2023 NHL Draft Lottery: Six Scenarios Possible for the Flyers

The 2023 NHL Draft Lottery on May 8 will have high stakes for all of the teams involved. This year's Draft has one of the deeper upper-end classes in recent years, especially in terms of forwards. There are also several defensemen with a chance to move within the top 10 picks.

Even if a team does not land a top-three pick, there are many high-upside players -- and a number of potential sleeper candidates -- available. We'll look at the pool of likely high-end Draft candidates as the first round on June 28 draws nearer.

Heading into the Draft Lottery, there are six possible scenarios for where the Flyers will pick in the 2023 first round, barring a trade to move up or down in the selection order. Five scenarios are straightforward, one is a bit more complicated. Here's a look at each scenario from the statistically most likely to the least likely.

7TH OVERALL PICK: The Flyers have a 44.4 percent chance of holding their default seventh overall pick in Monday's NHL Draft Lottery. For this to happen each of the first and second lottery drawings would be won by teams that finished below the Flyers in the final NHL standings this season. Anaheim (who had the bottom record in the league), Columbus, Chicago, San Jose, Arizona or Montreal.

8TH OVERALL PICK: The Flyers have a 36.5 percent chance of dropping from the seventh to the eighth overall pick. This would come about if one team behind Philadelphia in the default draft order wins one of the two lottery drawings and jumps ahead of the Flyers in the Draft selection order.

2ND OVERALL PICK: The Flyers have a 6.7 percent chance of jumping from the seventh to the second overall pick. For this happen, the Flyers would have to win the second lottery drawing.

1ST OVERALL PICK:The Flyers have a 6.5 percent chance of winning the 2023 Draft Lottery's grand prize. They'd have to be the selected ciub in the drawing for the first pick.

9TH OVERALL PICK: There's a 5.6 percent chance that two teams with better regular season records than the Flyers win both the first and second drawings in the Lottery. If this happens, the Flyers will drop to the 9th overall pick.

3RD OVERALL PICK:There is a 0.2 percent chance that the Flyers could end up with the third overall pick in the Draft (or, put another way, a 99.8 percent chance that they do not). There is one -- and only one -- lottery combination that would produce this result. If the Ottawa Senators win the first drawing, they'd jump the maximum 10 spots and receive the second overall pick of the Draft. The Anaheim Ducks, simultaneously, would be locked in with the first overall pick. If the Flyers subsequently win the second drawing, they'd get the third overall selection in the Draft because they'd be blocked from the first by Anaheim and the second by Ottawa.

If the same two teams -- the Flyers and Senators -- came up in the lottery in the opposite order (Flyers win the first drawing, Ottawa the second), the Flyers would get the first pick, Ottawa the second and Anaheim the third.

Teams are re-seeded after the first drawing. There is then a second drawing for the second overall pick, with otherwise the same stipulations: the team wins the second drawing will move up a maximum of 10 spots. Naturally,if the Flyers win neither the first nor second drawing, they will pick seventh, eighth or ninth.