1987 NHL entry draft
Player selection draft

The 1987 NHL entry draft was the 25th draft for the National Hockey League. It was held at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, and was the first draft held in the United States. The NHL teams selected 252 players eligible for entry into professional ranks, in the reverse order of the 1986–87 NHL season and playoff standings.
The last active player in the NHL from this draft class was Mathieu Schneider, who retired after the 2009–10 season.
Selections by round
Below are listed the selections in the 1987 NHL entry draft. Club teams are located in North America unless otherwise noted.
Round one
Vancouver's first-round pick went to Boston as the result of a trade on June 6, 1986 that sent Barry Pederson to Vancouver in exchange for Cam Neely and this pick.
Minnesota's first-round pick went to Los Angeles as the result of a trade on June 13, 1987 that sent Los Angeles' first-round (# 6) and third-round picks in the 1987 Entry Draft in exchange for this pick.
Los Angeles' first-round pick went to Minnesota as the result of a trade on June 13, 1987 that sent Minnesota's first-round (# 4) to Los Angeles in exchange for a third-round pick in the 1987 Entry Draft and this pick.
Washington's first-round pick went to Quebec as the result of a trade on June 13, 1987 that sent Dale Hunter and Clint Malarchuk to Washington in exchange for Gaetan Duchesne, Alan Haworth and this pick.
The public source identifies “1987 NHL entry draft” as player selection draft. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around entry, draft and Player.
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This entry incorporates text from “1987 NHL entry draft” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.