The NHL Draft Lottery is on Monday night, with the results being announced at 8 p.m. For the Flyers, this is their playoff action. As one of the teams not playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Flyers are in a position where acquiring the highest draft pick possible is the best-case scenario of their offseason.
Before the ping-pong balls are drawn and the results of the lottery take place, here’s a primer on the Flyers odds in this lottery and what each result means.
The Flyers enter the night with the seventh-best odds to obtain the first overall pick out of the lottery. The odds of this happening are 6.5 percent.
After the drawing for the first overall pick takes place, there is a second drawing for the second overall pick. If the Flyers do not acquire the first overall pick, the odds that they will draw the second overall pick increase slightly to 6.7 percent.
There is also one scenario where the Flyers can obtain the third overall pick. If the Ottawa Senators win the first overall pick drawing, they would move up the maximum 10 spots in the draft from 12th to second. That would officially lock in Anaheim, the team with the best odds at the first overall pick, into the first overall pick. If the Flyers then won the drawing for the second overall pick, they would move to third as a result of Ottawa’s movement. There is a 0.2 percent chance of this, so it would take the among the most unlikely scenarios for this to happen.
Otherwise, the more likely result is the Flyers staying in the seventh overall pick or dropping back one or two spots depending on the other drawings. There is a 44.4 percent chance the Flyers stay put at seventh, a 36.5 percent chance they drop one spot to eighth, and a 5.6 percent chance they drop two spots to ninth.
The only six draft selections the Flyers can have after Monday night are first, second, third, seventh, eighth, or ninth.
Obviously, winning the first drawing in the lottery and getting the first overall pick would be winning the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. The phenom is easily the most anticipated prospect in this year’s draft, which is widely regarded to be a deep first-round class, and would instantly inject some star power into a lineup.
If not the first overall pick for Bedard, the second pick offers an equal opportunity to get a potential future star. Adam Fantilli is expected to be the selection at second overall.
There is more gray area in terms of how teams will evaluate specific players outside of the Top 2, but anywhere in the Top 10 should produce a future NHL regular that can easily play in a significant role. The Flyers cannot fall out of the Top 10, so they will have an opportunity to get one of these players as the draft arrives, but it would not have the immediate impact that a Bedard or Fantilli could.
Either way, the biggest event of the Flyers offseason arrives on Monday night. Will it be a franchise-altering day by getting into the Top 2 of the draft? We will find out soon enough.
