A decade after the NBA held its first draft lottery — with Patrick Ewing the grand prize — the NHL followed suit amid considerably less fanfare.
Commissioner Gary Bettman was a former basketball man himself, and his league came up with its own way of determining the draft order. It was used for the first time in 1995. That year, only one team was drawn as the “winner” of the lottery. That was the Los Angeles Kings, who moved up from No. 7 in the draft to No. 3 because nobody was allowed to jump more than four spots.
The rest of the order stayed the same, with Ottawa landing the top pick because it had finished with the league’s worst record.
“It wasn’t really suspenseful,” Senators general manager Randy Sexton said at the time. “We had a list of the random numbers and everybody tried to pretend that they really didn’t care, but as the numbers started to pop up, everybody started to try and figure out which number fell in their realm.”
The NHL draft lottery has never been as volatile as its NBA cousin. For most of its existence, only one team was selected to move up, which meant nobody could drop more than one spot. And prior to 2013, nobody could move up more than four places.
There was an exception in 2005, when the league had just missed an entire season because of a lockout. That year, every team had a shot to win the lottery and select Sidney Crosby.
The format is different now. The first pick is determined with one draw, and the second pick with another. Teams can move up a maximum of 10 slots. And the drawing of lottery balls is shown live. With this year’s edition coming up Tuesday, The Associated Press reviewed each team’s lottery history, dividing the franchises into six distinct groups:
These teams, listed alphabetically, have benefitted significantly from the lottery:
No. 1 Picks: 2007 (Patrick Kane), 2023 (Connor Bedard)
Details: In addition to the two No. 1 picks, the Blackhawks also moved up four spots to No. 4 in 1999 and nine spots to No. 3 in 2019.
No. 1 Picks: 2010 (Taylor Hall), 2011 (Ryan Nugent-Hopkins), 2012 (Neil Yakupov), 2015 (Connor McDavid)
Details: No other team has landed the No. 1 pick this many times in the lottery era, and it all happened in a six-year span. Twice Edmonton had the best odds to receive the first pick and capitalized. The other two times the Oilers moved up, including the year McDavid was available.
No. 1 Picks: 2002 (traded pick — Rick Nash), 2003 (traded pick — Marc-Andre Fleury), 2014 (Aaron Ekblad)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2013 (Nathan MacKinnon)
Details: Yes, the Panthers traded away the top pick in consecutive years, allowing Columbus to take Nash and Pittsburgh to land Fleury. But they can thank the lottery for giving them three different chances at the top.
No. 1 Picks: 2017 (Nico Hischier), 2019 (Jack Hughes)
Details: The Devils have moved up four different times, including for both of their top overall selections.
No. 1 Picks: 2000 (Rick DiPietro), 2009 (John Tavares), 2025 (Matthew Schaefer)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2001 (Ilya Kovalchuk)
Details: The Islanders had just a 3.5% chance to draw the first pick last year and moved all the way up from No. 10. Schaefer made a quick impact too.
No. 1 Picks: 2020 (Alexis Lafrenière)
Details: The Rangers remarkably won the ad hoc 2020 lottery even though they were part of the play-in round for that year’s COVID-delayed postseason. The previous year they moved up from sixth to second.
No. 1 Picks: 1998 (Vincent Lecavalier), 1999 (traded pick — Patrik Stefan), 2008 (Steven Stamkos)
Details: The Lightning have actually never moved up in the lottery, but they’ve received the top pick three times. When they were lottery mainstays in the late 1990s and early 2000s, only five teams had a chance to receive the No. 1 selection. If you had the best odds — like Tampa Bay did in ‘98 and ’99 — you were in a pretty good position.
These teams have gotten little help despite occasionally having decent odds:
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2023 (Connor Bedard)
Details: The Ducks have had top-three lottery odds three times since 2021, so their lack of luck is starting to feel harsher.
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2012 (Neil Yakupov)
Details: The Blue Jackets traded for the No. 1 pick in 2002 and took Rick Nash, but it’s surprising Columbus has never received the top selection in the lottery given how often it has had a decent shot.
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2020 (Alexis Lafrenière)
Details: The Red Wings have followed a 25-season playoff streak with a decade-long drought that is now the NHL’s longest. Detroit moved down in the lottery every year from 2017-20.
UTAH MAMMOTH (previously PHOENIX/ARIZONA COYOTES and WINNIPEG JETS)
Details: Utah moved up 10 spots to No. 4 last year, but the franchise as a whole has been treated badly by the lottery. The original Jets, the Coyotes and the Mammoth have had a chance to win the No. 1 pick in 13 different years, most of any franchise that hasn’t received it.
Details: The Canucks are one of a handful of teams that have never moved up in the lottery. They had the third-best odds in 2016 and the second-best in 2017 but got the fifth pick both times.
These teams have each received the top pick from the lottery exactly once — but it was a good time to have that No. 1 selection:
No. 1 Picks: 2013 (Nathan MacKinnon)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2017 (Nico Hischier), 2019 (Jack Hughes)
Details: MacKinnon has delivered a Stanley Cup title and an MVP award since joining the Avalanche.
No. 1 Picks: 2005 (Sidney Crosby)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2004 (Alex Ovechkin)
Details: The lottery for Crosby in 2005 included the entire league, and Pittsburgh prevailed. The Penguins also picked first in 2003, taking Marc-Andre Fleury, but the lottery had left them at No. 3 that year before they traded for the top selection.
No. 1 Picks: 2016 (Auston Matthews)
Details: Matthews hasn’t led Toronto to much postseason success, but his arrival helped the Maple Leafs move out of lottery land right away. He has averaged nearly 43 goals a season. Toronto and St. Louis are the only two franchises that have never moved up or down in the lottery.
No. 1 Picks: 2004 (Alex Ovechkin)
Details: The Capitals plummeted from the playoffs in 2003 to near the bottom of the league in ‘04. Then they landed Ovechkin, who turned their fortunes around quickly on his way to becoming the NHL’s career goal-scoring leader with the franchise’s only Stanley Cup championship along the way.
These teams have spent a lot of time in the lottery, experiencing both its highs and lows.
No. 1 Picks: 2018 (Rasmus Dahlin), 2021 (Owen Power)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2014 (Aaron Ekblad), 2015 (Connor McDavid)
Details: After missing out on McDavid, Buffalo’s luck eventually shifted. Dahlin and Power are both on this year’s Sabres, who finally made it to the postseason for the first time since 2011.
No. 1 Picks: 1995 (Bryan Berard), 1996 (Chris Phillips)
Details: Ottawa got the No. 1 pick in the first two lotteries, although in both cases the Senators had the best odds going in. They’ve never actually moved up.
No. 1 Picks: 2024 (Macklin Celebrini)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2025 (Matthew Schaefer)
Details: If not for the Celebrini pick, the Sharks would have a case as one of the unluckier lottery teams, but he obviously looks like a keeper.
WINNIPEG JETS (previously ATLANTA THRASHERS)
No. 1 Picks: 2001 (Ilya Kovalchuk)
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2000 (Rick DiPietro), 2002 (Rick Nash)
Details: The Thrashers moved from third to first in 2001, but when they had the best odds in ‘00 and ’02 it didn’t work out. After moving to Winnipeg, the team caught a break in 2016, moving up from sixth to second.
Group 5: The afterthoughts
These teams don’t have much of a lottery history to speak of:
Details: The only time the Flames have moved up or down in the lottery was when they dropped from fifth to sixth in 2016.
Details: Dallas jumped from No. 8 to No. 3 in 2017 (defenseman Miro Heiskanen), but that’s the only time the lottery was significant for the Stars.
Details: The Wild have been eligible to win the No. 1 pick just four times. One of those was in 2000, before they’d begun playing. Another was in 2005 when the whole league had a chance to get Crosby.
Details: Like some other teams in this group, the Predators are younger than the lottery itself. After picking second in the draft before their inaugural season, they’ve never selected higher than fourth.
Details: The Kraken moved up a spot to No. 2 in 2021 (Matty Beniers), their first lottery.
No. 1 Picks: 2006 (Erik Johnson)
Details: The Blues have been eligible to receive the No. 1 pick just four times in the lottery era, the fewest of any team that’s existed throughout. St. Louis had the best odds in 2006, the year it got the top selection, but Johnson spent most of his career with Colorado.
Details: The Golden Knights dropped from third to sixth in 2017 before their inaugural season. They haven’t been back in the lottery since.
No. 1 Picks: 1997 (Joe Thornton)
Details: Getting Thornton was significant for the Bruins, but they had the best odds that year so it wasn’t a shock.
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2003 (Marc-Andre Fleury)
Details: The only time Carolina has moved up in the lottery was significant — from No. 11 to No. 2 in 2018. The Hurricanes took Andrei Svechnikov.
Details: The Kings were selected in the first lottery in 1995, moving from No. 7 to No. 3. That’s one of only three times the No. 1 pick did not go to a team drawn in the lottery.
No. 1 Picks: 2023 (Juraj Slafkovský)
Details: Perhaps the Canadiens will feel like a Group 3 team in a few years. Slafkovský produced his first 30-goal campaign this season.
Fell Out Of No. 1: 2007 (Patrick Kane)
Details: The Flyers missed out on Kane, and then he scored the goal that won the 2010 Stanley Cup Final for Chicago against Philadelphia.
