The NHL draft lottery is a bit of a complicated thing. And for the third year in a row, the Montreal Canadiens are hoping to win it.
As things currently stand, the Canadiens have the seventh-best odds of winning the draft lottery, with a 6.5% chance of being awarded the first overall pick.
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But with nearly a dozen games remaining on most teams’ schedules, those odds can change — for better or worse.
On pace to finish the season among the NHL’s bottom 10, the rebuilding Habs currently sit in 26th place in the NHL with 66 points. But with the Arizona Coyotes and Ottawa Senators only a few points behind them, they can easily slip to 27th or 28th on the leaderboard.
Dropping the Columbus Blue Jackets (58 points) in 29th or the Anaheim Ducks (52 points) in 30th remains a mathematical possibility — if Montreal goes on a serious losing streak and one of the respective two do the opposite.
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Meanwhile, the San Jose Sharks are not far away from officially locking up last place, winning only 16 games this season. When that occurs, they will have a more than 25% chance of winning the lottery.
With all that in mind, the most likely scenario sees the Canadiens concluding the season somewhere between 25th and 28th place.
For context, Montreal finished dead last in the league in the 2021-22 season, helping them win that year’s lottery to select Juraj Slafkovsky with the first overall pick. The following season, which resulted in them picking fifth overall, saw them finish 28th in the standings.
But even if they go on a serious win streak over the next few weeks, the Habs can still luck out. Lottery rules state that teams can move up a maximum of 10 spots in the draw, making it mathematically possible for the team in 22nd place to come out with the No. 1 pick.
If the draw was today, Montreal, who has the seventh-worst record in the league, would most likely be picking seventh overall (44.4% chance), eighth overall (36.5% chance) or second overall (6.7% chance).
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That brings their collective odds of winning a pick somewhere in the top three to 13.4%.
On the flip side, if the Habs stay where they are, they also have a 5.6% chance of dropping two spots to ninth overall.
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