Draft picks are the primary currency of NHL trades. When a GM trades the #5 overall pick, they need to know what they should get in return. Pick value charts attempt to quantify the relative worth of each draft position.
The key insight: pick values drop exponentially, not linearly. The #1 overall pick is significantly more valuable than #2 because the probability of drafting an impact NHL player drops steeply after the top few picks.
- Picks #1–3 produce an NHL regular ~83% of the time
- Picks #4–10 drop to about ~65%
- Picks #11–20 are around ~43%
- Second-round picks produce an NHL regular only ~20% of the time
- By the 4th round, the hit rate is under 10%
This means a single top-5 pick is roughly worth 3–4 second-round picks, or an entire mid-round draft class (picks 90–224).
2003: Florida traded the #1 pick (which became Marc-André Fleury) to Pittsburgh for a package — widely considered an overpay for a goalie.
2022: Chicago traded the #7 pick to move down to #16+, acquiring additional assets — a classic value-down trade.
Seth Jones trade (2024): Chicago acquired a protected 1st from Florida that became a lottery pick. Conditional protections like "top-10 protected" are a modern twist on pick value.