NHL Draft Lottery Primer: How Rare Is a Win for Each Contender?
An NHL draft lottery win will be a precious prize for any of the teams in contention. Here's the lottery history for every team in the battle for Bedard.
The countdown to Monday's NHL draft lottery is on when one team will see their long-term future change for the better.
You may have to wait an hour longer than you were expecting to find out which team assumes the pole position to select Connor Bedard in Nashville next month and which teams — if any — will be moving on up.
Originally scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on Monday, May 8, the live draft lottery show from the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, N.J., was bumped back by an hour last week.
There's just one playoff game on Monday's schedule, and it's out west, with the Edmonton Oilers hosting the Vegas Golden Knights for Game 3 of their series starting at 8:30 p.m. ET. The lottery show on Sportsnet in Canada and ESPN in the U.S. will roll right into that game broadcast.
As for the lottery format, there's nothing new this year. Like in 2021, there will be just two drawings — down from three in earlier years. And like last year, no team can move up by more than 10 spots. So even with a lottery win, five non-playoff teams will not be able to move all the way up to No. 1: the Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, Nashville Predators and Calgary Flames.
And while there's little doubt that some teams put serious effort into finishing as low as they could in the standings, it's rather refreshing to realize that the 11 clubs that are in the mix for Bedard have not heard any of their names called very often on draft lottery day.
More on that in a minute, but first, here are their odds for that No. 1 prize:
The Anaheim Ducks have the best chance. And the teams with the best odds hung onto that No. 1 pick in each of the last two years. But don't get too comfortable if you're a Ducks fan: there's still an 81.5-percent likelihood that one of the other 10 teams will prevail.
The slimmest odds, at three percent, belong to Connor Bedard's hometown team, the Vancouver Canucks.
In their 53-year history, the Canucks have never picked first overall. In their expansion year, 1970, they missed out on future Hockey Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault after a contentious spin of a roulette wheel awarded that first selection to the Buffalo Sabres.
In 1999, the Canucks did briefly hold the No. 1 pick in the midst of Brian Burke's multiple trades that set up his team to select Daniel and Henrik Sedin second and third overall. But the Canucks have never selected first and never had a draft-lottery win at all.
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Two of the other 11 teams in this year's Bedard sweepstakes have also never picked first overall. They're also both in the Pacific Division.
The Ducks have picked second twice — taking Oleg Tverdovsky in their second-ever draft in 1994 and Bobby Ryan in 2005. They've also never had a lottery win. Neither have the San Jose Sharks, who have had three No. 2 selections: forward Pat Falloon in their second draft in 1991, defenseman Andrei Zyuzin in 1996 and franchise legend Patrick Marleau in 1997.
Of the other contenders:
The Columbus Blue Jackets moved from fourth to third with a lottery win in 2016 and selected Pierre-Luc Dubois. Their only first-overall pick came in 2002 when GM Doug MacLean engineered a draft-day trade with the Florida Panthers to move up two spots and select Rick Nash.
The Chicago Blackhawks have had three wins since the draft lottery was first introduced in 1995, more than any other team in contention for Bedard.
The big one, of course, came in 2007. They moved up from five to one and defied a couple of longstanding scouting conventions by taking undersized winger Patrick Kane. That worked out all right.
Also, the Blackhawks moved up from eight to four in 1999. That fourth pick then got dealt to the Canucks as part of Burke's quest for the Sedins and eventually ended up with the New York Rangers, who selected Pavel Brendl. In 2019, Chicago moved from 12th to third and selected Kirby Dach.
Dating all the way back to the 1963 amateur draft, Kane is the only No. 1 pick in Blackhawks history.
For the Montreal Canadiens, we only have to go back one year for their most recent No. 1. With a last-place finish, they had the best odds to pick first overall when hosting the draft in 2022, and they retained that pick. New GM Kent Hughes started the draft with a bang when he selected Juraj Slafkovsky. Also, Montreal moved from fourth to third in 2018 and used that pick on Jesperi Kotkaniemi.
Further back, the Canadiens made the first-ever No. 1 pick, selecting Garry Monahan in the 1963 amateur draft. They had three more No. 1 picks between 1968 and 1971, culminating with the selection of Guy Lafleur, and took Doug Wickenheiser first overall in 1980.
The Arizona Coyotes have also never had a draft-lottery win. Back when they were the original Winnipeg Jets, they did take Dale Hawerchuk with the No. 1 pick in 1981. But since moving to the desert in 1996, the highest the Coyotes have selected is third overall: Kyle Turris in 2007, Dylan Strome in 2015 and Logan Cooley in 2022.
The Philadelphia Flyers had a big lottery win in 2017, moving from 13th all the way up to second. But given how things turned out, then-GM Ron Hextall might have wanted to decline that move in retrospect. The Flyers selected Nolan Patrick, whose career has unfortunately been derailed by injuries.
The Flyers have only had one other No. 2 pick in their history. In 2007, when there was just one draft lottery drawing, they selected James van Riemsdyk after Patrick Kane came off the board. And Philadelphia's only first overall pick came right after their back-to-back Stanley Cup wins. In 1975, the team selected rugged forward Mel Bridgman.
The Washington Capitals have had just one lottery win in their history, but it was a franchise-changer. In 2004, they moved up from third to first, and took a promising young Russian named Alex Ovechkin.
The Capitals also had two No. 1 picks early in their franchise's history and used them both on defensemen. They took Greg Joly in 1974 and then, two years later, selected Rick Green.
The Detroit Red Wings have also never had a lottery win — and part of the reason for that would be the 25 straight playoff appearances from 1991 to 2016. But the Wings are now in their seventh straight year on the sidelines, and so far, the highest pick they've had is No. 4 in 2020. That was used to select Lucas Raymond.
As a longstanding Original Six franchise, the Wings did make three No. 1 picks in the bygone days. They took Claude Gauthier in 1964, Dale McCourt in 1977 and Joe Murphy in 1986.
Finally, the St. Louis Blues have had just one lottery win in their history. After a last-place finish in the 2005-06 season, they retained their first overall selection and used it to select defenseman Erik Johnson. He's the only No. 1 pick in Blues franchise history.