How Does the NHL Draft Lottery Work?
The NHL draft lottery decides the first two picks of the entry draft among the 16 teams that missed the playoffs. Fourteen numbered balls are drawn four at a time to produce a combination; each team is assigned a share of the 1,000 combinations in play, weighted so the worst team gets the most. There are only two draws, and no team can move up more than 10 spots.
Those last two clauses are recent, they are strict, and they are the details most explainers still get wrong. Here is the machine, the complete odds table, and how the 2026 lottery actually played out.
The Lottery at a Glance
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Teams involved | The 16 clubs that missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs |
| Balls | 14, numbered 1 through 14 |
| Balls drawn | 4 at a time, order ignored |
| Possible combinations | 1,001 |
| Combinations assigned | 1,000 (one is left unassigned) |
| Number of draws | 2 — for the No. 1 and No. 2 picks only |
| Best odds | 18.5%, to the team that finished last |
| Maximum move-up | 10 spots |
| Teams that can win the No. 1 pick | Only the bottom 11 |
| Repeat-win limit | No club may win the lottery more than twice in any five-year span |
| Everything after pick 2 | Reverse order of the regular-season standings |
The Machine, Step by Step
A lottery machine — the same kind of clear drum used for state lotteries — holds 14 ping-pong balls numbered 1 through 14. Four balls are drawn, and the order they come out does not matter. Choosing four items from fourteen produces exactly 1,001 possible combinations.
The league assigns 1,000 of those combinations to the 16 non-playoff teams before the drawing, in proportion to their finish in the standings. The lower a team finished, the more combinations it holds. One combination is left unassigned, which is simply a quirk of the arithmetic: the odds are set as clean tenths of a percent, and 1,000 divides neatly while 1,001 does not.
Two draws are then conducted. The first draw determines the No. 1 overall pick. The second draw determines the No. 2 pick. If the team that won the first draw comes up again in the second, that draw is repeated. Once both are settled, picks 3 through 16 are filled in strictly by reverse order of the regular-season standings — worst record picks earliest.
One important wrinkle: the odds belong to the pick, not the team. NHL clubs trade first-round picks constantly, and a traded pick carries its lottery odds to whoever owns it. In the 2026 lottery, for example, one of the 16 slots belonged to St. Louis by way of a trade with Detroit.
The Three Rules That Cap the Chaos
These are the modern constraints, and they were all added within the last few years. The NHL Board of Governors approved the package in March 2021.
1. Only two draws. From the 2021 lottery onward, the lottery decides the top two picks and nothing more. Because a team can be passed by at most two lottery winners, the last-place club is guaranteed no worse than the third overall pick.
2. A maximum move-up of 10 spots. Beginning with the 2022 lottery, a team can climb no more than 10 places. That has a hard consequence: only the bottom 11 teams in the lottery can possibly win the No. 1 pick, because the 12th-worst team would need an 11-spot jump to get there. If a team outside that range is drawn for the first pick, the draw is repeated. For the second pick, the bottom 12 are eligible — the 12th-worst team can move exactly 10 spots to No. 2.
3. No more than two lottery wins in five years. Also effective from 2022, a club that has already won the lottery twice within any five-year window is barred from winning it again inside that window. This was aimed squarely at the idea of a franchise repeatedly bottoming out and cashing in.
The stated purpose of all three was the same: reward teams that genuinely finished last rather than teams that finished 18th and got lucky. The league's own trigger was the 2020 lottery, where a team eliminated in the qualifying round ended up with the top pick while the club with the worst record in the league drafted fourth.
The Complete Odds Table
Every lottery position gets a fixed number of combinations out of 1,000. This table does not change from year to year — only the names attached to each slot do.
| Lottery position | Standings finish | Combinations | Odds of the No. 1 pick | Can win the No. 1 pick? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 32nd (worst) | 185 | 18.5% | Yes |
| 2 | 31st | 135 | 13.5% | Yes |
| 3 | 30th | 115 | 11.5% | Yes |
| 4 | 29th | 95 | 9.5% | Yes |
| 5 | 28th | 85 | 8.5% | Yes |
| 6 | 27th | 75 | 7.5% | Yes |
| 7 | 26th | 65 | 6.5% | Yes |
| 8 | 25th | 60 | 6.0% | Yes |
| 9 | 24th | 50 | 5.0% | Yes |
| 10 | 23rd | 35 | 3.5% | Yes |
| 11 | 22nd | 30 | 3.0% | Yes |
| 12 | 21st | 25 | 2.5% | No — but eligible for No. 2 |
| 13 | 20th | 20 | 2.0% | No |
| 14 | 19th | 15 | 1.5% | No |
| 15 | 18th | 5 | 0.5% | No |
| 16 | 17th (best non-playoff team) | 5 | 0.5% | No |
Read the last two columns together. The bottom five positions hold combinations, but the 10-spot cap means those combinations cannot deliver the first overall pick — if one of them comes up, the balls go back in. Position 12 is the borderline case: it can win the second pick, but not the first.
Worked Example: The 2026 NHL Draft Lottery
The 2026 lottery was held on May 5, 2026, at the NHL Network studio in Secaucus, New Jersey, and for the first time the balls were drawn live on air, so viewers learned the results at the same moment the teams did.
The Toronto Maple Leafs won the first draw and the No. 1 pick. Toronto had finished 28th in the standings — the fifth-worst record, and therefore the fifth-best odds at 8.5%. Winning from that slot meant a four-spot climb, comfortably inside the 10-spot ceiling.
The San Jose Sharks won the second draw. They had finished 24th, ninth-worst, with 5.0% odds, and moved up seven places to No. 2.
Everything else fell into reverse standings order behind them:
| Pick | Team | Pre-lottery position | Odds | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 5th | 8.5% | Up 4 |
| 2 | San Jose Sharks | 9th | 5.0% | Up 7 |
| 3 | Vancouver Canucks | 1st | 18.5% | Down 2 |
| 4 | Chicago Blackhawks | 2nd | 13.5% | Down 2 |
| 5 | New York Rangers | 3rd | 11.5% | Down 2 |
| 6 | Calgary Flames | 4th | 9.5% | Down 2 |
| 7 | Seattle Kraken | 6th | 7.5% | Down 1 |
| 8 | Winnipeg Jets | 7th | 6.5% | Down 1 |
| 9 | Florida Panthers | 8th | 6.0% | Down 1 |
| 10 | Nashville Predators | 10th | 3.5% | No change |
Vancouver's landing spot is the two-draw rule doing its job. The Canucks had the best odds in the room and lost both draws — and still could not fall below third, because only two teams can pass them.
At the draft itself, on June 26-27, 2026, at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, Toronto used the first overall pick on Gavin McKenna, a left wing who had played the previous season at Penn State. San Jose took Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg at No. 2, and Vancouver took center Caleb Malhotra at No. 3.
A Short History of the NHL Draft Lottery
| Era | What changed |
|---|---|
| Before 1995 | Straight reverse order — worst record picked first, every year |
| 1995 | Lottery introduced. The winner could move up a maximum of four spots, so only the five worst teams could pick first, and no team could fall more than one spot |
| 2013 | The four-spot cap was dropped: the lottery winner took the first overall pick outright |
| 2015 | Odds flattened, cutting the last-place team's share and spreading combinations more evenly across the field |
| 2016 | Expanded to three draws, deciding the top three picks for the first time |
| 2021 | Cut back to two draws, guaranteeing the last-place team no worse than third |
| 2022 | Added the 10-spot cap and the two-wins-in-five-years limit |
The 1995 version existed for one reason: to make deliberate losing less profitable. It worked, but only in a narrow band — with a four-spot ceiling, the bottom five teams were the only ones playing for anything. The 2015-16 changes swung hard the other way, flattening the odds and adding a third draw, which meant a last-place team could fall all the way to fourth. The 2021 and 2022 rules swung the pendulum back, and that is where the format sits today.
How It Compares to the NBA and NFL
| NHL | NBA | NFL | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lottery? | Yes | Yes | No |
| Teams in the lottery | 16 | 14 | — |
| Balls / combinations | 14 balls, 1,001 combinations | 14 balls, 1,001 combinations | — |
| Picks decided by lottery | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Best odds | 18.5% (last place) | 14.0%, shared by the three worst teams | — |
| Worst the bottom team can do | 3rd | 5th | Picks 1st, guaranteed |
| Order after the lottery | Reverse standings | Reverse standings | Reverse standings, then playoff exit order |
The machines are nearly identical — both leagues draw four of fourteen balls and work off the same 1,001 combinations. The philosophies are not.
The NBA flattens the top of the table so hard that the three worst teams share identical 14.0% odds, and it draws four picks instead of two, so the worst record can slide as far as fifth. It is deliberately harsher on the bottom feeder than the NHL's two-draw system. The full breakdown is in How Does the NBA Draft Lottery Work - Odds and Percentages.
The NFL has no lottery at all. The worst record picks first, period. Non-playoff teams fill slots 1 through 20 in reverse order of record, playoff teams fill 21 through 32 by how deep they went, and the Super Bowl champion picks 32nd. Ties are broken by strength of schedule. See How Does the NFL Draft Order Work - Every Rule That Decides Who Picks First.
Which team lands in the NHL lottery in the first place is settled by the NHL playoff format — miss the 16-team field and you are in the drum. The clubs that turn up in it most often tend to be the same ones on the list of NHL teams that have never won a Stanley Cup, while the reward at the other end of the ladder is the trophy covered in Who Keeps the Stanley Cup After the Final.
A first-overall pick also has to fit somewhere once he arrives, which is a real constraint on a rebuilding roster — see How Many Players Are on an NHL Roster - Lines, Pairings and Scratches.
When This Page Updates
The rules and the odds table are stable and have not changed since 2022. The worked example is refreshed each May, after the lottery, and again in late June once the No. 1 pick is actually used.
FAQ
How many teams are in the NHL draft lottery? All 16 clubs that miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Since the field is exactly half of a 32-team league, the lottery pool and the playoff field are the same size.
What are the odds of winning the NHL draft lottery? They run from 18.5% for the team with the worst record down to 0.5% for the two best non-playoff teams. The full ladder is in the table above and does not change from year to year.
How many picks does the NHL lottery decide? Two — the first and second overall selections. Everything from the third pick onward is set by reverse order of the regular-season standings.
Can the worst team in the NHL fall out of the top three? No. With only two draws, at most two teams can jump ahead of the last-place club, so its floor is the third overall pick.
How far can a team move up in the NHL draft lottery? Ten spots, maximum. That means only the 11 worst teams can win the No. 1 pick, and only the 12 worst can win the No. 2 pick.
Can a team win the NHL draft lottery every year? No. Since 2022, no club may win the lottery more than twice in any five-year period. A team that has already won twice inside that window is removed from contention until the window rolls forward.
Who won the 2026 NHL draft lottery? The Toronto Maple Leafs, from the fifth-best odds at 8.5%. They used the first overall pick on left wing Gavin McKenna at the 2026 draft in Buffalo.
What happens if a team trades its first-round pick? The lottery odds go with the pick. Whoever owns that selection on lottery night holds its combinations and any move-up it wins.
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