The draft lottery is set to run tomorrow. It will air around 8pm on CBC in Canada and NBC in the States. Since the Jackets season ended this has been the date to look forward too. The draft order will be decided and we will know what team has won the chance to select Arizona native Auston Matthews first overall.
The Jackets currently sit in the fourth position with a 9.5% chance of picking first. This season the NHL has changed the lottery format so the first three picks will be decided by the lottery. Those are very valuable positions, as both Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi, the players projected to go two and three, are game breaking players. The Jackets have a 9.7% chance at picking second and a 9.8% chance of picking third. Add those up and the Jackets have a 29% chance of moving up from the fourth position.
With the ability to move up there is also the ability to move down. The Jackets have 27.3% chance of picking fifth, a 33.2% chance of picking sixth and just a 7.4% chance of picking seventh. Add them all up and the Jackets have a 67.9% chance of moving down.
The Jackets have the lowest odds at staying at their current position, just a 3.1% chance of remaining at four.
If the Jackets don’t move up into that top three, it honestly doesn’t matter much where they fall. After the big three, the next group of prospects are fairly interchangeable. As of right now here’s how I would rank the top 10:
1. Auston Matthews 2. Patrik Laine 3. Jesse Puljujarvi 4. Alex Nylander 5. Pierre-Luc Dubois 6. Jakob Chychrun 7. Matt Tkachuk 8. Clayton Keller 9. Olli Julouvi 10. Mikhail Sergachev
I'm a big fan of Alex Nylander. He has a tremendous skill level and I like that he was the driving force behind am his team success, as opposed to Matt Tkachuk who was more of a passenger.
The lottery has not been kind to the Jackets in the past. Hopefully this is the year luck is on their side and they win the chance to move up. They could certainly use some elite level forward talent.
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