There was no drama at the top of the 2024 NHL Entry Draft at Sphere in Las Vegas as the San Jose Sharks selected potential franchise player and Hobey Baker Award-winner Macklin Celebrini with the first overall pick.
The Florida Panthers first round pick (32 overall), which was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers on March 19, 2022, was moved again to the Edmonton Oilers, who used it on forward Sam O’Reilly.
General manager Bill Zito and his staff will get down to business today as the Cats are armed with five second-day picks.
The Panthers won’t make a selection until the final pick of the third round (97th overall) as they traded their second round pick to the Utah Hockey Club. Florida’s also has its own picks in the fourth round (129th overall), sixth round (193rd overall) and seventh round (225th overall).
While Zito moved Florida’s fifth round pick (161st overall) to the Buffalo Sabres as part of the package to acquire Kyle Okposo, the Cats will still get to pick in this round. They acquired the Flyers fifth-rounder (141st overall) as part of the Claude Giroux trade that saw Owen Tippett and a third-rounder in 2023 go to Philadelphia and spare parts Connor Bunnaman and German Rubstov join the Charlotte Checkers.
NHL Draft
- coverage starts at 11:30 a.m. on NHL Network
Florida picks
- Linus Eriksson C (58th overall)
- Matvei Shuravin D (97th overall)
- Simon Zether C (129th overall)
- Stepan Gorbunov C (169th overall) from Seattle
- Hunter St. Martin LW (193rd overall)
- Denis Gabdrakhmanov G (201st overall) from Seattle