Well, there’s always some other time. The Philadelphia Flyers did not have the lottery balls go their way at the NHL Draft Lottery Monday night and will be picking sixth overall at the 2025 NHL Entry Draft.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. The Flyers held the fourth-best odds at 9.5% to win either the first or second overall pick for the big event on June 27. Instead, they are going to make their first selection of the upcoming draft at No. 6, dropping down two spots.
There was a brief moment of potential excitement for the Flyers on the draw for the first overall pick, as with the first three balls drawn the Flyers had an 18.1 percent chance of getting the top pick, but the final ball drawn (the No. 13 ping pong ball) gave the No. 1 overall pick to the division rival New York Islanders. The draw for the second pick came with little suspense, as the Flyers had no chance to win by the time the third ball was drawn. That final ball chosen for the second draw made the Utah Mammoth Hockey Club the second winner of the night, but since they could only move up 10 spots in the lottery, this win gave them the No. 4 pick in the draft, securing San Jose the second pick.
As such, the relevant portion of the top of the draft is as follows:
- NY Islanders
- San Jose
- Chicago
- Utah
- Nashville
- Philadelphia
Now, who could they select in this range? It’s really a big bag of potential centers — which is ultimately good for them to be picking this high in a draft that has some interesting pivots available to them.
James Hagens was projected to be the first overall pick of this draft class before the season started, but after having a fairly good-but-not-elite freshman year at Boston College and not having overly dominant physical attributes standing at 5-foot-11, he has dropped down some rankings. And honestly, the drop feels partly because two players in Michael Misa and Matthew Schaefer leapfrogged over him in hype, and some people just growing tired of his name. Being overscouted is a real thing.
Caleb Desnoyers and Jake O’Brien are two interesting centers currently playing in the CHL (Desnoyers in the QMJHL for the Moncton Wildcats and O’Brien in the OHL for the Branford Bulldogs) who both have no real big and glaring holes in their games — both are physically adept and have scored loads of points on very good junior teams. They can run a power play, control a top line, aren’t bad defensively, and a whole lot of other similar attributes. Of course, they aren’t identical but getting into the differences and what we like more is a different article.
And finally, to round out the centers we could expect to be available to the Flyers in this range, is Anton Frondell. He has been getting hype after hitting some record numbers for a draft-eligible forward in the Swedish second division, the HockeyAllsvenskan. The 6-foot forward is maybe the most physically advanced player of the bunch in this range and can clear space along the boards and is known for his top-tier shot.
No matter what, another very interesting name will be added to the Flyers prospect pool as this team continues down the rebuild path. Would winning the draft lottery and selecting Schaefer or Misa make this a whole lot easier? You bet. But it’s not like it will be a wasted pick whatsoever.
