreniere.
“You know I wouldn’t want to give away exactly what it is that’s going to happen,” Gorton said via video conference. “We’ll go through that process and we’ll start to meet the young man and go down the road of talking to him and his family.”
The Rangers have been in the process of rebuilding for several years and have stockpiled a number of high-end prospects. In the 2019 draft, they selected forward Kaapo Kakko with the second overall selection.
In 2018, they had three picks in the first round and selected forward Vitali Kravtsov (No. 9 overall), defensemen K’Andre Miller (No. 22) and Nils Lundkvist (No. 28). The previous year, they chose forwards Lias Andersson (No. 7) and Filip Chytil (No. 21).
“I feel like things are coming together,” Gorton said. “There’s a lot of work left to be done, don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but I think it’s a good night for Ranger fans.”
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
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