The Wild weren't good enough to make the playoffs but not bad enough to land a top draft pick.
They held on to No. 13 in the NHL draft lottery held Tuesday night at the NHL Network studio in Secaucus, N.J., an unveiling of the first 16 selections that had no surprises.
San Jose slotted first overall after finishing with the worst record in the league (19-54-9) and having the best odds (18.5%) of winning the lottery.
Second-to-last Chicago secured the second pick, and Anaheim remained third. Columbus and Montreal rounded out the top five. The Sharks have never drafted a player with the No. 1 selection.
The draft is June 28-29 at Sphere in Las Vegas, with Boston University forward Macklin Celebrini expected to be picked first.
Celebrini, who was on hand for the draft lottery reveal, became the youngest Hobey Baker Award winner after the 17-year-old freshman scored the second-most goals in the nation (32) and recorded the third-most points (64). NHL Central Scouting ranked him No. 1 among North American skaters ahead of Michigan State defenseman Artyom Levshunov, the Western Hockey League's Cayden Lindstrom and defenseman Zeev Buium who helped Denver shut out Boston College 2-0 to capture a national championship at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul last month.
Russians Anton Silayev and Ivan Demidov are two of the top-rated international skaters.
But the Wild never had a chance to win the first pick.
The most a team can move up in the draft order is 10 spots, so the best the Wild could have done was third. They were 13th based on their regular-season record and given only a 2% chance of winning the lottery that determined the first pick; a separate draw was held for the second pick. Had the Wild won the first-pick lottery and moved up the maximum 10 spots, the No. 1 choice would have gone to last-place San Jose.
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Each team was assigned a set of random four-number combinations; the worse a team did in the regular season, the more combinations it received.
The winning combinations for the first and second picks were chosen from a set of 14 pingpong balls in a lottery machine.
Still, if the Wild keep the 13th pick, it will be the highest they've drafted in the first round since they added Marco Rossi ninth overall in 2020.
The last time they didn't advance to the playoffs in 2019, the Wild made their first selection at No. 12 and tabbed Matt Boldy.
Besides their first-rounder, the Wild also currently own single picks in the second, fourth and sixth rounds and two in the fifth; the second fifth-rounder is from Buffalo as part of the Jordan Greenway trade in 2023. The Wild traded away their 2024 third-round selection to acquire Marcus Johansson from Washington in 2023 and dealt their seventh-rounder to Tampa Bay to bring in Pat Maroon last summer.
For Rounds 2-7, picks are made in reverse order of the standings after the playoffs are completed.
Last year, the Wild drafted centers with three of their six picks beginning with Rosemount's Charlie Stramel in the first round at 21st overall.
Stramel has reportedly transferred to Michigan State after two underwhelming seasons at Wisconsin; Spartans coach Adam Nightingale previously coached Stramel when both were with USA Hockey's National Team Development Program.
At the end of last season, the Wild had eight players drafted by the team on the roster.
Goaltender Jesper Wallstedt (2021), center Marat Khusnutdinov (2020) and winger Liam Ohgren (2022) made their NHL debuts earlier this year, and it's possible all three play key roles for the Wild next season.
