The NHL Entry Draft (French: Repêchage d'entrée dans la LNH) is an annual meeting in which every franchise of the National Hockey League (NHL) systematically select the rights to available ice hockey players who meet draft eligibility requirements (North American players 18–20 years old and European/international players 18–21 years old; all others enter the league as unrestricted free agents). The NHL Entry Draft is held once every year, generally within two to three months after the conclusion of the previous regular season. During the draft, teams take turns selecting amateur players from junior or collegiate leagues and professional players from European leagues.

The first draft was held in 1963, and has been held every year since. The NHL Entry Draft was known as the NHL Amateur Draft until 1979. The entry draft has only been a public event since 1980, and a televised event since 1984.^[1]

Up to 1994, the order was solely determined by the standings at the end of the regular season. In 1995, the NHL draft lottery was introduced where only teams who had missed the playoffs could participate. The lottery winner moved up the draft order a maximum of four places, meaning only the five worst teams, based on regular season points in a given season, could pick first in the draft, and no team in the non-playoff group could move down more than one place. The chances of winning the lottery were weighted towards the teams at the bottom of the regular season standings. From 2013 to 2015, there was no limit of moving up in the draft order, so the lottery winner would automatically receive the first overall pick, and any teams above it in the draft order would still move down one spot. From 2015 to 2020, there were three lottery winners that received the top three picks, and any teams above it in the draft order would move down no more than three spots. In 2021, the lottery system was changed to include two lottery winners, and they received the top two overall picks, and any teams above it in the draft order would move down no more than two spots.

Beginning in 2022, the two lottery winners are limited to move up no more than ten places in the draft order, meaning that only the bottom eleven teams based on regular season points, could win first pick in the draft. If a team outside the bottom eleven teams wins the first draft lottery they move up ten spots (e.g. fourteenth team wins the lottery and moves up to fourth overall) and lowest finishing team from the previous season is then awarded the first overall selection.

The first NHL Entry Draft (at that time known as the "NHL Amateur Draft") was held on June 5, 1963, at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec.^[1] In 1967, NHL president Clarence Campbell and Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) president Fred Page announced a new tentative five-year agreement on August 19, 1966, with several proposed changes to the existing system, effective July 1, 1967. The direct sponsorship of junior teams by the NHL was to be phased out in the upcoming year, and no new sponsored players could be registered or be required to sign a contract restricting movement between teams.^[2] The agreement eliminated the A, B and C forms, which had angered the parents of amateur players and were the source of legal action threats when the professional team refused to release a player.^[3] Junior-aged players became eligible for the draft once they graduate from junior hockey, or to be signed as a free agent in the year the player reaches his 20th birthday. The NHL agreed to pay development fees to the CAHA for the drafted players. The new agreement came at a time that also leveled the playing field for new NHL clubs in the 1967 NHL expansion.^[2]

The NHL briefly changed the drafting age from 20 years old to 18-year-olds in 1974, to compete with the new WHA which was allowing teams to sign underage junior players. The 20-year old rule returned for the 1975 draft.

In 1979, the rules were changed allowing players who had previously played professionally to be drafted. This rule change was made to facilitate the absorption of players from the defunct World Hockey Association. Consequently, the name of the draft was changed from "NHL Amateur Draft" to "NHL Entry Draft". The draft age was also dropped to include 19-year old "underage" players. In 1980, the age was dropped further to 18, so that any player who is between the ages of 18 and 20 is eligible to be drafted. In addition, any non-North American player over the age of 20 can be selected. From 1987 through 1991, 18 and 19-year-old players could only be drafted in the first three rounds unless they met another criterion of experience which required them to have played in major junior, U.S. college and high school, or European hockey.^[1][4]

In 1980, the Entry Draft became a public event, and was held at the Montreal Forum. Prior to that year the Entry Draft was conducted in Montreal hotels or league offices and was closed to the general public.^[1] The first draft outside of Montreal was held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Ontario, in 1985.^[5] Live television coverage of the draft began in 1984 when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation covered the event in both English and French for Canadian audiences. The 1987 Entry Draft, held at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, was the first NHL Draft to be held in the United States. SportsChannel America began covering the event in the United States in 1989.^[1]

Prior to the development of the Draft, NHL teams sponsored junior teams, and signed prospects in their teens to the junior teams. Players were signed to one of three forms: the "A" form, which committed a player to a tryout; a "B" form, which gave the team an option to sign a player in return for a bonus; and the "C" form, which committed a player's professional rights. The "C" form could only be signed by the player at age eighteen or by the player's parents, often in exchange for some signing bonus.^[6] The first drafts (up until the 1968 Amateur Draft) were held to assign players who had not signed with an NHL organization before the sponsorship of junior teams was discontinued after 1968.

In October 2023, owners approved a proposal to switch the NHL Draft to a "decentralized" model in line with that of the NBA and NFL drafts, in which only prospects and team representatives will be present in-person at the Draft venue, and business would be conducted remotely from the teams' front offices. These changes are scheduled to take effect in 2025.^[7][8]

The selection order in the NHL Entry Draft is determined by a combination of lottery, regular season standing, and playoff results. While teams are permitted to trade draft picks both during the draft and prior to it (sometimes several years prior), in all cases, the selection order of the draft picks is based on the original holder of the pick, not a team which may have acquired the pick via a trade or other means.^[9][10] The order of picks discussed in this section always references the original team.

The basic order of the NHL Entry Draft is determined based on the standings of the teams in the previous season. As with the other major sports leagues, the basic draft order is intended to favour the teams with the weakest performance who presumably need the most improvement in their roster to compete with the other teams. Subject to the results of the NHL draft lottery (discussed below), the teams pick in the same order each round, with each team getting one pick per round. The basic order of the picks is determined as follows:^[11]

1. The teams that did not qualify for the playoffs the previous season (picks 1–16)
2. The teams that made the playoffs in the previous season but did not win either their division in the regular season or play in the Conference Finals (picks 17–24 up to 28)
3. The teams that won their divisions in the previous season but did not play in the Conference Finals (potentially picks 25–28)
4. The teams that lose in Conference Finals (picks 29 and 30)
5. The team that was the runner-up in the Stanley Cup Finals (pick 31)
6. The team that won the Stanley Cup in the previous season (pick 32)

The number of teams in the second and third group depends on whether the Conference finalists also won their division. The teams in each group (other than the Stanley Cup winner and runner up) are ordered within that group based on their point totals in the preceding regular season (with the lowest point total picking first). Tie-breakers are governed by the same rules used to determine ties in the regular season standings. The order of picks 1–16 may change during the first round of the draft based on the results of the NHL draft lottery. In the subsequent rounds, the basic order based on point totals is used.^[10]

When teams lose their rights to a first-round draft choice, because that player was not signed to a contract and consequently re-entered the entry draft or became an unrestricted free agent, they are awarded a compensatory draft pick. This selection will be the same numerical choice as the first round draft pick who was not signed, but in the second round. For example, if a team cannot sign the seventh overall first round draft choice, it will receive the seventh pick in the second round of the next draft as compensation.^[12]

All players who will be 18 years old on or before September 15 and not older than 20 years old before December 31 of the draft year are eligible for selection for that year's NHL Entry Draft. In addition, non-North American players aged 21 are eligible.^[20]

Notes

1. Originally scheduled to be hosted at Corel Centre; venue location changed due to scheduling conflict related to the league's CBA negotiations that ended the 2004–05 lockout.
2. Originally scheduled to be hosted at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, from June 26–27 before the season was suspended after March 11, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic; draft was held via conference call as a result. The 2021 draft was also held via conference call due to the pandemic.
3. The Arizona Coyotes forfeited their 2020 second-round pick as the result of a penalty due to violations of the NHL Combine Testing Policy during the 2019–20 NHL season. They also forfeited their 2021 first-round pick.^[21]

SportsChannel America began covering the NHL Draft in the United States with the 1989 NHL Entry Draft being the first NHL draft ever televised.

Currently the rights to the draft are held by ESPN, Sportsnet, TVA Sports and the NHL Network which only broadcasts the second to last round of the draft.

Formerly the rights to the drafts were held by NBC Sports and were aired on NBCSN (formerly known as Versus from 2006 to 2011).

• KHL Junior Draft
• List of first overall NHL draft picks
• List of undrafted NHL players with 100 games played
• Taro Tsujimoto