Philadelphia Flyers Draw 5th Overall Pick In 2022 NHL Draft
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher now knows where he'll be drafting come July. The Philadelphia Flyers drew the fifth overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft lottery on Tuesday night.
The Flyers finished 29th in the NHL and second-to-last in the Eastern Conference with a 25-46-11 record and 61 points. They endured a season in which they fired a head coach and an assistant coach, suffered through two 10-plus-game losing streaks, saw their prized offseason acquisition, Ryan Ellis, play just four games because of an injury and their top-line center, Sean Couturier, miss most of the season with a back injury, and traded a franchise legend to the Panthers.
The fifth pick will be the highest the Flyers have drafted since 2017 when they jumped up from 13 to No. 2 in the draft lottery to select Nolan Patrick. Patrick didn't pan out with the Flyers and was included in the trade that landed the orange and black Ellis last offseason.
Patrick ended up in Las Vegas and had just seven points in 25 games with the Golden Knights in 2021-22.
Philadelphia had a 9.5% chance of winning the top pick in the draft. Its best chance was for the fifth pick at 44.9% and could not have drafted any lower than sixth.
The Flyers did not have a first-round pick in the 2021 NHL draft after trading the selection in a package to Buffalo for defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen. The Flyers extended Ristolainen for five years in March.
The top draft prospects in this year's class include Kingston (OHL) center Shane Wright, TPS (Finland) left wing Juraj Slafkovsky, USA U-18 NTDP center Logan Cooley, Winnipeg (WHL) center Matthew Savoie and USA U-18 NTDP left wing Cutter Gauthier. For a full list of prospects and more information on them, check out NHL Central Scouting's 2022 rankings here.
The Montreal Canadiens won the lottery and will draft No. 1.
The 2022 NHL draft will be held on July 7-8 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
