To begin, let me congratulate the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s heartwarming when a plucky underdog rises above the morass, overcoming years of toiling in obscurity.
Bollocks to that. The Maple Leafs have been in the draft lottery twice in the past 10 years and have secured the number one overall pick both times. Widely considered the largest market in terms of fanbase, media coverage, and team valuation, the Maple Leafs winning the draft lottery despite an 8.5% chance of doing so is a classic “riches to riches” story.
In addition to the Maple Leafs, the lottery pendulum seems to swing in the direction of a select few NHL teams. Last year’s tomfoolery resulted in the New York Islanders securing the rights to generational defenseman Matthew Schaefer first overall on just 3.5% odds. Clearly, the cities of Toronto and New York need roster-building assistance to deal with the inherent drawbacks of wealth and desirability.
Need more? The San Jose Sharks have picked in the top two of the NHL Draft Lottery in three consecutive seasons. This recent string of top picks has marked a significant turnaround for the franchise, including five top-10 selections in six years. Picking second again in this draft makes the Sharks scary—not only next year, but for years to come.
The Edmonton Oilers are perhaps the poster child of NHL draft abundance. From 2010 to 2015, the Oilers landed four first-overall picks. In sequence, they drafted Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Nail Yakupov, and Connor McDavid. In 2012 and 2015, the Oilers did not have the best odds to pick first but jumped their way to the top. In 2010 and 2011, their official lottery chance of selecting first was 25%, but their actual chance of ending up with the first overall pick was 48.2% because, under the pre-2013 rules, some teams could win the lottery without being eligible to move into the No. 1 spot.
The Oilers are cited as having contributed to an NHL rule introduced on March 23, 2021, wherein no team can advance in the draft order by winning a lottery draw more than two times in any five-year period.
Lastly, we have the Chicago Blackhawks. In 2023, they had the third-best odds (11.5%) to win the lottery, jumping up to take Connor Bedard. In 2007, the Hawks had only a 5% chance to win, jumping from the fifth spot to pick first (Patrick Kane). Both players changed the trajectory of the franchise, and Chicago is once again poised to reload with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft.
Most of this is admittedly sour grapes. The Jets have been a comparatively good regular-season team and, therefore, have been eligible for the draft lottery only three times in the last decade. It is just difficult, after a disappointing 2025–26 season, to think about what could be—and what could have been—given the anecdotal windfalls for certain other teams.
The Winnipeg Jets moved from seventh to eighth in the 2026 Draft and haven’t picked in the top 10 since 2020, when they selected Cole Perfetti. The New York Rangers were the big winners of that 2020 draft; they had 3.5% odds of picking first and yet leapfrogged several teams to land the top spot. It was yet another example of a big-market team defying the odds for a "Rocky-like" ascendance.
However, in 2016, the Jets were touched by the lottery gods. Going into the lottery, they jumped from sixth to second, edging out Edmonton, Vancouver, Columbus, and Calgary. With that pick, the Jets selected Patrik Laine, which eventually netted them Gabriel Vilardi. For fun, though, who was the sixth overall pick where the Jets were mathematically slated? Matthew Tkachuk. Say what you will about the Tkachuk brothers, but they are undoubtedly good hockey players.
The old adage that you make your own luck is true. The Jets have either traded away their first-round picks or played their way out of them for years, and nothing can be done about that. It just stings, however, when the bounces always seem to go elsewhere. Call it Winnipeg malaise, but this years draft lottery does not sit well with fans of smaller market teams. That's not unlucky, that's just the truth.
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