Montreal Canadiens fans have been awaiting this day for several months! Some of you lost all hope after the Habs five game losing streak to open the 2021-22 season. And you were right.
The team showed in the first week and a half of the season that they were unstructured, poor defensively and had okay goaltending that wasn’t meant to carry a team for a long period of time. They did show some signs of life after that initial losing streak, but not much.
It was a long, miserable, hard to watch season for months on end. There was some hope in the final months after Martin St. Louis arrived and Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Jeff Petry all saw their games reach new heights.
Then they lost nine games in a row and all but assured they would finish with the worst record in the NHL. They won their last two, but the Arizona Coyotes pulled out a win as well and gave the Habs the 32nd overall spot in the standings to conclude the season.
What does it mean now? Well, it meant they wouldn’t be playing games during the playoffs for sure. But we knew that much long ago. Finishing last means they have the best chance of landing the first overall pick in tonights lottery.
The NHL Draft Lottery is a system where the top two picks are randomly selected. Based on their enviable position in the standings (at least for today) the Canadiens have a better chance than anyone else of getting the top pick, but it is still not likely.
Each non-playoff team has a chance of winning the lottery and their odds are here:
- Montreal Canadiens: 18.5%
- Arizona Coyotes: 13.5%
- Seattle Kraken: 11.5%
- Philadelphia Flyers: 9.5%
- New Jersey Devils: 8.5%
- Columbus Blue Jackets: 7.5%
- Ottawa Senators: 6.5%
- Detroit Red Wings: 6.0%
- Buffalo Sabres: 5.0%
- Anaheim Ducks: 3.5%
- San Jose Sharks: 3.0%
- Columbus Blue Jackets: 2.5%
- New York Islanders: 2.0%
- Winnipeg Jets: 1.5%
- Vancouver Canucks: 0.5%
- Buffalo Sabres: 0.5%
The Canadiens are slightly misleading. They have an 18.5% chance of being the team that wins the lottery. However, teams are only allowed to move up a maximum of ten spots, so one of the teams ranked 12-16 win the lottery, they would jump ten spots but the Canadiens would remain in first.
That gives the Canadiens a 25.5% chance of ending up with the first overall pick. There is a lottery held for the second pick as well. The worst case scenario here would be for the Canadiens to lose both lotteries and draft third.
That is kind of a cursed position for the Canadiens since that is where they landed Alex Galchenyuk and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, two highly hyped prospects who didn’t quite pan out with the team.
The lottery is going to be held tonight at 6:30 PM EST, and since it is on TV that means we will know who gets the first overall pick at about 6:55 PM EST.
It can be seen on ESPN and ESPN+ in the United States and on Sportsnet’s vast array of channels in Canada.