The Tampa Bay Chargers plan to make seven choices at the 2025 NHL Draft at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday, June 27 and Saturday, June 28. Unfortunately, four of these seven choices will be in the seventh and final round of the draft.
Current Lightning Choice
Rounds 2-56 (from the King of Los Angeles)
Rounds 4-127 (from Edmonton Oiler)
Rounds 5 – 151
Rounds 7-193 (from San Jose Shark)
Rounds 7-206 (from Utah Mammoth)
Rounds 7-212 (from Minnesota Wild)
Rounds 7-215
While many of the seventh round choices never played any NHL games, some have become important contributors to their team. One of the more eye-catching seventh round selections of Lightning was in 2011, when Ondrej Palat was selected as No. 208. There are four options in the final round, and Lightning may find the sleeper in the following player list.
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 tough competition when he heads to the Western Hockey League (WHL) Next season as he is committed to the Calgary Killer in the 2025-26 season.”
Dach is a natural organizer who generates advantages through keen, snapshot processing and soft skills. His game features one-touch passes, quick hand speed, subtle delay tactics, and a variety of handshake matches. This led to Dach’s top assist with a 62-point assist and scored 31 more points in just 9 games, without a single point. At 5-foot-10, his body and lack of strength would worry about his NHL future, but he has time to fix that and if he does, he might be very bargaining.
Elijah Neuenschwander – Goalkeeper
The first thing about Neuenschwander is his size, 6-foot-4, and weighs 195 pounds. He has performed well at the club level season, posting steady numbers on junior and professional hockey. He played well with HC Fribourg-Gottéron in the U20 league, playing 22 games, including the playoffs, and played 9 games against EHC Chur in the Swiss second league. However, his performance in the world junior and a very poor Swiss team hurt his draft stocks.
While everyone wants to see Andrei Vasilevskiy play forever, at some point, Father time will catch up with him and Lightning will need to find a new mesh. Neuenschwander has the scale, balance and technical structure of the NHL goalkeeper. The fact that goalkeeper takes longer to develop than other players, he has the characteristics of stability, mental maturity and translatability makes him a low-risk development goal for Lightning.
Andrew O’Neill – Center
Even in the U.S. National Development Team, a fourth-tier player, doesn’t sound like a viable candidate, but there are many people worth a try about O’Neal’s game. O’Neill is a diligent center, and his defensive influence comes from his mindset. After each hockey, he skates. Overall, he is a very destructive player who jumps into the shooting lane without fear or causes chaos online.
Related: 2025 NHL Draft Guide
O’Neal also played 64 games, participated in the U.S. National Development Program Junior Team, and played in the USHL game over the past two seasons, scoring four goals and nine assists. In late May, the Western Hockey League’s Edmonton Oil Kings announced that O’Neal had signed a scholarship and development agreement with the team. Although he was predicted to be the lowest six in the NHL, he is the role-player who helped the team win the championship.
Julius Saari – Defender
Saari is a real defensive priority, a smooth defensive player with a good figure and a solid depth projection at the NHL level. Matthew Buhrman wrote in his profile that Saari’s game is built on structure, maturity and mastery of details. Saari played with Jokerit U20 last season, recording 34 games with 4 and 17 points while also playing in four playoff games. He made his debut with Jokerit’s senior team, scoring once in five games.
I like Julius Saari during this period – keeps shutting down the rush. #U18MensWorlds pic.twitter.com/o5cnvjpgfj
— Steven Ellis (@sellishockey) April 23, 2025
To become an NHL Blueliner, Saari will have to study his decisions and read. In the U18 international game, he often made bad pass decisions and was overwhelmed in the pre-trial. Overall, his game has many benefits, and these issues can be solved over time and experience. If he improves, Lightning may get a reliable Blue Lineman who can also be worthy of fine killing.
The prospect pool of lightning requires talent and skills. They are both lacking and need to find diamonds in the rough diamonds to complement older veterans. In every position, Lightning requires drafting players with reasonable NHL potential and those players can be found in the latter round of the 2025 NHL entry draft.
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