List of Pittsburgh Penguins Draft Picks - First-round Selections

First-round Selections

Joe Daley became the first of 20 players selected by the Penguins in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft on June 6, 1967. The next day the Penguins participated in their first amateur draft, where they selected Steve Rexe second overall.

The Penguins obtained the first-overall pick in 1984, and selected Mario Lemieux from the Laval Voisins of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Lemieux won the Calder Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best rookie in 1985. He went on to win six Art Ross trophies as the league's leading scorer, captained the team to Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992, and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1997 following his first retirement. He later came back to play in another five seasons for the Penguins, and in 1999, became chairman and co-owner of the team. As owner, Lemieux negotiated an agreement to construct a new arena, ensuring the team's future in Pittsburgh. After the Penguins 2009 Stanley Cup Finals victory, Lemieux became the first person to win a Stanley Cup as both a player and an owner.

In 1990 the Penguins drafted Czechoslovakian Jaromir Jagr with the fifth-overall pick. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, Jagr was the first Czechoslovak to attend the NHL draft with the government's permission, becoming the first drafted without having to defect to the West. Jagr was also the first European drafted in the first round by the Penguins after selecting only Canadians in their first 23 years. He was the first of four consecutive first round Europeans, and eight in ten years from 1990 to 1999.

Artem Kopot, and up-and-coming Russian defenseman with the Soviet U18 Team who had also played 28 games with his hometown Traktor Chelyabinsk in 1991-92, was the first Russian player to be drafted by the Penguins, selected in the sixth round (139th overall) of the 1992 NHL Entry Draft. Less than a month after being selected by the Penguins and a day shy of his twentieth birthday, Kopot was involved in a fatal one-car accident in his hometown of Chelyabinsk. Kopot was the only person in the vehicle.

Brooks Orpik was the first American drafted by the Penguins when he was selected in 2000 from Boston College. Along with Ryan Whitney in 2002 and Beau Bennett in 2010, the Penguins have only selected three Americans in the first round as of 2011.

The Penguins earned another first-overall pick in 2003 and selected goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury was the third goaltender selected first-overall behind Michel Plasse and Rick DiPietro. The first-round selection (second overall) in 2004, Evgeni Malkin, was the Penguins second Calder Trophy winner. The Penguins earned another first-overall selection in the 2005 draft and selected Sidney Crosby in what was nicknamed the "Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes".

Through 2012, of the 40 players drafted in the first round by the Penguins, there are 13 centers, 13 wingers (7 right and 6 left), 11 defenders, and 5 goaltenders. The large majority of the players come from Canada with 28. The United States, with three, is followed by Czechoslovakia, Russia, Sweden all of whom have two drafted players, while Belarus, Finland and the two now constituent states of Czechoslovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, each have a single player drafted.