The 2023 NHL draft will be held at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville on June 28-29. At a date to be determined in April, the league will hold its annual draft lottery consisting of two draws to determine the order for the 16 teams that failed to qualify for the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Under league rules, a team can move up no more than 10 spots if it wins one of the two lottery draws. The team that finishes with the worst record has an 18.5 chance of winning the lottery. A team also cannot win the lottery more than twice in five years.
Connor Bedard of the Regina Pats in the Western Hockey League is projected to be the top prospect in the 2023 draft. The 17-year-old center currently leads all WHL scorers with 27 goals and 64 points. He has the potential to become a future NHL superstar.
Now that we're more than a quarter of the way into the 2022-23 NHL season, it's becoming clear which teams could wind up in the lottery. That includes the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks, two former Western Conference powerhouses who have seen better days.
The Ducks and Sharks join four other clubs in our ranking of the teams that desperately need to win the 2023 NHL draft lottery. Each team's current record, recent lack of postseason appearances and amount of promising young talent factored into this ranking.
6. Philadelphia Flyers
In 2019-20, the Philadelphia Flyers seemed to be heading in the right direction. After seven mediocre seasons in which they missed the playoffs four times and got bounced from the opening round three times, they finished fourth overall in the Eastern Conference and reached the second round of the postseason.
Today, the Flyers are a mess. They missed the postseason in 2021 and 2022 and traded away captain Claude Giroux before the 2022 trade deadline.
Salary-cap constraints limited general manager Chuck Fletcher's efforts to improve the roster in the offseason. Injuries have walloped the roster this season, with core players such as Sean Couturier and Ryan Ellis sidelined indefinitely.
Despite hiring two-time Jack Adams Trophy winner John Tortorella as head coach, the injury-ravaged Flyers have only nine wins and 23 points in 27 games and sit near the bottom of the Eastern Conference. Fletcher recently admitted the Flyers need to reestablish their identity, but he doesn't seem intent on a full roster teardown.
Nevertheless, the Flyers need a foundation piece to build upon going forward. They've drafted Joel Farabee, Cam York and Morgan Frost in recent years. Sidelined prospect Bobby Brink and promising 2022 draft pick Cutter Gauthier could also become key players in management's plans.
The last time the Flyers held the first overall pick was in 1975, long before the draft lottery came into being. Winning the first overall pick could give them a future superstar to excite their demanding fanbase while buying management time to build up the roster.