Guide to the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery

This year’s draft lottery will decide who gets the right to draft Macklin Celebrini, a prospect with franchise-altering potential, with the first overall pick. How does the draft lottery work, which teams have the best odds, and who might they select at the top of the draft? Let’s take a closer look.

How Does the Draft Lottery Work?

The current draft lottery system encourages, and even rewards, losing in the NHL, but not as much as it used to. Before the lottery, the NHL’s last place team was guaranteed the first pick in the following draft, and that guarantee has been removed, de-incentivizing (only slightly) the tanking battle at the bottom of the NHL standings. Several rules were added in 2022 when the NHL decided that only two winning lottery balls would be selected meaning there are only two winners compared to the three winners that fans had become used to. 

Each of the 16 teams that miss the playoffs will have a chance to win with the teams earning significantly better odds at winning a high pick if they are lower in the standings. It’s also worth mentioning that a lottery win doesn’t guarantee one of the top-two picks in this year’s draft as teams can only jump a maximum of 10 spots, meaning that only the 11 teams with the best odds even have a chance of landing at first overall. If the team with the 16th best odds end up winning the lottery, they could only jump up to the sixth overall pick, so the worst team (San Jose Sharks) could land first overall without technically winning the lottery.

The last place team in the NHL has a 25.5% chance of winning the top spot which are the best odds by far, explaining the wild race to the bottom of the standings that we see after the Trade Deadline each season. The second-last place team only has a 13.5% chance, nearly half the odds of last place and the odds only worsen from there meaning that regular season standings are absolutely crucial for lottery odds.

Who is Available at the Top of the Draft?

So why were teams giving up on this season months ago and icing some of the worst NHL lineups in recent memory? It’s simple, the talent at the top of the 2024 NHL Draft has the potential to shift the futures of the league’s worst teams, helping them usher in a new era of success.

Macklin Celebrini is the obvious crown jewel of the 2024 Draft, with a complete two-way game of a player well beyond his years. Celebrini is Canadian but took the USHL to NCAA route rather than playing in the CHL. He has dominated every level of hockey he’s played at, and was named the NCAA’s top collegiate rookie and MVP (Hobey Baker Award) as a 17-year-old center. Celebrini’s game shows no weaknesses at this point and has a good chance to be a contributing two-way player in the NHL as soon as next Fall.

Artyom Levshunov is another highly sought after prospect in this year’s draft. He is a right-shot defender who has clear offensive potential, and has developed a ton defensively over the past 18 months or so. Levshunov is an excellent athlete and plays at a really high pace which bodes well for his NHL projection. His offensive skill and IQ are exciting and I’m a believer in his defensive growth so I can easily picture Levshunov becoming a big minutes, top-pairing defender in the NHL.

Anton Silayev was the first breakout prospect in this draft, going from an unknown prospect in the Russian junior leagues to a fascinating shutdown defender in the KHL (Russia’s top pro league) in a matter of weeks. Silayev’s offensive game is smart, if a little safe. However, the team drafting Silayev isn’t doing so because they think he’ll be a Cale Makar type of player. Silayev is 6-foot-7 and looks like a potentially elite defensive defender at the pro level, so any amount of offense on top of that would just be icing on the cake.

This year’s draft should get really interesting after the first overall pick, as there doesn’t appear to be much of a consensus on who should go next. Someone who I might see as a clear top-five talent might be projected to go 14th or later by someone else. There’s a ton of talent from picks 1-15 or so, but nobody can quite agree on who will go where so let’s do a quick run-through of some of the names you should get familiar with.

Cole Eiserman is an incredible goal scorer who has questions about his compete-level and defensive play, but just won’t stop scoring goals. Ivan Demidov is an extremely skilled winger who makes magic happen with the puck, but could be held back by an awkward skating stride. Carter Yakemchuk is a big, right-shot defender who scores a ton of goals, though his defensive game is questionable at times. Zeev Buium is a cerebral puck mover whose only minor fault is that his game is lacking some physicality. Berkly Catton is a well-rounded center with unreal edgework and puck skills, though he lacks a bit of size for an NHL center. 

That’s barely half of the guys who could go in the top-five but I’ll hold off for now. Check out my latest Draft Rankings article here if you’d like to learn more about the top players in the 2024 NHL Draft.

Which Teams Have the Best Chances?  

Let’s take a quick look at the five teams with the best chances of winning the draft lottery and what has transpired this season to get them here.

The San Jose Sharks have been in full-on sell mode for nearly two years now, moving on from Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, and Timo Meier. All of that tanking has come to a culmination this season where we saw one of the worst NHL teams in recent memory take the ice in San Jose. Young players like William Eklund and Fabian Zetterlund had positive seasons which was a bright spot. A guaranteed top-three pick is huge, but a lottery win could give Sharks fans something to hope for as the team gears up for another similar season next year.

The Chicago Blackhawks made tanking fashionable again last season, especially after winning the Connor Bedard lottery. Despite the addition of Bedard to the NHL right away this year, the Blackhawks lacked any sort of offense when he was on the bench, scoring a league-low 179 goals this season. Their defense and goaltending weren’t any good either, so the biggest bright spot was that Bedard looked mostly great with moments of excellence. Another high pick would be huge for the rebuild in Chicago.

The Anaheim Ducks added more talent to their prospect pool this year mid-season when they traded for Cutter Gauthier. A gifted young forward group just got even better with the addition of a Hobey Baker finalist who scored the most goals in the NCAA this season. The Ducks had a really rough season once again, but have begun to hand over the keys to their youngsters like Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov. I think the Ducks will take whatever player they think is best since they don’t have any glaring holes right now, though a right-handed defender like Levshunov (or maybe even Carter Yakemchuk) would help.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have had another unfortunately dysfunctional season, though they seem to be moving in the right direction with the recent additions of Adam Fantilli and David Jiricek to the NHL. Goaltending has been an issue for a while in Columbus and this year was no exception, with the Blue Jackets allowing 300 goals in just 82 games, the second most in the league. Either a high-end center prospect or defender at the top of this draft could go a long way for Columbus’ future.

The story of the season for the Montreal Canadiens was the remarkable development of Juraj Slafkovsky who is already a very good top-six winger with plenty of room for growth. The Habs led the league in loser points this season (16 overtime/shootout losses), and flipping the result of just a handful of those OTLs would’ve been the difference between 28th and 23rd overall. Some special teams growth would be welcome, with Montreal’s power play ranking 30th in the league and their penalty kill ranking 29th (special teams stats via. Statmuse).

Full Odds for 1st Overall

This Draft Lottery Will Re-Shape the Future of the League

The Draft Lottery is always an important event for rebuilding teams, but this year’s lottery will grant a team the chance to land someone who could very well be one of the NHL’s very best players in just a couple of years, a possibility that teams are clearly very motivated by. 

I can’t wait to see which teams win in this year’s lottery as it will give a glimpse into the future of the league and where some of its best players will be. Who will land the first overall pick and the chance to draft Macklin Celebrini, a franchise changing two-way talent? Who will win the second overall pick and get to choose between the offensive dynamism of Demidov or the defensive potential of either Silayev or Levshunov? We only need to wait another week to find out!