The 2025 NHL Draft Lottery was supposed to be different. Instead of NHL fans figuring out the results after the fact, the proceedings were set to take place live. By doing it live, murmurs of the draft possibly being rigged would go away, and NHL fans would get a look at how the results are drawn.
Instead, all NHL fans got was confusion. The New York Islanders won the lottery. How? That's tough to explain. The Utah Hockey Club won the second drawing but only moved up to No. 4 overall. The rest of the results were revealed after a commercial break, meaning only two of the 16 lottery picks were actually revealed live.
While fans aren't arguing about the proceedings being rigged, they did take to X to vent about just how confusing the NHL inexplicably made this event.
NHL fans have no idea what just happened in the Draft Lottery, and we can't blame them
NHL fans wanted the draft lottery to be done live, strictly to ensure that no funny business is going on. The lottery could've been rigged as far as some NHL fans are concerned because the entire process was beyond confusing. Nobody understood what was going on, and it's hard to blame them.
Can't say I disagree with this. The results were determined by a combination of four ping pong balls. There were too many numbers for what NHL fans thought would be a simple drawing.
The confusing event has some wondering what life might be like without a lottery, much like how the NFL Draft is ordered. That will certainly be easier for NHL fans to understand.
Not only was this event way too difficult to follow, but it dragged out for far too long. Again, only two picks were revealed live, which defeated the purpose in the minds of some NHL fans. It was a terrible watch, which only made matters worse.
Eventually, some of what transpired did make sense. The Islanders won the No. 1 overall pick because the combination of the four ping pong balls ended up popping out of the machine in their favor. The Utah Hockey Club only moved up to No. 4 overall despite winning the second drawing because they were only allowed to move up 10 spots at most.
Still, this whole event left fans with more questions than answers. Why were only two picks shown? Was there no way for the results to be easier for fans to digest?
The lottery being done live was objectively a good idea. If it's going to be this confusing, though, it's hard to justify the proceedings being done like this. NHL fans might rather the old way instead of this.