2026 WHL Draft Lottery: The Wild Are Guaranteed a Top-Three Pick

In the Western Hockey League, teams are built first and foremost through the draft – many of a team’s top players are acquired either through its own draft picks or through selections acquired in trades with other teams.

One of those top picks in this year’s Western Hockey League Prospects Draft will belong to the Wenatchee Wild.

The WHL will announce the results of its annual draft lottery: This Thursday at 6 p.m. Wenatchee time, with live streaming coverage on Victory+. Thanks to the club's January 2024 trade with the Swift Current Broncos involving current Syracuse Crunch forward and first-round National Hockey League draft pick Conor Geekie, Wenatchee received the Broncos' first-round selection in this year's draft. Swift Current finished this season in 10th place in the Eastern Conference standings and 22nd overall, guaranteeing the Wild a top-three selection in this year’s WHL Prospects Draft.

The lottery will be conducted by the selection of one ball in a random drawing – each of the seven teams that finished the season outside of this year's WHL playoff field will receive a set of balls in the lottery corresponding to its finish in the WHL standings, and no team can move up more than two positions in the first round. All subsequent rounds will be held in the reverse order of the league's overall standings.

Wenatchee comes into Thursday’s WHL Draft Lottery with a 21.4 percent chance of receiving the top overall pick in the WHL Prospects Draft, and a 67.9 percent chance of receiving at least the second overall pick. The Wild cannot receive a top pick lower than third.

A series of moves made during the WHL club's previous era, as the Winnipeg ICE, would have left the club without a WHL Prospects Draft selection above the seventh round this season. However, trades made during Wenatchee’s 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons involving Geekie, Matthew Savoie, Daniel Hauser, and Miles Cooper allowed the club to replenish its draft stock for this season and for future seasons. Savoie and Geekie were themselves selected first and second, respectively, in the 2019 WHL Prospects Draft, and have combined to appear in 119 National Hockey League games over the last two seasons.

The WHL Prospects Draft has been held each year since 1990, with a multitude of the sport's top players hearing their names called in the top three on draft day, including future stars such as Connor Bedard (1st overall, 2020), Wade Redden (2nd overall, 1992), and Dan Blackburn (3rd overall, 1998).

This year’s WHL Prospects Draft is scheduled for Wednesday, May 6, and Thursday, May 7, with first-round selections to be made on Wednesday and subsequent rounds to be held on Thursday.

A couple of seasons ago, the Wenatchee Wild made the difficult decision to trade away two generational junior players to replenish the Wild's bare bones draft capital. The Winnipeg Ice went into extreme win-now mode to win the WHL Championship and traded away most of its future draft picks. Do a deep dive and click on our conversation with Wild General Manager Bliss Littler about the trades.