NHL Draft Lottery Date Set
As the NHL works toward their return to the ice in an effort to award the Stanley Cup to a champion this summer, we continue to piece together things. The league had their 24-team playoff format passed by the NHL Executive Board, seeing the stage for an expanded playoff field once teams get back to dropping the puck on the ice. At one point, the league was trying to push for the NHL Draft to take place in early June in an effort to capture a big viewing audience. Those plans have seemingly been scuttled as it seems that plans are starting to come together.
According to TVA’s Renaud Lavoie, the NHL has come to a consensus on when the draft lottery will take place this year. In his report, Lavoie states that the draft lottery is slated to take place on Friday, June 26. That was the initial date that the draft itself was scheduled to unfold. Lavoie also made it clear that, as of the current moment, that there is no set date for the actual draft to be held. As it stands, with the league sticking with the 24-team playoff format, it looks as if the lottery will only feature seven teams this year instead of the 15 there were in the 2018-19 season.
The seven teams that would be involved in the lottery in that format, with decreasing odds of having the top pick, are the Red Wings, Senators, Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Devils and Sabres. Under that concept, the Senators would be in excellent shape for two top picks as they own their own and San Jose’s thanks to the trade that sent Erik Karlsson to Silicon Valley. It’s unclear if the league will stick to the changes that were mentioned previously or if they’ll come up with an alternative situation.
As it stands in the previously discussed proposal with the expanded playoff format, the league has stated that there would be only one lottery winner. In that structure, the winner could move up no more than four slots, which means even if Buffalo were to win the lottery, they could jump to no higher than third in the draft. It also ensures that the Senators would end up with two picks in the top four without the potential of dropping any further than having picks three and four.
Holding the lottery before the season comes to a close is a clear sign that the league has waved the white flag on the remainder of the regular season to head right to the postseason. It’s going to be interesting to see how things pan out with the shortened field of entrants for the lottery. Normally there are teams that are really interested as they hope to end up moving up the draft board that just missed out on the postseason. That won’t be the case this season. Instead, it will be the actual teams that need talent getting the picks at the top of the draft class. Who will win the sweepstakes for Alexis Lafreniere? We’ll find out in about a month.