League provides some clarity on what's happening with conditional draft picks
When the NHL recently announced that the regular season was over and that a 24-team playoff format had been approved, one of the more pressing questions that had not been answered was what was happening with conditional draft picks snagged at the most recent trade deadline in February. We now have some clarity on that.
According to an article in The Athletic by Pierre LeBrun, the league does not officially view the opening play-in round as the playoffs. Therefore, any trades that were made with the condition that a pick would hinge on one of the team's making the playoffs will need to wait until the opening round play-ins are done and just 16 teams remain. That is what the NHL officially views as the start of the playoffs.
As an example, LeBrun uses the Vancouver Canucks, who picked up J.T. Miller from the Tampa Bay Lightning at the deadline. Tampa Bay immediately dealt that pick to New Jersey in exchange for Blake Coleman. That first-rounder was conditional on Vancouver making the playoffs, which the team as not officially done at this time.
"More specifically, for Trade condition purposes, a Club will not be deemed to have qualified for the Playoffs unless or until they have progressed into the Round of 16, and ‘Playoff Games/Rounds' will only include the games/rounds played in the Round of 16 or later. We believe this interpretation will best reflect the intentions of the parties at the time of the Trade,” said the league in a memo to teams earlier this week.
Should Vancouver lose its play-in series against Minnesota, that first round pick that was supposed to be for the upcoming 2020 draft will move to 2021 instead. Same goes with the Jason Zucker trade from Minnesota to Pittsburgh. Should the Penguins lose their play-in series against the Montreal Canadiens, the team has a choice of whether to give up this year's first round pick or next year's.
As for other conditions regarding trades, such as the Milan Lucic-James Neal swap between Edmonton and Calgary, that remains up in the air. The condition was the Flames were to get a third-round pick from the Oilers in this year's draft if Neal scored 21 goals and Lucic scored 10 or fewer goals than Neal this season. At the suspension of play on March 12th, Neal had 19 and Lucic eight. With the regular season now over, it remains to be seen how the NHL will handle this. LeBrun speculates that Calgary will get the third-round pick from the Oilers.
"Common sense would dictate you prorate what Neal and Lucic did, and that the condition would have been met over a full season," LeBrun wrote.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 14, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Nick Suzuki | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| Juraj Slafkovsky | - | 3 | 3 | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | 2 | - | 2 | |
| Ivan Demidov | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Mitch Marner | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Phillip Danault | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Josh Anderson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Josh Doan | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mikael Granlund | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Konsta Helenius | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jason Zucker | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Leo Carlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||