What happened inside the room as Sharks won NHL draft lottery draw originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Editor’s Note: Sheng Peng will be a regular contributor to NBC Sports California’s Sharks coverage. You can read more of his coverage on San Jose Hockey Now, listen to him on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast, and follow him on Twitter at @Sheng_Peng.
SECAUCUS, N.J. — The biggest moment in San Jose Sharks history might not have happened on the ice but instead in a small, nondescript NHL Network conference room.
The NHL held the actual draft lottery draw about 60 minutes before the made-for-TV reveal, which happened close to 7 p.m. ET, in a two-story building the league shares with MLB Network.
Twenty-one people crammed into the roughly 12 foot-by-24 foot room. Among them were NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Ernst and Young auditor Scott Clarke and Smartplay International employee Will Markham.
Only one NHL team representative, Pittsburgh Penguins director of hockey operations and legal affairs Vukie Mpofu, attended the draw. Teams really don’t send reps to either the actual draft lottery or the TV reveal anymore — that was more of a pre-COVID thing. The Sharks, for example, didn’t send anybody, even with former Jr. Shark Macklin Celebrini the prize of this draft lottery.
As for media, I was there, along with ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski and NHL.com’s Mike Morreale. Otherwise, league executives and staffers filled the room.
Deputy commissioner Bill Daly, who revealed the draft lottery order on TV, wasn’t in the room for the drawing. None of us were allowed out of the room for any reason until the reveal was complete, except for a couple key exceptions.
Celebrini, the presumed No. 1 overall pick, was in the building but not for the actual lottery.
At about 5:30 p.m., we all were ushered into the conference room and asked to place our phones in a sealed envelope. Laptops either were to be left unopened or in a backpack. There would be no leaks of the result before the on-TV announcement.
At 5:38, Bettman kicked off the proceedings by holding up two newspapers — the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — to certify it indeed was May 7, 2024. He then explained the draft lottery ground rules, and introduced team and media members who were in the room.
It took Bettman over five minutes to get through all the rules, but they were relevant in the end, as we were about to witness two significant, historic draft lottery events.
Fourteen lottery balls,…