2024 NHL Draft Lottery: Ottawa Senators preview

Are the Ottawa Senators just one player away from Stanley Cup contention? No, but in a draft that looks like a giant wildcard from as early as the second overall pick, winning the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery is a surefire way to land a franchise centre that can transform any franchise.

Rules & odds

Remember: since the 2022 NHL Draft, the lottery contains two draws to determine who will be selecting first and second overall on draft day. Teams are then slotted from 3-16 in inverse order of their regular season points total. Each team can only move up a maximum of 10 spots, hence, only the teams coming in ranked 1-11 will have a chance to make the first overall selection.

The allocation of odds for the 1st Lottery Draw of the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery is as follows:

* Under the terms of an August 6, 2023 trade, Pittsburgh will transfer its 1st-round pick in either the 2024 or 2025 NHL Draft to San Jose. If Pittsburgh’s 2024 1st-round pick becomes a top 10 pick as a result of the Draft Lottery, Pittsburgh will have the option to transfer its 2025 1st-round pick to San Jose instead of its 2024 1st-round pick.

The odds for the remaining teams will increase on a proportionate basis for the 2nd Lottery Draw, based on which team wins the 1st Lottery Draw.

Draft rankings

The San Jose Sharks and Macklin Celebrini's father, who currently works for the Golden State Warriors, will both be pulling for the Sharks to win the lottery with their league-leading 18.5% odds. There are plenty more connections between the two: GM Mike Grier played his collegiate hockey at Celebrini's Boston University Terriers in the mid-90s alongside Jay Pandolfo, Celebrini's current coach. Celebrini became the youngest player to ever win college hockey's top individual prize, the Hobey Baker Award, and looks prime to join a group of former Hockey East stars like Jack Eichel, Paul Kariya, and Brian Leetch who did the same in the NHL.

The Sens have a current connection to Celebrini by way of his linemate at the 2024 IIHF World Championships, Ridly Greig; moreover, captain Brady Tkachuk played for the Boston University Terriers so he's likely heard a ton about the player as well.

Who gets selected after Celebrini is anyone's guess, though. Even the ever-cool Bob McKenzie is frazzled:

The lack of clear consensus beyond Celebrini — from No. 2 through to No. 10 and beyond — would be unprecedented. I’ve been doing draft rankings like this one for more than 35 years, and I don’t recall a year where the Top 10 is such a hodgepodge of opinion.

If you want to take a look at some rankings yourselves, here's a compiled list:

• Bob McKenzie's consensus rankings (TSN), Corey Pronman (The Athletic), Scott Wheeler (The Athletic), Tony Ferrari (The Hockey News), McKeen's Hockey, FCHockey, Smaht Scouting

What does this mean for Ottawa?

The Senators can leave tonight with five possibilities for their initial first-round selection:

• 1st or 2nd via a draft lottery win
• 3rd via Philadelphia winning the first draft lottery and Ottawa winning the second
• 7th, the team's current spot
• 8th or 9th, if one or two teams currently with the 8th to 16th best odds jump ahead of the Senators

The most likely option is 7th (44.4%) or 8th (36.5%), with the organization actually being more likely to pick 1st (6.5%) or 2nd (6.7%) than 9th (5.6%). As Ian Mendes wrote in The Athletic yesterday, a team with the 7th best odds has only won the draft lottery once, Los Angeles in 1995; though there have been two wins with the 8th best odds. The biggest jump was in 2017, when Philadelphia miraculously went from 13th to 2nd and selected Nolan Patrick.

The Senators have never directly benefitted from the draft lottery process, having only seen their picks bumped down in 2011 (Zibanejad), 2018 (Tkachuk), and 2020 (Sanderson). While you can argue those results didn't hurt the team based on the players they ended up selecting, the biggest indirect benefit came in 2019, when Ottawa's first-round pick had the best odds, but were in the hands of the Colorado Avalanche as a result of the Matt Duchene trade. The pick ended up dropping three spots to fourth overall, where the Avs selected Bowen Byram – who's now playing for Buffalo.

Broadcast details

Broadcast coverage begins tonight at 6:30pm ET/3:30pm PT on Sportsnet, TVA Sports, and ESPN.

By all accounts, we should expect picks to be unveiled in reverse order, starting with the 16th pick and ending with the 3rd overall selection. After a commercial break, the team picking 1st overall is usually revealed, with the remaining team picking second.

Tankathon | 2024 NHL Draft Order & Lottery Simulator

2024 NHL Draft order tracker updated after every game. NHL lottery simulator to determine the top overall pick. View traded picks and playoff matchups.

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