Welcome to the 2024 NHL Draft! Tonight, a bunch of teenagers are going to hear their names called and have the next 8 years of their life (at least) controlled by a single franchise. They’ll also end up making (hopefully) millions of dollars as the reward for all of their hard work comes to fruition. Fanbase’s around North America are patiently waiting to see who their general managers select to be the latest franchise savior. Well, most teams, anyway. For Lightning fans, it’s just another Friday night.
Over the years, in their quest to maintain their spot among the NHL elite, the Lightning have dealt away their first three picks in tonight and tomorrow’s rounds. Their first-round picks, which is the 20th overall pick was part of the package that brought Brandon Hagel to the Bolts. That was a pretty good deal. Chicago has since sent the pick to the Islanders in order to move up to the 18th selection.
Their second round pick, #53 overall, was part of the deal that led to Tanner Jeannot’s tenure in Tampa. That pick made the news a couple of days ago as Nashville traded it to Detroit and the Red Wings flipped it to San Jose as a sweetener in the Jake Walman deal.
Lightning fans can live vicariously through San Jose in this draft as the Sharks also have the third round pick that was originally Tampa Bay’s. The #85 pick went west with Jack Thompson at last year’s trade deadline for Anthony Duclair.
While the Bolts will be picking in the fourth round, it won’t be with their pick as theirs, #117, went to Ottawa in the Nick Paul deal. Their seventh round pick is also no longer their own as Nashville will be taking the 213th player in the draft thanks to the Bolts including the pick in the Ryan McDonagh trade this spring.
As of the time of writing, the Tampa Bay Lightning have five selections, all on Day 2 of the draft, so feel free to go to a movie tonight or watch the Rays. Right now the Lightning will be selecting:
Round 4 #128 (originally the Edmonton Oilers’ pick)
Round 5 #149
Round 6 #181
Round 7 #195 (originally the Chicago Blackhawks’ pick)
Round 7 #206 (originally the Minnesota Wild’s pick)
It’s not exactly the collection of selections that one will build a future dynasty out of, but, much like they have over the last few summers, they have a chance to add some depth players to the organization. Will there be any game-changers left after the first 127 picks have been made? The likelihood isn’t zero, but it’s not much above that.
We will the word “project” a lot when describing the picks. We’ll probably also hear “intriguing”, “overage”, “European”, and “solid organizational depth”. Over the past few seasons that’s what we’ve seen out of them with picks like Connor Kurth, Klavs Veinbergs, Jayson Shaugabary, and Nick Malik.
Whomever they draft, don’t expect them to make an impact for quite some time. In the last two drafts, there has yet to be a player drafted below the 128th pick that has made their NHL debut just yet. For the 2021 draft, just two players have made it so far (James Malatesta – 11 games, Joshua Roy – 23 games).
A look at players that have been available later in the draft
For fun, I went back to the drafts from 2013 to 2017 to see which players have made the biggest impact from a similar pool of players that the Lightning will be pulling from.
2013 –
#123 Will Butcher 275 games 114 points (16 goals, 98 assists)
#311 Connor Clifton 311 games 61 points (14 goals, 47 assists)
#191 Dominik Kubalik 357 games 176 points (93 goals, 83 assists)
#206 MacKenzie Weegar 469 games 204 points (51 goals, 153 assists)
2014 –
#126 Gustav Forsling 397 games 161 points (46 goals, 115 assists)
#171 Kevin Labanc 478 games 225 points (82 goals, 143 assists)
#181 Victor Olofsson 314 games 182 points (90 goals, 92 assists)
#188 Pierre Engvall 318 games 120 points (57 goals, 63 assists)
2015 –
#135 Kirill Kaprizov 278 games 330 points (160 goals, 179 assists)
#148 Troy Terry 350 games 230 points (95 goals, 135 assists)
#159 Vladislav Gavrikov 353 games 105 points (24 goals, 81 assists)
#166 Andrew Mangiapane 417 games 215 points (109 goals, 106 assists)
2016 –
#142 Mikey Eyssimont 136 games 40 points (16 goals, 24 assists)
#159 Brandon Hagel 293 games 207 points (90 goals, 117 assists)
#162 Jesper Bratt 471 games 359 points (129 goals, 230 assists)
2017 –
#139 Sebastian Aho 190 games 50 points (11 goals, 39 assists)
#169 Nick Perbix 146 games 44 points (7 goals, 37 assists)
#174 Morgan Barron 182 games 45 points (22 goals, 23 assists)
As you can see there are a lot of depth players, and a lot of players that are on their third or fourth teams. So the Bolts do have a chance to pull in some NHL talent, the chances of them ascending to a Hall of Fame-level type of career are slim.
Lightning picks near the 128th pick
If we scroll through Lightning history, they have never had the 128th pick. They’ve come close a few times:
1996 – #125: Jason Robinson (0 games played in the NHL)
1999 – #127: Kaspars Astashenko (23 games, 1 Goal in the NHL)
2000 – #126: Johan Hagglund (0 Games played in the NHL)
2013 – #124: Kristers Gudlevskis (3 NHL games)
2021 – #126: Dylan Duke (0 NHL Games – yet)
Best picks at each spot
Taking a look at the history of the draft, the best player drafted 128th for any team was Brian Mullen, who ended up scoring 260 goals over the course of 832 NHL games for four different franchises.
If we look at the 149th pick, the games-played leader would be Jim Dowd, who was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in 1987. He played in 728 games with 239 points (71 goals, 168 assists).
Moving on to the 181st pick, we get a name some old-timers might recognize, Hakan Loob. The Swedish winger scored 193 goals in 450 career games for the Flames, the team that drafted him. Former Bolt Wade Flaherty was the 181st pick for Buffalo in 1988.
Fernando Pisani heads the list of players selected 195th overall. The former Oiler recorded 169 points (87 goals, 82 assists) in 462 games after being picked in the 1996 draft.
Lightning fans with a disturbing amount of draft trivia stored in their brains might remember a couple of times that Tampa Bay drafted 206th. In 2016 they drafted Otto Somppi while in 2018 they chose Radim Salda. Neither have made it to the NHL just yet, although Somppi put up 26 points in 32 games for the Crunch in 2020-21. He’s now with Tappara Tampere in the Liiga.
Salda, a defenseman, never crossed the ocean. The Czech has been with Litvinov HC the last two seasons.
As for the rest of the NHL, six players have been selected with 206th pick and made it to the NHL. Four of those players were drafted since 2000, so GMs have been getting better with these late picks over the years. Two names readers may recognize are Anton Khudobin (Minnesota – 2004) and MacKenzie Weegar (Florida – 2013).
So, have some patience with the picks the Lightning make on Saturday. Chances are we won’t hear from them for awhile. Heck, they may not even make the next version of the Top 25 Under 25, but given the track record of the Bolts, they will have a chance to at least have a single cup of coffee in the NHL.
