Flyers Hit the Lottery, Will Pick No. 2 in NHL Draft

For most of the season the Flyers were talking about bounces, the ones they couldn’t get or wouldn’t go their way.

Finally they got one and, as much as they say teams have to work for bounces, there’s nothing they did that helped the ping-pong balls fall their way Saturday night.

In a televised showing of the results the Flyers moved up from 13th to second, something they had a 2.4 percent chance of doing. New Jersey won the lottery and will pick first. Dallas will pick third.

All of a sudden, the Flyers are in much better position heading into the draft in Chicago, which happens June 23 and 24.

“The more kids that you have that can fill holes, the better,” Hextall said earlier this month. “There’s always guys later in training camp or tryouts that can come in just in case you miscalculate. We’ll look at all our options, but our kids, first and foremost, a certain number of them are at a level now that they’re going to get a long look.”

For the most part, this draft doesn’t have those immediate impact players. The exception is the two top-ranked centers by the NHL’s central scouting service: Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier.