2018 NHL Draft Lottery Odds And Information
Today is the day we’ve been waiting for! The 2018 NHL Draft Lottery! I’m sure you have questions, which is good since I have answers. Let’s go:
How do I watch?
On A TV of course! Har har har!
The event is being held in Toronto, but you will be able to watch from your couch on NBC. This year it’s a little different, the 15-4 teams will be announced Saturday, 4/28 like normal at 7:30P. The top three will be withheld until the second intermission of the San Jose Vegas game. Fun!
What are the Rangers’ odds for the top pick?
The official odds for the first overall pick are below:
Buffalo Sabres 18.5%
Ottawa Senators* 13.5%
Arizona Coyotes 11.5%
Montreal Canadiens 9.5%
Detroit Red Wings 8.5%
Vancouver Canucks 7.5%
Chicago Blackhawks 6.5%
New York Rangers 6.0%
Edmonton Oilers 5.0%
New York Islanders 3.5%
Carolina Hurricanes 3.0%
New York Islanders (from CGY) 2.5%
Dallas Stars 2.0%
St. Louis Blues^ 1.5%
Florida Panthers 1.0%
The Rangers DOUBLED their chances at the top overall pick thanks to their final two losses on the year, although the chances are still very, very slim.
Is there a chance to move up if you don’t get the top pick?
There is, but only into the top three selections. There’s also a chance to move down from the team’s current standing. The lottery will be held as follows:
Whoever is announcing the results will pull a team logo out on a piece of paper and show it to the crowd. They will start from the 15th overall selection and move down to the 1st overall. This is important, because it will allow you to see if any teams jump into the “lottery” or top three selections.
As an example: Florida currently has the 15th worst odds of getting the top overall pick. So when they show the team that will pick 15th, if it’s NOT Florida then they’ve moved into the lottery. Repeat this process for every single pick moving forward. If Buffalo, Ottawa, or Arizona appears anywhere in the 4-6 range you know the team they replaced fell somewhere in the top three.
It’s sort of confusing, I know, but the below odds should help clear it up. I highlighted the Rangers on here. These odds are provided by Tankathon below:
As you can see, there’s also a good chance to lose positioning in some instances. For the Rangers, there’s just as much of a chance of moving UP to 9th overall as there is to even remain at 8th.
So what should we expect to happen?
See that Tankathon link above? It allows you to run a draft simulation to see what might happen. So what did I do? I ran one 100 times and calculated out the results for you so you don’t have to!
Things went both better and worse than expected. The Rangers moved up a lot more than expected (they got into the top three 25% of the time!) but they also moved down to 10th overall 7% of the time. Even 9th would be rough in terms of where we think the key players will land in this draft, and that was the most occurred event in the simulation.
OK, enough fun from us, enjoy the draft tonight!