1979 NHL Entry Draft

The 1979 NHL Entry Draft took place on August 9, 1979, at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Quebec. The National Hockey League (NHL) teams selected 126 players eligible for entry into professional ranks, in the reverse order of the 1978–79 NHL season and playoff standings. This is the list of those players selected. The draft was the first to be conducted after the NHL-WHA merger. As part of the terms of the merger, the four former WHA teams had joined the NHL on the condition that they be placed at the bottom of the draft order, as opposed to the top of the order like is usually the case for expansion teams.

In addition, the minimum draft age was lowered from 19 to 18. The NHL had been considering lowering the draft age for some time (the WHA did not have a minimum age), and likely timed the decision to lower the draft age to coincide with the merger. The lowering of the draft age caused two years' worth of draft picks to go in the same draft, resulting in what is generally considered one of the best draft classes in NHL Entry Draft history, which included future hall-of-famers Mike Gartner, Ray Bourque and Michel Goulet in the first round alone. Hall-of-famers Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson would be drafted in later rounds. 12 of the 21 players selected in the first round would play in at least one All-Star game, 19 of the 21 would play at least 450 career NHL games, and all 21 had NHL careers of at least 235 games.

Furthermore, the draft did not include superstar Wayne Gretzky, who would normally have been eligible this year due to the lowering of the draft age. Gretzky had played for the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA's final season - as part of the merger agreement, the Oilers were allowed to keep Gretzky in exchange for being placed at the bottom of the draft order in the Entry Draft.