It is status quo for the Penguins and the NHL Draft. They remain at 14th overall after the lottery last night.

It's official: the Penguins have the 14th overall selection in the 2023 NHL Draft.

— Pens Inside Scoop (@PensInsideScoop) May 9, 2023

With this result I am staunchly in the trade the pick camp. There was a really small window for the Penguins to get into the top five. It didn’t hit. You can certainly get a quality NHL player at 14th overall. The odds of the pick being ready in the next few years and making a real difference is pretty low. This is about where the Penguins are in their arc. It’s a broken record around here. They re-signed the core. They re-signed Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust. Whether you disagree with those moves or not doesn’t change the fact the organization has made their choice. They are still going for it. The 14th overall pick is one of their best tradeable assets. They need to actually use it in a trade.

If the Penguins keep the pick and use it in the draft they are back to trying to do the compete now and rebuild at once thing which is almost impossible to pull off. The time will come for the Penguins to bottom out. It should be in about four years or so, perhaps a little sooner. Start the rebuild then.

The Chicago Blackhawks won the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. I can’t think of a more undeserving franchise given their off-ice atrocities. They shouldn’t even have a first-round pick. In recent history the league has punished teams and taken their draft picks. The Arizona Coyotes lost a 2021 first round pick and a 2020 second round pick for violating the NHL’s combine testing policy. The New Jersey Devils lost a first round pick due to their shenanigans with the Ilya Kovlachuk contract only to be given it back. However, they were given the 30th overall pick and not the normal pick dictated by the standings/lottery. At a minimum this is what should have happened to the Blackhawks. It’s pretty gross the situation in Chicago didn’t merit actual penalties considering other teams have been punished for far less.

Thanks for reading!

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