Draft Lottery Odds Breakdown and Video Explaination

NHL.com: The NHL will be holding the draft lottery on Saturday, April 18th around 8:00 pm EST. It will be shown on CBC and TVA Sports in Canada and NBC in the United States, before the start of the Rangers – Penguins game.

RK TEAM Odds of Winning Odds of Staying Put Odds of Moving Down
1 BUFFALO SABRES 20.0% 20.0% 80.0%
2 ARIZONA COYOTES 13.5% 20.0% 66.5%
3 EDMONTON OILERS 11.5% 33.5% 55.0%
4 TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS 9.5% 45.0% 45.5%
5 CAROLINA HURRICANES 8.5% 54.5% 37.0%
6 NEW JERSEY DEVILS 7.5% 63.0% 29.5%
7 PHILADELPHIA FLYERS 6.5% 70.5% 23.0%
8 COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS 6.0% 77.0% 17.0%
9 SAN JOSE SHARKS 5.0% 83.0% 12.0%
10 COLORADO AVALANCHE 3.5% 88.0% 8.5%
11 FLORIDA PANTHERS 3.0% 91.5% 5.5%
12 DALLAS STARS 2.5% 94.5% 3.0%
13 LOS ANGELES KINGS 2.0% 97.0% 1.0%
14 BOSTON BRUINS 1.0% 99.0% 0.0%

 

To determine the winner, the official lottery machine is loaded with 14 balls, each bearing one number, 1 to 14. The NHL Draft Lottery involves drawing one set of four numbers from the machine. One ball is expelled from the machine at a ten-second interval until four balls are discharged.

Without regard to the order the numbers are drawn, there are exactly 1,001 four-number combinations. Each of the 14 teams in the NHL Draft Lottery is assigned the number of combinations corresponding to the odds allocated to them by their regular-season finish (i.e., the team given a 20% chance to win the NHL Draft Lottery is represented by 200 of the 1,001 possible combinations, the team with a 13.5% chance is assigned 135 combinations, and so forth). One combination (11, 12, 13, 14) has been designated as a “re-draw,” allowing for the division of exactly 1,000 combinations proportionately.

If you like looking at a lot of numbers, the NHL released two PDFs: Draft Lottery look-up table: Numeric and Team.