2017 NHL Draft Lottery to be held on April 29 in Toronto

In a press release put out recently, the NHL announced that the 2017 NHL Draft Lottery will be held this Saturday, the 29th of April. The results of the Draft Lottery will be announced shortly after 8 p.m., ET, during live coverage of the event on NBC, CBC and TVA (Coverage on CBC begins at 7:30 p.m., ET)

The Lottery will be used to determine the order of selection for the first 15 picks in the first round of the 2017 NHL Draft, with expansion team Vegas Golden Knights assigned the same odds as the 28th placed team.

The 2017 NHL Draft Lottery will consist of three drawings: the 1st Lottery Draw will determine the club selecting first overall, the 2nd Lottery Draw will determine the club selecting second overall and the 3rd Lottery Draw will determine the club selecting third overall.

To accommodate the addition of a 15th team in the Draft Lottery, the odds for all other participating teams have been reduced proportionally from the odds utilized in last year's Draft Lottery. The allocation of odds for the 1st Lottery Draw of the 2017 NHL Draft Lottery is as follows:

(Fewest Pts. to Most) Odds

• Colorado Avalanche 18.0%
• Vancouver Canucks 12.1%
• Vegas Golden Knights * 10.3%
• Arizona Coyotes 10.3%
• New Jersey Devils 8.5%
• Buffalo Sabres 7.6%
• Detroit Red Wings 6.7%
• Dallas Stars 5.8%
• Florida Panthers 5.4%
• Los Angeles Kings 4.5%
• Carolina Hurricanes 3.2%
• Winnipeg Jets 2.7%
• Philadelphia Flyers 2.2%
• Tampa Bay Lightning 1.8%
• New York Islanders 0.9%

* Vegas assigned same lottery odds as the team finishing the regular season in 28th place

For those who can’t wait and want to start playing with a lottery calculator, here’s a couple NHL Lottery Simulator and Tankathon.

Make your predictions in the comments below where you see the Sabres picking, and who the top three you think will be.