NHL Draft Lottery Odds Have Changed

The Edmonton Oilers are seasoned veterans of winning the draft lottery and they will be in consideration for the top pick yet again this year. Not a single person among us, media included (no matter how hard they try to revise history) believed that the team would be this bad this year. In fact, the only real debate seemed to be how far into the playoffs the boys would get. That was until they played any games.

Now that the Oilers will, once again, be missing the playoffs it’s time that we turn our attention to what’s coming up at the draft. Can they win the first overall pick for the fifth time? The Oilers are the reason that the NHL said enough is enough and have made it so the draft lottery was “less winnable” for the team that finished last in the NHL. Even so, the Oilers went on to win the McDavid lottery with an 11.5% chance and they’ll be looking to do it again.

Other fans will complain, whine, piss and moan that the Oilers ALWAYS win the draft lottery but we shall pay them no mind. We know better than that. We know that, in fact, the Oilers have only won three lottery picks, with New Jersey winning in the 2011 (Nuge) draft but only climbing four spots, as per the rules at the time.

This year, the addition of the Vegas Golden Knights has changed the lottery again, and with one more team missing the playoffs the numbers have to be adjusted.

The new numbers will give a slightly better chance of winning the lottery to the Buffalo Sabres of the world, but it is still only a 0.5% increase from last season. Buffalo, you will recall has not won a draft lottery in the two years they were given the highest odds. Instead, they were forced to pick Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel while other teams landed the bigger prizes.

What does this mean for the Oilers? If the season was to end today (and thank Gord it’s not so we can keep tuning in for the #McPoints), the Oilers would be given a 5.0% of winning the chance to draft Rasmus Dahlin. The Oilers turned 11.5% into some guy named Connor McDavid so we know they can do more with less. Would you bet against them?