Given the opportunity, every NHL team would currently prefer to battle an opponent in the NHL Playoffs in their quest to capture the Stanley Cup.
For the teams who did not qualify for this year's race-to-16-wins tournament, there is one consolation prize - the NHL Draft Lottery.
2022 Draft Lottery Preview: New Rules, New Odds
This season's draft lottery is set to take place tomorrow, May 10, at 3:30 pm PT (watch live on ESPN and ESPN+) and each of the non-playoff teams will have a chance - albeit a slim one in some cases - to earn the first or second overall selection in the 2022 draft. The lottery selection itself will take place at NHL Network's Secaucus, N.J. studio. Clubs that do not win the lottery will be assigned the remaining selections from 1 to 16 in inverse order of regular-season standings.
In last season's draft lottery, San Jose held the seventh-best odds (6.7%) of winning the draft lottery but in the end, held their place at seventh overall and selected center William Eklund.
Prior to last season's draw, the NHL announced a sweeping set of changes to the lottery process which would be enacted over the course of two years. The first change - lowering the number of lottery draws from three to two - was implemented immediately, effectively limiting the number of teams that can move up and how far the worst-finishing teams can fall if they don't win the lottery.
The other two changes have been implemented for this year and are aimed to alter which teams can attain the first overall selection through the lottery, and how often teams can win the lottery over a multi-year period. Now, teams that win the lottery can only move up a maximum of 10 spots instead of automatically being awarded with the first or second overall selection. Thus, teams with the 12th to 16th-best odds in the draft can only move up to second through sixth overall at best, respectively. Beginning with the 2022 lottery, teams also can no longer win the lottery more than twice over a five-year period.
So, what does that mean for the Sharks?
San Jose finished the 2021-22 campaign with the 22nd-best record in the League, and therefore have the 11th-best lottery odds based on the inverse-order rankings. Because teams can only move up 10 spots, the Sharks have the lowest odds of any team that can win the first overall selection. If the team above San Jose in the overall standings - 21st-ranked Columbus - wins the lottery, they can only move up to either the second or third overall selection in the draft.
It is also possible that San Jose falls in the selection order, but only if one or two of the five teams with higher regular season points percentages are selected with the two lottery draws. Teams cannot fall more than two places from their current selection order so the lowest San Jose could fall is 13th overall.
The Sharks will begin the lottery process with 3% odds at winning the first draw. If the Sharks don't win that draw, their odds will proportionately increase for the second draw based on who wins the first round.
This marks only the third time in the past decade that the Sharks have entered the draft lottery with a chance to win the first overall selection. San Jose was unaffected by the lottery process in both 2021 (seventh) and 2015 (ninth). San Jose's selection of William Eklund at seventh overall in 2021 marked the highest draft selection that the franchise had made since drafting forward Milan Michalek at sixth overall in 2003. San Jose selected forward Timo Meier at ninth overall in 2015.
The 2022 NHL Draft will be held on July 7 and 8 at Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. Round 1 will proceed on July 7, with Rounds 2 through 7 occurring on the following day. San Jose currently holds nine selections in the upcoming draft.
