When Speculation Becomes Reality: The Recent History of Teams Trading Top-Five Picks

Love them or hate them, the NHL Draft Lottery results are in, and they have no shortage of people talking. Some fanbases woke up with a reason to celebrate, while others are convinced the hockey gods have it out for them. Nonetheless, the top 16 picks for this year’s draft are locked in, and Buffalo’s KeyBank Center will play host to it all on June 26th.

In the weeks between the lottery and draft day, the rumor mill runs on overdrive. Buzz builds around every top-5 pick: who’s moving up, who’s shopping their slot, and which team is ready to flip a high pick for a win-now splash on the open market. The speculation is loud, the reports are endless, but seldom does anything major happen. When the dust settles, most teams do exactly what you’d expect: hold tight and take their guy. Nonetheless, let’s revisit four of the most recent instances in which a team selecting in the top five has moved its pick. 

1. Islanders Move Out of the Top 5

On June 23rd, 2001, the Ottawa Senators traded center Alexei Yashin to the New York Islanders in exchange for the second overall pick in the 2001 draft, forward Bill Muckalt, and defenseman Zdeno Chára. Yashin would play five seasons on Long Island, putting up 290 points in 346 games before being bought out in 2007. The Senators used their newly acquired pick to select forward Jason Spezza out of the OHL. Spezza went on to be a cornerstone of the Ottawa forward group for 11 seasons, playing 686 of his 1,248 career games in a Senators jersey, where he tallied 436 assists and 687 points. The Senators won that trade decisively as Chára alone developed into one of the premier shutdown defensemen in the league and a future Norris Trophy winner in Boston.

2. Everyone is Happy in the End

It was widely expected that Medicine Hat Tigers defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, long considered the top prospect of the 2002 class, would be selected with the first overall pick. Columbus Blue Jackets GM Doug MacLean had other ideas. Minutes before the draft began at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, MacLean swapped picks with the Florida Panthers, moving up from third to first overall. The trade also included Columbus giving Florida the right to swap first-round picks in 2003 as a sweetener. The deal was further contingent on Florida securing a promise from the Atlanta Thrashers, sitting at second overall, that they would not select Bouwmeester, ensuring the Panthers could still land their man at third, via CBC sports. Atlanta obliged, after Florida offered a third and fourth round pick for compensation, taking Finnish goaltender Kari Lehtonen second overall, and Florida selected Bouwmeester third. Columbus used the first overall pick on London Knights winger Rick Nash, an 18-year-old power forward from Brampton, Ontario. Nash went on to play 1,060 career NHL games, 674 of which came in Columbus, where he tallied 289 goals and 547 points and became the franchise’s all-time leader in virtually every major offensive category. Bouwmeester also had a long and productive career, playing 1,240 games and finishing in the top 15 of Norris Trophy voting twice during his six seasons in Florida.

3. Florida Gets Involved Again

On June 21st, 2003, the Florida Panthers traded their first overall selection to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for forward Mikael Samuelsson and a third-round pick. Pittsburgh used the pick to select goaltender Marc-André Fleury, who became the first piece of a Penguins franchise that appeared in four Stanley Cup Finals between 2008 and 2017, winning three of them. Fleury retired as the second-winningest goaltender in NHL history with 575 wins. Florida used the third overall pick they received in return to select forward Nathan Horton, who went on to play 422 games as a Panther, recording 142 goals and 295 points. It was the second consecutive year Florida had traded away a top pick on draft day. 

4. A Franchise Defenseman on the Move

On September 13th 2018, the Ottawa Senators sent a shockwave through the hockey world, trading defenseman Erik Karlsson and forward Francis Perron to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for Chris Tierney, Rudolfs Balcers, Dylan DeMelo, Joshua Norris, and a 2020 unprotected first-round pick. Karlsson spent five seasons in Sanjose and put up 191 assists and 243 points in 293 games before being traded to Pittsburgh in 2023. That unprotected first-rounder Ottawa received in 2020 would turn into the number 3 overall selection in the draft, where the Senators selected winger Tim Stutzle. The German forward currently has 149 goals and 409 points in 447 career regular-season games with Ottawa and remains under contract with them through the 2030-31 season. While it was unbenoucned to the Sharks at the time that their unprotected pick would be inside the top five, it felt fitting to include as its the only one we have seen in the last 20 years.

A Look Ahead at 2026

Which brings us to this years top 5: Toronto at No. 1, San Jose at No. 2, Vancouver at No. 3, Chicago at No. 4, and New York (Rangers) at No. 5. As history shows, the window between the lottery and draft day is when the phone lines get busiest, and this year is no different, with the rumor mill already spinning around several of those slots. History tells us that most teams hold. The pressure to deal is loud, the rumors are relentless, and then draft day arrives and everyone takes their guy. But every few years, someone pulls the trigger, and when they do, the ripple effects can last decades. Whether it’s a Stützle emerging from an unprotected pick buried in a blockbuster, or a Spezza born from a Yashin escape, the draft has a way of rewarding the bold and punishing the complacent. Come June 26th in Buffalo, we’ll find out which category this year’s top five falls into.