The NHL Entry Draft is held each June, allowing teams to select players who have turned 18 years old by September 15 in the year the draft is held. The draft order is determined by the previous season's order of finish, with non-playoff teams drafting first, followed by the teams that made the playoffs, with the specific order determined by the number of points earned by each team.[2] The NHL holds a weighted lottery for the 14 non-playoff teams, allowing the winner to move up a maximum of four positions in the entry draft.[3] The team with the fewest points has the best chance of winning the lottery, with each successive team given a lower chance of moving up in the draft.[2] Between 1986 and 1994, the NHL also held a Supplemental Draft for players in American colleges.[4]
The Lightning have held the first overall pick three times in franchise history. They have used these picks to select Roman Hamrlik in 1992, Vincent Lecavalier in 1998 and Steven Stamkos in 2008. They also selected first in the 1992 NHL Supplemental Draft, where they chose defensemanCory Cross.[1] When they won the Stanley Cup in 2003–04, only five of the 25 who dressed for Game 7 were drafted by Tampa Bay.[5] When the Lightning won their second Stanley Cup in 2020, the roster consisted of considerably more Lightning draft picks. That roster had 12 Lightning draft picks and 3 undrafted players that developed in their system.[6][7]
Statistics are complete as of the 2023–24 NHL season and show each player's career regular season totals in the NHL. Wins, losses, ties, overtime losses and goals against average apply to goaltenders and are used only for players at that position.
The 2020 NHL Entry Draft was originally scheduled to be held on June 26 and 27, 2020, at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. However, on March 25, 2020, the NHL announced that the draft was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The draft was held virtually on October 6 and 7, 2020. These are the Tampa Bay Lightning's picks at the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.
The 2021 NHL Entry Draft was held virtually on July 23 and 24, 2021. The draft was delated by one month from its normally scheduled time of June due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the later-than-normal finish of the 2020–21 NHL season.