For a third straight year, the NHL Draft will be decentralized next summer.
The league confirmed on Monday that the 2027 edition will follow the same format of the previous two.
The 2027 NHL Draft is set for June 25 and 26.
A decentralized draft means that all 32 teams and their staffs will remain in their home cities and convene there while top prospects, along with league officials, will meet elsewhere as first-round selections are made, allowing for players to still receive jerseys and draft caps. The 2025 draft was held at Long Island’s UBS Area, while Buffalo’s KeyBank Center played host to this past summer’s draft.
“Some people like it; some people don’t,” Los Angeles Kings president Luc Robitaille said ahead of the 2025 draft. “I put a lot of value on what scouts do in the season and the traveling and so forth, so the less distraction you have when you’re in the room when it’s time to make a decision that can impact a franchise for 10-plus years, I think it’s very important. Is the show itself, being on the floor and talking to everyone fun? Yes. But at the end of the day, that draft every year could make or break a franchise.”
The decentralized draft was born from the COVID-era virtual drafts of 2020 and 2021 that were done so out of necessity.
