(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club center Nick Schmaltz (8) celebrates a goal as Utah Hockey Club hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning, NHL hockey at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday, March 22, 2025.
Luck was on Utah Hockey Club’s side Monday night.
Salt Lake City’s NHL franchise moved up 10 spots to secure the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NHL draft, which will be on June 27 and 28.
“It’s a game-changer for us,” said general manager Bill Armstrong. “To pick at four — a couple seconds ago we were 10 back. It still hasn’t sunk in. But what a great opportunity for us to be able to move that far up in the draft and now we’re right up at the top.”
Ahead of the pingpong-ball lottery, the Club had the 14th-highest odds of winning the lottery at 1.5%. Utah could only move up a maximum of 10 spots to the fourth overall selection — and that it did.
“I thought we had won but I wasn’t quite sure. When they tuned back in and showed us that we won — you just start thinking different. Your mind just totally switches to who’s available that you can get at four,” Armstrong said. “It is going to be a great challenge for us to go back and look at some of the players who are available in that spot.”
The New York Islanders won the first position in the NHL Draft Lottery and have the first overall pick of the NHL Draft.
Utah has six picks in the 2025 NHL Draft: one in each of the first six rounds.
“I can’t wait to huddle with the scouts tomorrow and go over it and kind of see. Obviously we’ve been studying the players that were available to us, where we thought they’d fall,” Armstrong said. “Now we’re going to leap up a little bit and it will be exciting times.”
The NHL draft lottery, which was held at NHL Network’s studio in Secaucus, New Jersey, determined the selection order for the opening 16 picks in the first round of the 2025 draft. The team participants are those who missed the cut for the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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