NHL Draft Lottery 2013: How Does the Draft Lottery Work?

The NHL Draft will have a bit of a different feel to it this season thanks to a shake up in the draft lottery rules. In the past, there hasn’t been much attention given to the NHL Draft lottery, but the change could be more appealing to the fans and drum up some extra interest.

So how exactly will the new draft lottery rules work?

Here are the details of the NHL Draft Lottery, via NBC Sports:

"The NHL Draft Lottery is a weighted system to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2013 NHL Draft. Teams finishing with the fewest points during the regular season possess the greatest chance of winning the right to the first pick.Fourteen balls, numbered 1 to 14, are placed in a lottery machine. The machine expels four balls, forming a series of numbers. The four-digit series resulting from the expulsion of the balls is matched against a probability chart that divides the possible combinations among the 14 participating clubs.While the top pick can now go to any of the 14 non-playoff clubs, or the team owning the rights to the first pick of a non-playoff club, the odds of winning the lottery are unchanged from previous years.The teams in the drawing are ranked in inverse order of their regular season point totals, with team one being the club with the fewest points, and team 14 being the club with the most points among those outside of the playoffs."

Like the NBA Draft Lottery, all non-playoff teams will have a chance to land the top pick. Here are how the odds break down:

30th place team – 25.0%
29th place team – 18.8%
28th place team – 14.2%
27th place team – 10.7%
26th place team – 8.1%
25th place team – 6.2%
24th place team – 4.7%
23rd place team – 3.6%
22nd place team – 2.7%
21st place team – 2.1%
20th place team – 1.5%
19th place team – 1.1%
18th place team – 0.8%
17th place team – 0.5%

The NHL Draft Lottery will take place on Monday, April 29, with the actual draft being held on July 31 at the Prudential Center in New Jersey.