NHL Draft Lottery Odds: Which Team Will Get First Overall Pick?

For some NHL fans, next Tuesday night is going to be the most exciting part of their season. After months of watching miserable hockey and missing out on seeing their team in the playoffs, fans can look forward to the draft lottery. 

A little more than a week from today, the NHL’s draft lottery will be conducted, and fans will be able to watch live as months of deliberate tanking are reduced to the randomness of a bunch of balls. 

Those balls will determine which team will earn the right to draft Gavin McKenna, the likely first overall selection in the 2026 Draft. Currently on BetMGM, McKenna, who spent the year playing college hockey at Penn State, is a -350 favorite to be picked first. 

Here’s a look at who’s most likely to end up with the first overall pick, with odds as of April 27. 

NHL Draft Lottery Odds 2026

Who’s Favored to Win the 2026 NHL Draft Lottery?

Vancouver Canucks (+270)

After upending their franchise by dealing superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes midseason, the Canucks have the best odds to win the draft lottery. 

According to the NHL, Vancouver has an 18.5% chance of winning the lottery after finishing the season with a 25-49-8 record.

For those who need a refresher on the NHL’s draft lottery, it operates much like any other lottery. 

Think of it like this: the league issues 1,000 tickets for its lottery and hands them out to each team based on how poorly they did in the season. The Canucks, for example, have 185 tickets, so 185 possible opportunities to win the lottery. Each ‘ticket’ has a unique four-number combination. 

On lottery night, 14 ping pong balls will be placed in a lottery machine, each numbered 1-14. Then four balls are drawn from the machine, and if the combination matches a team’s ‘ticket’, that team gets the first overall pick. 

Unlike a usual lottery, where you get money, in this one, you get the right to draft McKenna. If the first overall pick ends up going to Vancouver, the generational forward prospect immediately changes the complexion of the franchise. 

The Canucks are actually in decent shape to be a well-functioning team next season if they win the lottery. 

Vancouver can pair the likely future superstar with the remnants of their veteran core — players like Brock Boeser, Jake DeBrusk, and Elias Pettersson — with some of the up-and-coming prospects they received in the trade for Quinn Hughes, most notably defenseman Zeev Buium. 

Is this a team that can contend for a title? Probably not. But drafting McKenna immediately boosts the stature of the team and sets them up to follow in the path of other prospect-laden teams like this year’s Canadiens.