The Edmonton Oilers have been awarded the first overall selection in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, being held at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 22-23, 2012.

The Oilers received the right to pick first overall when they won the NHL’s Draft Lottery, held Tuesday night in New York.

The 2012 NHL Entry Draft will mark the third consecutive time the Oilers will select first overall, after taking Ryan Nugent-Hopkins first overall last year, and Taylor Hall first overall in 2010. They are just the second team in NHL history to pick three consecutive years. The Quebec Nordiques did it from 1989-1991.

The Draft Lottery is a weighted lottery system to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the NHL Entry Draft. It gives the teams that finish with the fewest points during the regular season the greatest chance of winning the Draft Lottery.

Only the 14 teams that do not qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, or clubs that acquired those clubs’ first-round draft picks, participate in the drawing.

Fourteen balls, numbered 1 to 14, are placed in a lottery machine. The machine expels four balls, forming a series of numbers. The four-digit series resulting from the expulsion of the balls is matched against a probability chart that divides the possible combinations among the 14 participating clubs. The Lottery was incorporated in 1995 by the NHL.

Edmonton Oilers hockey is presented in part by the Rexall Family of Pharmacies, Molson Canadian, ATB Financial, TELUS, Cenovus Energy and Ford.