2021 NHL Draft Lottery: The Musical*

It is an early summer tradition in Vancouver: the annual NHL Draft Lottery disappointment. The Canucks are poised to once again pick near the bottom of the top tier, with over a 50% chance of snagging the 9th pick. The team has never chosen first overall, and honestly with this draft, it’s not exactly a guarantee of a superstar player. With a combination of a noted lack of potential star prospects and the inability to scout them as intensively in the past, it’s more of a crap shoot as it’s ever been. Hmm, this might play right into the Canucks’ hands...

The twist in this year’s draft is seeing where our new expansion rivals, the Seattle Kraken, end up picking. I will not at all be surprised to see them get first overall, because that is how we roll, and that is how the NHL rolls.

The Canucks have a 58.6% chance of picking 9th, while the odds of them somehow defying the hockey gods and picking first drop to just 5.4%, and 5.7% for the second overall pick. There’s also a 28% chance they drop to 10th, and a 2.4% chance they drop two spots and pick 11th. Yeah, that worries me, too.

The Canucks have picked twice a handful of times: their very first draft pick was Dale Tallon in the 1970 Entry Draft, after losing a roulette wheel spin to our expansion cousins, the Buffalo Sabres. Other 2nd overall picks by the Canucks include Petr Nedved and a couple dudes named Trevor Linden and Daniel Sedin.

The Canucks have dropped in the last four draft lotteries they have been involved in, displaying some of the most unfortunate luck you could imagine. In 2017 they finished in 29th place, and still couldn’t end up with a top 3 pick. In hindsight that may have been a blessing when you look back at the team’s draft class that year: Kole Lind, Jack Rathbone, Jonah Gadjovich, Mike DiPietro, Petrus Palmu and this Elias Pettersson kid. Do not forget though, that Benning almost took Cody Glass instead of Pettersson.