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Wake up, it’s Draft Lottery Day

Monday evening brings the event that we’ve all been anticipating for, what, 10 months now?

Ever since the Blackhawks decided to trade away Alex DeBrincat first and then Kirby Dach soon after on July 7 of last summer, it offered irrefutable evidence that the team was headed into the tank with the hopes of nabbing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft.

Whether or not those efforts proved fruitful will be learned Monday evening, when the 2023 NHL Draft Lottery kicks off at 7 p.m., with the events broadcast by ESPN just before Game 3 between the Vegas Golden Knights and Edmonton Oilers. By finishing 30th out of the 32 teams in the NHL this season, the Blackhawks have an 11.5 percent chance at winning the lottery and landing the No. 1 overall pick. Chicago can finish no lower than fifth in the draft lottery, with a 29.8 percent chance it’ll end up there. The percentages sit at 39.7 for the No. 4 pick, 7.8 for the No. 3 pick and 11.2 for the No. 2 pick.

The Blackhawks have a trio of lottery “wins” in their franchise’s history, per a release from the NHL. In 2019, they jumped from No. 12 to No. 3 and drafted the aforementioned Dach. In 2007, they famously jumped from No. 5 to No. 1 and landed Patrick Kane. They also moved up from No. 8 to No. 4 back in 1999, but that pick was moved in a trade to the New York Rangers, who selected forward Pavel Brendl.

There will be two drawings, with each winner moving up a maximum of 10 spots, so the teams in spots 12 through 16 cannot move up to the No. 1 pick – although a few of those teams could still jump ahead of the Blackhawks. Over at The Athletic is an extremely detailed look at how this all works.

Here are the draft lottery odds, straight from the NHL website:

NHL Draft Lottery odds, per NHL.com

(The asterisk by Ottawa is due to that being a top-five protected pick that could go to Arizona)

Since this seems like a fairly pivotal day for the franchise, we’re going to try something new: a live podcast recording. We’ll go live from our just created YouTube channel around 6:45 p.m. and the live audio will also appear in the game thread that’ll be posting this evening so you can hear our collective reaction in real time.

Come join us as we laugh or cry or scream or smile or weep or whatever, once we learn where the Blackhawks will be selecting at the upcoming 2023 NHL Draft.

Talking Points