The Pittsburgh Penguins had three first-round picks in last year's 2025 NHL Draft. They used the 11th overall pick on now phenom forward Ben Kindel, they used the 22nd overall pick (acquired from Philadelphia) on forward Bill Zonnon, and used the 24th overall pick (also acquired from Philadelphia) on Will Horcoff.
Horcoff was seen as a massive reach by a lot of talent evaluators. It also seemed like a lot of teams did not see Horcoff as a first-round talent as they thought he had a lot to work on. But for Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas, that did not seem to be the case.