2010 Florida Panthers / NHL Draft Lottery - Live Chat

U.S. coverage can be found on Versus and NHL.com

We all know the drill: the Cats have a 14.2% chance of landing the first overall pick, retaining the third, or sliding to fourth in June's Entry Draft. Unrelated: today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 service module explosion. Make of that what you will. Moving along...

No matter what goes down tonight, the Panthers - with stockpiled assets - have a strong opportunity to make some serious noise in L.A.

Via the NHL, here are results from previous draft lotteries (and Florida's glorious history):

Year	Selected	Effect On Draft Order	Player Selected
1995	Los Angeles	Moved from 7th to 3rd	D Aki Berg
1996	Ottawa	Retained 1st selection	D Chris Phillips
1997	Boston	Retained 1st selection	C Joe Thornton
1998	Tampa Bay	Moved from 3rd to 1st via trades	C Vincent Lecavalier
1999	Chicago	Moved from 8th to 4th	RW Pavel Brendl *
2000	NY Islanders	Moved from 5th to 1st	G Rick DiPietro
2001	Atlanta	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Ilya Kovalchuk
2002	Florida	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Rick Nash **
2003	Florida	Moved from 4th to 1st	G Marc-Andre Fleury ***
2004	Washington	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Alex Ovechkin
2005	Pittsburgh	n/a	C Sidney Crosby
2006	St. Louis	Retained 1st selection	D Erik Johnson
2007	Chicago	Moved from 5th to 1st	RW Patrick Kane
2008	Tampa Bay	Retained 1st selection	C Steven Stamkos
2009	NY Islanders	Retained 1st selection	C John Tavares

* NY Rangers obtained Chicago's pick in a trade (via Vancouver and Tampa Bay). The Rangers selected RW Pavel Brendl fourth overall. (Whale4ever note: MUAHAHAHAHAHA!)

** Columbus obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Blue Jackets selected LW Rick Nash first overall.

*** Pittsburgh obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Penguins selected G Marc-Andre Fleury first overall.

Thanks for joining us for an event we haven't had to cover - for better or worse - in a mighty long time. Bring on the balls...