The Tampa Bay Lightning are scheduled to make seven selections at the 2025 NHL Draft on Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June 28, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, four of those seven selections will come in the 7th and final round of the draft.
Current Lightning Selections
Round 2 – 56 overall (from Los Angeles Kings)
Round 4 – 127 overall (from Edmonton Oilers)
Round 5 – 151 overall
Round 7 – 193 overall (from San Jose Sharks)
Round 7 – 206 overall (from Utah Mammoth)
Round 7 – 212 overall (from Minnesota Wild)
Round 7 – 215 overall
While many 7th-round selections never play a single NHL game, some have become significant contributors to their team. One of the Lightning’s more notable 7th-round selections came in 2011 when Ondrej Palat was selected 208th overall. With four selections in the last round, the Lightning may find a sleeper among the following list of players.
Kale Dach – Forward
In our THW draft prospect profile, Jesse Courville-Lynch wrote that “Dach is an interesting player and is an offensive juggernaut who has confidence with the puck on his stick and has been dominating the British Columbia Hockey League (BCHL) with the Sherwood Park Crusaders, but teams may wait to see how he competes against tougher competition when he heads to the Western Hockey League (WHL) next season as he is committed to the Calgary Hitmen for the 2025-26 season.”
A natural playmaker, Dach generates advantages through sharp, snap processing and a mastery of soft skills. His game features one-touch passes, quick hands in tight spaces, subtle delay tactics, and a wide array of handoff plays. This led to Dach finishing with the league’s highest assist total at 62, notching 31 multi-point games and only nine in which he did not have a single point. At 5-foot-10, his size and lack of strength have some worried about his NHL future, but he has time to address this, and if he does, he could be quite the bargain for the Lightning.
Elijah Neuenschwander – Goaltender
The first thing you notice about Neuenschwander is his size, standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing 195 pounds. He had a strong season at the club level, posting solid numbers in both junior and professional hockey. He had a decent showing with HC Fribourg-Gottéron in the U20 league, competing in 22 games, including the postseason, and played nine games with EHC Chur in the Swiss second league. However, his performance on a very poor Swiss team at the World Juniors hurt his draft stock.
While everyone would like to see Andrei Vasilevskiy play forever, at some point, Father Time will catch up to him, and the Lightning will need to find a new netminder. Neuenschwander has the size, poise and technical structure to be an NHL goalie. Goaltenders take longer to develop than other players, so the fact that he has the steadiness, mental maturity, and translatable traits makes him a low-risk development target for the Lightning.
Andrew O’Neill – Center
A fourth-line player, even if it’s on the United States National Development team, does not sound like a viable candidate to be drafted, but there is a lot to like about O’Neill’s game. A hard-working centre, O’Neill’s defensive impact comes through his mentality. He skates hard after every puck. A very disruptive player overall, he’s unafraid to dive into shooting lanes or create chaos around the net.
Related: 2025 NHL Draft Guide
O’Neill has also suited up in 64 games for the United States National Development Program Junior team, playing USHL competition over the last two seasons, scoring four goals and nine assists. In late May, the Edmonton Oil Kings of the Western Hockey League announced that O’Neil had signed a Scholarship & Development Agreement with the team. Although he is projected as a bottom-six forward in the NHL, he is the type of role player who helps teams win championships.
Julius Saari – Defenseman
A true defense-first blueliner, Saari is a smooth-skating defenseman with good size who projects as a solid depth piece at the NHL level. In his THW profile, Matthew Buhrman wrote that Saari’s game is built on structure, maturity, and mastering details. Saari played last season with Jokerit U20, logging 34 games with four points and a plus-17 rating while also appearing in four playoff games. He made his Mestis debut with Jokerit’s senior team, scoring once in five games.
I’ve liked Julius Saari early in this one – keeps shutting guys down on the rush. #U18MensWorlds pic.twitter.com/O5CNvjPGfj
— Steven Ellis (@SEllisHockey) April 23, 2025
To be an NHL blueliner, Saari will have to work on his decision-making and reads. This became evident during international competition at the U18s when he frequently made poor passing decisions and was overwhelmed on the forecheck. Overall, there is a lot of upside to his game, and these issues can be worked on with time and experience. If he improves, the Lightning could get a reliable blueliner who could also provide value on the penalty kill.
The Lightning’s prospect pool needs talent and skill. They lack both and need to find diamonds in the rough to complement their aging veterans. At every position, the Lightning will need to draft players with legitimate NHL potential, and these players could be found in the later rounds of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft.
