The NHL holds its annual draft lottery on Monday night, with the lottery being arrived live at 7 PM ET on ESPN and Sportsnet. For the first time, the lottery will be broadcast live in-studio, so things will look a little different this year. We’ll get to see the actual lottery balls being drawn as it happens, which certainly adds some dramatic flair but also means it’ll be a little complex to know who wins.
Each team involved has specific odds to win the 1st lottery draw & get the 1st overall pick. The Buffalo Sabres have a 6.5 percent chance of gettting the pick; the San Jose Sharks lead the league, as the worst team, with an 18.5 percent chance.
Each team is assigned a list of number combinations that, if produced by the lottery balls, would designate them as the winning team. The Sabres have 65 number combinations; see page 12 of this PDF document to view those combinations.
UPDATE: Here is the final draft order after the lottery.
