How Flyers falling in the lottery affects their Draft reality

It looked great there for a second.

The Philadelphia Flyers just needed either ball four or ball six to be drawn in order to secure the first overall pick. As the balls rattled around and Gary Bettman stood off to the side awkwardly, the Flyers had joint best odds to win the lottery, alongside the Penguins, Blackhawks, and Islanders. Essentially, if the Flyers didn\'t win, someone really annoying was about to.

And some would argue that, out of that Satanic triumvirate, the least upsetting and by far the most boring outcome occurred. The New York Islanders will have the first overall select- zzzzzzz .

Not only did they not secure the first or second pick overall, the Flyers fell. Not in any sort of dramatic fashion, just a single spot from their most likely position of fifth, where they had a 44.6% chance of ending up, to sixth.

There was a 15.4% chance of Philadelphia landing at the fourth slot, a 20.8% chance of them dropping to number six, and a combined 19% chance of jumping all the way up to either of the top two selections. But what’s done is done, and the Flyers brass and scouting department will have to maneuver with number six now that the dreams of a top two pick have come up a bit short.

N̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ tell us the odds. 🎰 #NHLDraftLottery pic.twitter.com/sJkMdIWQwD

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) May 4, 2025

Does dropping from 4th to 6th actually mean anything?

While it is disappointing to see the Flyers drop in the lottery, especially while a division rival jumps up to number one while having worse pre-lottery odds, it is important to remember that going in, there was always an 81.7% chance that they would not get a top three pick. The four-to-six range was always much more likely in reality, and the Flyers’ brass have definitely spent the lion’s share of their draft analysis preparing for such a situation, and their board is definitely centered around the back half of the top 10.

The only thing set in stone regarding this draft are the top two selections, and the rest of the top 10 should be very fluid all the way up until the day of. There are a lot of moving parts in the 5-20 range, and there could be some surprising names that fall; like Swedish center Anton Frondell, who at times during the mock process was ranked as a potential fifth overall pick, but is now currently pegged as the 12th best draft prospect by EliteProspects.com .

All that to say, the Flyers should have multiple options available to them at sixth overall, that they would have been considering at fifth overall anyways. Jumping up to first or second, (the odds of jumping to three were just 0.3%), was always going to be the true goal if the Flyers wanted to have a chance at a top-tier player. And even if they did stay put at fourth overall, and Boston College center James Hagens went at three, there is a world where the Flyers would pass on the widely-regarded “best player available”, that being Brampton Steelheads winger Porter Martone, in order to grab a center and fill that positional need in what would have been considered a slight “reach”.

The other likely top-10 centers, names like the Moncton Wildcats’ Caleb Desnoyers, oft-injured Brandon Wheat King Roger McQueen, and the aforementioned Frondell, are all likely to be just as available at six as they would’ve been at four or five, save for a team in the top five having their hearts set on one in specific and reaching down slightly. The Flyers will have their choice of second-tier centers with their first pick if they view that as the best way forward, that reality has stayed the same even after the lottery.

The one real cost of moving down

However, slipping a slot from five to six, while not catastrophic, does more than likely shut out the possibility of James Hagens playing in Philadelphia, barring a trade up. Hagens was in conversation for the first overall pick very early on in the process, but just an average freshman season (in comparison to other top prospects) in the NCAA with Boston College tampered his stock, and saw him fall below names like Misa and Schaefer. This slight slide stuck throughout the year, and as the Flyers sank down the standings, the 5-foot-11 center seemed to be an increasingly perfect fit for a team with a dire need for a standout player at the position.

There were still doubts, even when assuming that the Flyers would stay in their most likely slot at fifth overall, around whether or not Hagens\'s slide would continue to the point where he would fall in their lap. He has been such a highly touted prospect for so long, that it was hard to see some team not falling in love with the immense potential he brings within the top-four selections.

But moving down to number six, basically extinguishes that possibility for good. It is hard to see a world where both Utah and Nashville pass on the B.C. stud, whereas it at least would have been feasible to imagine a scenario where the Blackhawks look elsewhere at three, and go with Porter Martone as a big, bruising linemate for Connor Bedard, leaving Hagens at four. If the Flyers were up at five, they would only need one hypothetical team to pass on Hagens in order to make him available. But being a position lower at six doubles the number of teams that have to make the determination that a player everyone thought was amazing 18 months ago, isn’t anymore. And in my personal opinion, Hagens is too good to reasonably expect him to be available past five, no matter what team had the picks prior. That is really the only downside to moving down, and all things considered, it could be much worse.

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