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The 2025 NHL Draft marks the introduction to the league for a fresh batch of young prospects from around the world. It's a lifelong dream achieved by players seeking to reach the top professional hockey league in the world.
Round 1 took place on Friday. There are six more rounds today.
The draft takes place at the Peacock Center in Los Angeles.
I don’t think we can blame the new format here, since it’s not like previous drafts exactly flew by. But Friday’s opening round was penciled into the TV schedule for a tedious four hours, and it was clear by the midway point that even that was going to be optimistic. This went on forever, even if you cut out the pause for laughter after Nikki Glaser joked about Brett Hull.
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How long Day 2 of the NHL draft lasted:
Guess which two were decentralized. That afternoon flight home is a powerful motivator for team staff.
Montreal native and NBA champion Lu Dort flying all the way out to L.A. to represent the Canadiens, only to have them trade not one but both of their first-round picks. They let him come out and hit the Big Red Button, which I guess is the consolation prize.
Also, shoutout to the NHL for apparently deciding to pretend the Noah Dobson trade hadn’t happened 10 hours earlier so that Dort would have something to do. Did you see the size of that guy? If he wants to press the button, put a pin in the trade announcement and let the man press the button.
(Hey, do you think they at least toyed with the idea of treating the Big Red Button the way “America’s Got Talent” does the golden buzzer, with a big dramatic slow-motion build up? No? Yeah, I definitely didn’t think about that either, never even watched that show, let’s just move on.)
I’m not sure what ESPN viewers saw, but Sportsnet introduced its broadcast with a quick tour. It included a podium on the stage that we were told would be for announcing trades. We also got a glimpse of a large red button, which was not mentioned or explained.
As a viewer, you hoped it might be for a trap door that could swing into action if anyone tried to ramble on instead of just making a pick. But no, it turned out to be the “we have a trade to announce” button, which we finally learned when Kris Letang’s kid got to hit it roughly 90 minutes in. We got a horn noise and a quick scoreboard animation, in case you were wondering. It’s the sort of thing I usually roll my eyes at, but then my kids tell me that I hate whimsy and fun. Which I absolutely do, for the record. But let’s call the Big Red Button a winking nod toward what’s often the most exciting part of any draft. We just wish they’d used it more.
You know what, this one’s on me. Every year, there are rumors about top picks being moved, every year I get hyped about it, and every year nothing actually happens. At some point, you either figure it out or you don’t, and I’ve apparently chosen the second option.
That said… I mean, this was the year it had to happen, right? You had the Islanders holding not just the first pick, but also a pair of mid-round picks from the Noah Dobson trade, in a draft where a local kid was projected to go early. It was probably too much to hope they might trade down out of the first spot to take James Hagens, but trading back up into the top 10 felt like a gimme. Once Hagens slipped out of the top five, everyone was thinking it. But it didn’t happen, with Hagens ultimately going seventh to the Bruins.
Did the Islanders even try? Almost certainly, but it takes two to tango, and as you may have heard, these trades are really hard. Once the picks start flying, expecting any team to embrace the risk involved in trading out of the top 10 is probably wishful thinking.
We should have seen it coming. But remember, we were told that this was part of the reason for the new format — that having some privacy to work on moves away from the prying ears of rival teams might juice the action. It decidedly did not. There were no picks involving players during the draft, and the first trade involving a pick didn’t come until the Flyers moved up to 12 in a deal with the Penguins.
The concept makes sense. We’re used to the actual pick announcements being mumbled into a microphone, so contracting out some charisma wasn’t the worst idea. Besides, it means a break from Gary Bettman, and maybe even a reminder that there are some cool people out there who like hockey.
Did it work? Sometimes. It was an eclectic mix, let’s just say. We had a pro wrestler, a yelling golfer, Charles Barkley Zoom-ing in from the smallest room in his unfinished basement, Jerry Bruckheimer being introduced in a way that was clearly designed to trick you into thinking it might be Brad Pitt, the guys who sang that song you liked in 1998, a football player, actors from that movie you liked in 1992, the “Entourage” guy, the “cut it out” guy from that sitcom you liked in 1987, and Barry Trotz doing the first Predators picks on his own because there are no famous people in Nashville.
But we also had Meredith Gaudreau and Happy Gilmore, so … yeah, ups and downs.
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Those virtual meetings between the prospects and the front offices that just drafted them, in the area dubbed “The Draft House.”
Yeah, this didn’t work. At all. Once Matthew Schaefer’s emotional moment was done, the rest of the conversations ranged from mildly awkward to borderline painful. Put it this way: Under the old system, the networks never bothered to mic everyone up for those handshake moments that used to happen on the big stage. Now we know why — they’re not very interesting. If we keep this format, we can go ahead and scrap that bit.
I don’t think anyone heard about this whole idea and thought, “That will probably be fascinating, the only people who are more charismatic than hockey players are hockey executives.” But it’s worth trying new things. Sometimes they work. Sometimes your audio is all screwed up and echoing, there are weird pauses everywhere, and nothing interesting gets said.
I realize a lot of planning goes into this sort of thing, but someone should have called an audible after James Hagens had to be told to wave at the Bruins’ front office like he was a toddler seeing the pandas at the zoo.
There wasn’t much suspense on the top pick this year, but the moment was still memorable based on Matthew Schaefer’s tears, as the top pick and his family shared the moment while honoring his mom, Jennifer, who passed away in 2024. It was a touching moment, and the broadcast handled it in a way that gave it room without feeling overboard.
Let’s just say it – Gary Bettman was working the room up there. They took away his podium (except for trades, which we’ll get to in a minute), meaning he had to free-roam around the stage. That’s harder than you think, and he did… OK? I think he did OK. In fact, I think the boss was kind of feeling it out there.
The old, awkward Bettman did show up occasionally, including when he had to go back to the same tired “I love the passion” routine when he got booed. But overall, he’s clearly put in some work on the whole public speaking thing. It may have taken him 30 years, and we’re basically comparing him to Roger Goodell and Adam Silver, which isn’t exactly the world’s highest bar. But sure, he cleared it. He even got a genuine chuckle from the “I’m not that short” line about the mic before one of the Blackhawks’ picks.
I’m saying nice things about Bettman and I hate it, let’s move on.
The first round of the draft isn’t always the biggest story of a busy week, but you’d at least like it to be the big news of the day. But by the time things got started on Friday night, hockey fans were already chewing on five major stories that had broken in the hours before.
We had a major blockbuster involving two of Friday’s first-rounders and Noah Dobson. We had a weird salary dump. We had two of the three biggest names on the UFA board sign extensions, with Sam Bennett and John Tavares both taking discounts to stay put. Oh, and we also got word of a brand-new CBA. By the time the first boos hit Bettman’s ears, some fans were probably all hockey newsed out. That would have been bad news, since they still had roughly fourteen hours of the first round to get through.
Look, go ahead and change the things you think you need to change, but some traditions are sacred.
It wasn’t much. Call it a smattering. But it was enough to remind you that yes, there were some real fans in attendance, not just the draft prospects themselves. (I think. Wait, did any of the prospects boo Bettman? Because if so, I’m skipping the waiting period and putting them all in the Hall of Fame.)
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This season, The Athletic’s prospects writers Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman set out to do something ambitious: pull off a 2025 NHL Draft player poll similar to the player polls our staff conduct in the NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB.
In the fall, they settled on 10 questions — three on the record and seven anonymous — and spent the season gathering as many responses as possible. By year’s end, 50 of the top prospects in the 2025 NHL Draft class were surveyed for our inaugural NHL Draft player poll.
Here, they asked the prospects, “If you could take one draft-eligible player you’ve played on the same team with, with you to the NHL, who would it be and why?” and “What round or range of the draft do you think you will go in?”
The goal of the first question was to gain insight into players who are respected by their peers. The goal of the second question was to glean honest answers and test the players’ self-assessment.
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2025 NHL Draft player poll: 50 top prospects dish on each other, predict their draft range
Four teams made two picks on Friday in the first round:
Four teams made three picks in Friday's first round:
Here's the full list of the first-round picks that were made Friday night.
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2025 NHL Draft tracker: Every pick starting with Matthew Schaefer at No. 1
Who are the best players still available in the 2025 NHL Draft? Our Corey Pronman ranks the best here.
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NHL Draft 2025 best players available after Round 1 include Blake Fiddler, Malcolm Spence
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The people who made the draft announcements on Friday in the first round:
For decades, the NHL had a unique approach to its annual draft. While other leagues used a decentralized approach, with teams drafting from various war rooms around North America, the NHL brought everyone to one host city for a days-long celebration of the future. Aside from 2020 and 2021, when COVID forced a fully virtual draft, it’s been an everyone-invited event for decades. It was a rare case of hockey doing something cool and unique.
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The NHL tried something new with how the 2025 draft worked. It got awkward
The first round of the 2025 NHL Draft took place on Friday night in Los Angeles. Which teams did well? Which teams missed on their picks?
Our Corey Pronman shared his thoughts on each pick from the opening round here.
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NHL Draft 2025 grades for every first-round pick: Islanders get high marks for Schaefer