NHL Draft Lottery 2020: Start time, live stream odds, and more
By Josh Hill
The NHL Draft Lottery is tonight as hockey inches towards returning to action after pausing its season back in March.
While we don’t officially have sports back in North America, we’re slowly inching towards that being the case.
To put it bluntly, sports returning is not what anyone needs right now. From the fight for racial justice to the pandemic that caused everything to stop in the first place only getting worse, Americans have done little to deserve sports as a distraction, let alone create an environment in which its safe for said return to even occur.
Nevertheless, sports are coming back and the unofficial kickoff of that is in the least likely of places. The NHL Draft Lottery is going to be held Friday night, and it will uniquely set the order for NHL Draft later this summer.
Last year the New Jersey Devils won the No. 1 pick and took phenom Jack Hughes, pairing him with Nico Hischier who was selected first overall when by the Devils in 2017. New Jersey is once again in a position to win the top pick in the draft, holding the sixth-best odds entering the night
All eyes will be on Ottawa, however.
The Senators have cratered over the last handful of years, from auctioning off their top talent to the highest bidder to ugly internal issues that have torn the franchise apart. Many have viewed this as the year the Senators can officially start rebuilding, as Ottawa holds two of the three best odds to win the first pick and could end up with two picks in the top three if all goes well.
NHL Draft lottery 2020 start time, odds, live stream and more
Detroit Red Wings (.275) — 18.5 percent chance for No. 1 pick
Ottawa Senators (.437) — 13.5 percent
Ottawa Senators (from San Jose Sharks, .450) — 11.5 percent
Los Angeles Kings (.457) — 9.5 percent
Anaheim Ducks (.472) — 8.5 percent
New Jersey Devils (.493) — 7.5 percent
Buffalo Sabres (.493) — 6.5 percent
Qualifier Team A — 6.0 percent
Qualifier Team B — 5.0 percent
Qualifier Team C — 3.5 percent
Qualifier Team D — 3.0 percent
Qualifier Team E — 2.5 percent
Qualifier Team F — 2.0 percent
Qualifier Team G — 1.5 percent
Qualifier Team H — 1.0 percent
NHL Draft Lottery Start time: 8:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM PDT
NHL Draft Lottery Live Stream: NBCSN, NHL Network
NHL Draft Lottery Results
1. TBD Playoff Team
2. Los Angeles Kings
3. Ottawa Senators
4. Detroit Red Wings
5. Ottawa Senators
6. Anaheim Ducks
7. New Jersey Devil
8. Buffalo Sabres
That’s right, we don’t know who won the No. 1 pick yet because that team hasn’t been eliminated from the playoffs yet. We will have a Phase 2 lottery once the qualifying round of the playoffs is done and one of the unlucky teams to get bounced in the first round will suddenly have their fortunes changed in a big way.