The NHL will hold its annual Draft Lottery on Monday night. The event, which will be held at NHL Network’s Secaucus, New Jersey, studio, starts at 8 pm (EST) and will be broadcast on ESPN, Sportsnet, and TVA Sports.
The Washington Capitals will participate in the Draft Lottery and have an opportunity to land the first overall pick for the first time in nine years (2014). The Caps have the eighth-best odds to win earn the right to take Connor Bedard with the first overall pick.
If they don’t win the lottery, the Capitals could also end up picking second, third, eighth, ninth, or tenth overall depending on how the lotto balls fall.
The 2023 NHL Draft will be held June 28 and 29 in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena.
Draft lottery rules
The @NHL announced today the odds for clubs participating in the 2023 #NHLDraft Lottery, set for Monday, May 8 at @NHLNetwork’s Secaucus, N.J., studio.
The event will be broadcast live starting at 7 p.m. ET on @ESPN, @Sportsnet and @TVASports.
More info: https://t.co/vneSK9CJ2p pic.twitter.com/BZxoDhCQCn
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 15, 2023
The general concept of the lottery is simple, but its execution is incredibly complicated. The 16 teams that failed to qualify for the postseason are eligible to move up no more than 10 spots from where they finished in the overall league standings. Two draws will occur to determine the final draft position.
The first draw is to determine the overall winner of the lottery and that team can only move up a maximum of 10 spots respective to where they finished in the league standings. Only the 11 worst teams are eligible to jump up to first overall. The second draw determines the next-highest available spot for a team, which will be the number two overall selection unless the Ottawa Senators win the lottery.
To get things underway, 14 ping-pong balls are loaded into a lottery machine, each of them labeled with a number between 1 and 14 which gives the league 1,001 different possible four-digit number combinations. Each NHL club in the lottery is assigned a series of randomly-selected four-digit numbers in accordance with their lottery odds. You can see those combinations in this “interactive information guide” the league sent out.
Four balls will pop up in the machine and the team with the matching combination will be declared the winner. In 2022, the first set of numbers to pop up was 1-3-4-13, which belonged to the Montreal Canadiens and they received the first overall selection.
Capitals lottery history
The Capitals have been a lottery team 10 times since the 1996 draft. The only time they had any positive movement in terms of draft position came in 2004 when they won the whole thing and changed their franchise forever by earning the opportunity to select Alex Ovechkin first overall.
Photo: Capitals PR
This will be the Caps’ sixth time eligible to receive the top overall selection. Outside of that, they are guaranteed to pick in the top 10 for the first time since 2007 when they took defenseman Karl Alzner fifth overall.
2023 Lottery win odds
The NHL previously announced the odds for every team in the lottery in mid-April. They are as follows.
| Fewest Points to Most | Odds |
|---|---|
| Anaheim Ducks | 18.5% |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | 13.5% |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 11.5% |
| San Jose Sharks | 9.5% |
| Montreal Canadiens | 8.5% |
| Arizona Coyotes | 7.5% |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 6.5% |
| Washington Capitals | 6.0% |
| Detroit Red Wings | 5.0% |
| St. Louis Blues | 3.5% |
| Vancouver Canucks | 3.0% |
| Ottawa Senators* | 2.5% |
| Buffalo Sabres | 2.0% |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | 1.5% |
| Nashville Predators | 0.5% |
| Calgary Flames | 0.5% |
* Under the terms of a March 1, 2023 trade, Ottawa will transfer its 1st-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft to Arizona if it is not a top 5 pick. If it becomes a top 5 pick as a result of the Draft Lottery, Ottawa will retain the pick and instead transfer to Arizona its 1st-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft.
The main prize
What colors look best on Connor Bedard? 🤭
The #NHLDraft Lottery is TONIGHT at 8p ET on @espn, @Sportsnet, and @TVASports!
(📸: Steve Hiscock/WHL) pic.twitter.com/LK0wKMPusc
— NHL (@NHL) May 8, 2023
The central reason this 2023 draft class is so hyped is because of the man at the very top of it, Connor Bedard. Read our full feature on Bedard here.
This past season was Bedard’s last as a junior player in the WHL and he did not disappoint. He finished with an absurd 143 points (71g, 72a) in only 57 games, becoming the first WHL player to have a 140-point season since the 1995–96 campaign.
Bedard also put up 23 points (9g, 14a) in seven 2023 World Junior Championship games for Canada. That set a new world record for points by a player under the age of 18, previously held by Jaromir Jagr (18). The 23 points were also the fourth-highest total in overall tournament history behind only Raimo Helminen (24), Markus Naslund (24), and Peter Forsberg (31).
The big-time consolation prize
The player most have slotted to go second overall after Bedard is the Michigan Wolverines’ Adam Fantilli. Read our full feature on Fantilli here.
Fantilli’s draft stock skyrocketed during his freshman season as a member of the Wolverines. In just 36 games at the NCAA Division One level, Fantilli carved up his opposition to the tune of 65 points (30g, 35a).
His ridiculous season led to him being selected to the All-Big Ten Freshman Team, All-Big Ten First Team, and Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors. He also eventually took home the Tim Taylor Award for best freshman of the year and the Hobey Baker Award for the top overall college player of the year. With his Hobey Baker win, he became just the third freshman ever to win the prestigious trophy after Paul Kariya (1993) and Jack Eichel (2015).
The potential Russian spoiler
In a regular draft year in more peaceful geopolitical times, Matvei Michkov would almost certainly be the second player off the board in this class. Read our full feature on Michkov here.
It was Michkov, not Bedard, who led the 2021 IIHF World U18 Championships in scoring in the two prospects’ most recent head-to-head competition. In 27 games with HC Sochi of the KHL this past season, Michkov recorded 20 points (9g, 11a). His overall .67 points per game rate was the highest for a draft-eligible player in KHL history.
Michkov, as a 16-year-old, broke a Russian record previously held by Alex Ovechkin for the youngest player to ever suit up for the Russian National Team.
The less fun but more likely scenarios
The chances that the Caps move up into the top three picks in the 2023 draft are slim. They are much more likely to be picking at the end of the top ten and that’s why we went through the trouble to highlight some potential names they could select at eighth, ninth, or tenth overall should they land in those spots.
The six names we chose were Dalibor Dvorsky, Eduard Sale, Zach Benson, David Reinbacher, Ryan Leonard, and Colby Barlow.
It’s time, Caps fans. Whatever ritual you did to will the team to victory in the 2018 playoffs, you should probably do before tonight’s drawing.
The franchise’s direction could be drastically changed depending on the results.
Headline photo: NHL PR
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