The 2020 NHL Entry Draft was originally scheduled to take place on June 26th and 27th at the Bell Center in Montréal . On March 25, 2020, however, the NHL announced that this 58th edition of the NHL Entry Draft would be postponed to an as yet undetermined date due to the corona virus pandemic . At the end of May, the modalities of the draft lottery were also significantly changed.
All players born between January 1, 2000 and September 15, 2002 are eligible for the draft. In addition, all undrafted, non-North American players over the age of 20 are eligible for the draft. Also available are those players who were elected in the NHL Entry Draft 2018 and who had not signed an entry contract with their original draft club by the time of the Entry Draft 2020 .
Draft order
lottery
Legend : First right to vote Second right to vote Third right to vote
The early end of the 2019/20 season and the significantly revised playoff format with 24 participating teams also resulted in changes to the draft lottery. As was introduced in 2016 , the first three options were raffled. The lottery was entered by the seven teams that missed the playoffs, as well as the eight teams that were eliminated in the newly introduced qualifying round of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs . Since the schedule of the playoffs was not yet fixed at the time of the lottery, it was played in two steps. The first lottery, which took place on June 26, 2020, was similar to those in previous years, but with placeholders for the eight playoff losers to be determined. In this, the first right to vote went to placeholder E, while the Los Angeles Kings received the second and the Ottawa Senators (with a vote of the San Jose Sharks ) received the third right to vote. The chances of the first drawing were similar to those of the previous year, corresponded in descending order to the reversed final table of the 2019/20 season and are shown in the table. After the qualifying round of the playoffs, the second drawing took place on August 10, 2020, in which the eight eliminated teams each had the same chance of winning (12.5%). In this, the New York Rangers were awarded the first right to vote. If none of the three voting rights had gone to a placeholder, this second drawing would not have taken place.
The San Jose Sharks received Erik Karlsson and Francis Perron and in return sent Chris Tierney , Dylan DeMelo , Rūdolfs Balcers , Josh Norris , a conditional first-round vote for this draft as well as a second-round vote for the 2019 NHL Entry Draft to Ottawa. The right to vote for the first round should become one for the 2019 draft if the Sharks miss the playoffs in the 2018/19 season; this did not come true.
The Toronto Maple Leafs received a six- round vote for this draft and in return sent Patrick Marleau , a conditional first-round vote and another seven-round vote for this draft to Carolina. If the first-round right to vote had been in the top ten positions, it would have been automatically postponed by one year; however, this did not happen.
The Vancouver Canucks received JT Miller and in return sent Marek Mazanec , a conditional first-round vote for this draft, and a third-round vote for the 2019 NHL Entry Draft to Tampa Bay. If Vancouver hadn't qualified for the 2020 playoffs, it would automatically have been postponed one year; however, this did not happen.
The Arizona Coyotes received Taylor Hall and Blake Speers and in return sent Nick Merkley , Nate Schnarr and Kevin Bahl , a conditional first-round vote for this draft as well as an equally conditional third-round vote for the NHL Entry Draft 2021 to New Jersey. If the first-round right to vote had been in the top three positions, it would have been automatically postponed by one year; however, this did not happen.
The Tampa Bay Lightning went to Blake Coleman and in return sent Nolan Foote and the conditional first-round vote of the Vancouver Canucks, which Tampa Bay received on June 22, 2019, to New Jersey.
The Tampa Bay Lightning received Barclay Goodrow and a third-round suffrage for this draft and in return sent Anthony Greco and the first-round suffrage to San Jose.
The Carolina Hurricanes received Brady Skjei and in return sent a conditional first-round vote for this draft to New York. The Rangers should get the latest voting rights, which in the end was Carolina's own against that of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The New York Islanders received Jean-Gabriel Pageau and in return sent a conditional first-round suffrage and a second-round suffrage for this draft as well as an equally conditional third-round suffrage for the NHL Entry Draft 2022 to Ottawa. If the first-round voting right had been in the top three positions, it would automatically have been postponed one year; however, this did not happen.
The final rankings of the Central Scouting Service (CSS) of April 8, 2020 and the rankings of the International Scouting Services (ISS) of March 4, 2020 with the most promising talents for the NHL Entry Draft 2020:
Alexis Lafrenière
Tim Stützle
Alexander Holtz
Anton Lundell
Jake Sanderson
Rodion Amirov
Marco Rossi
Jan Bednář
Samuel Hlavaj
