2026 NHL Draft Lottery Chaos Rankings: Which winning team would be pure rage bait?
We’re one week away from one of the most pivotal NHL Draft Lotteries in recent memory.
Why pivotal? We can’t say top prospect Gavin McKenna is perceived to be as much of a franchise changer as Connor Bedard or Macklin Celebrini or Matthew Schaefer were, not when McKenna flip-flopped with Ivar Stenberg for No. 1 status for some of the year.
No, it’s pivotal because of the specific mix of teams hunting for the top two picks. The group includes the desperate, high-profile, bottom-dwelling mess that is the Vancouver Canucks and a team that hasn’t picked top three in roughly half a century in the Calgary Flames. It includes two teams whose pipelines are already overflowing and could become almost unfairly loaded in the Chicago Blackhawks and San Jose Sharks. What about fallen juggernauts who are only a year removed from playoff runs in the Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets?
We could see a rock-bottom franchise get a lifeline or a recently competitive club quickly set itself up to retool. And then there’s the other outcome in which the Evil Empire that is the Florida Panthers follows up consecutive Stanley Cups with a lottery win. No matter what happens, it will impact the league’s power balance for years to come.
It’s time to ask the annual question: which result would piss off the NHL’s general fan base the most?
Welcome to the 2026 edition of my NHL Draft Lottery Chaos Rankings, sorting the 11 teams eligible for the No. 1 overall pick from the least to the most rage-inducing, with their chances of winning in brackets.
11. Calgary Flames (9.5%)
It would be unlucky enough if Calgary had never won the top pick. But to never pick even top three since its 1980 relocation from Atlanta (and since Jacques Richard at No. 2 in 1972, to be exact) is unbelievable. We can all agree this franchise is due. The Flames have patiently put their time in since Craig Conroy took over as GM in 2023, selling off almost all their core pieces, from Tyler Toffoli to Nikita Zadorov to Elias Lindholm to Noah Hanifin to Chris Tanev to Jacob Markstrom to Nazem Kadri to MacKenzie Weegar. They have a new arena coming for 2027-28. They badly need a marquee star to build around alongside goaltender Dustin Wolf and defenseman Zayne Parekh. Few fans save for perhaps those of the provincial-rival Edmonton Oilers will be offended if Calgary catches a break for once.
10. Nashville Predators (3.5%)
The Predators have never won the lottery. They’re also a franchise full of likable, easy-to-root-for players: Roman Josi, Steven Stamkos, Ryan O’Reilly, Filip Forsberg, Juuse Saros and so on. Seeing a fun market injected with enthusiasm thanks to a No. 1 overall pick wouldn’t feel too objectionable. As they showed during their 2016-17 run to the Stanley Cup Final, the Preds are an exciting franchise when they matter across all markets.
9. Seattle Kraken (7.5%)
Placing the Kraken this low on the offensiveness scale is a backhanded compliment; a Seattle lottery win wouldn’t ruffle many feathers simply because the franchise’s identity is so bland right now. The Kraken feel irrelevant, doomed to bounce around the outer crust of the playoff picture every year, never bad enough to truly bottom out. They don’t really deserve a lottery win given they foolishly sat on their UFAs and traded as a buyer team at the deadline, but it wouldn’t be a travesty to see them finally land a player with a true superstar ceiling. Maybe that would shock them into finally slowing down, building their team around young talent and eschewing the veteran-shortcut path that has gotten them nowhere.
8. St. Louis Blues (3.0%)
The Blues sneaked into the 2024-25 playoffs with a late mad dash but couldn’t quite duplicate the feat this time around. Now they’re caught in purgatory, attempting to retool around a veteran-laden group while also breaking in a new generation of promising youngsters, and Alex Steen is set to take the reins from Doug Armstrong as GM. St. Louis isn’t exactly a long-suffering franchise, having won the Stanley Cup in 2018-19, but a Blues lottery win wouldn’t infuriate rivals like some of the other outcomes might. Adding McKenna or Stenberg to the mix in the already-lethal Central Division would be pretty entertaining.
7. Vancouver Canucks (25.5%)
I suspect Canucks fans might bristle at the fact they aren’t 11th. We should feel extremely sorry for a franchise in this state, right? Yes, to a point. The Canucks were the worst team in the NHL this season and have the most ping-pong balls, so a win obviously wouldn’t be a wild stroke of luck. And drafting a Western Canadian franchise player in McKenna would be fulfill a fantasy that eluded them when they missed out on Bedard and Celebrini. But the Canucks’ mess is also largely one of their own making. They’re the league’s biggest PR disaster, their leadership situation is unsettled (no GM and no captain), they already broke their fans’ hearts trading Quinn Hughes this season, and they thus aren’t exactly the best-liked franchise around. Plenty of other winners would incite larger riots, but a Canucks win wouldn’t have 31 other fan bases rejoicing.
6. Winnipeg Jets (6.5%)
The Jets have stars to appreciate in Connor Hellebuyck, Kyle Connor, Josh Morrissey and Mark Scheifele. They have the plucky underdog market identity with a building that only seats 15,000 or so fans. But you try telling the Canucks and Flames to be happy if last season’s Presidents’ Trophy winner dips for a year and snatches the lottery from them. Woof. Objects will be smashed in many a home across Vancouver and Calgary if the Jets are lucky enough to jump six spots – or even five spots into No. 2.
5. San Jose Sharks (5.0%)
On one hand, a Sharks lottery win would elicit a healthy number of eye rolls. They already won the lottery in 2024, and the Celebrini pick was sandwiched between a No. 4 overall, Will Smith in 2023, and a No. 2 overall, Michael Misa in 2025. Last year’s Misa selection also doesn’t rule the Sharks out for this year under the “no more than two lottery wins in five years” rule, as San Jose didn’t win the lottery last year; the Utah Mammoth did but could only climb as high as fourth. A lottery win would mean the Sharks get a top-two pick three years in a row and a top-four pick four years in a row. At the same time, Celebrini is such an thrilling and universally adored superstar that we can stomach the additional luck if it pushes us closer to seeing him in the playoffs for the first time.
4. Chicago Blackhawks (13.5%)
The Blackhawks have picked in the first round 11 times in the past four drafts. Their prospect pool is laughably deep, and they should have two viable Calder Trophy threats in their lineup next season in Anton Frondell, a two-way beast of a center, and Roman Kantserov, the reigning KHL goal-scoring champ. They still haven’t harvested a single playoff berth since 2016-17, save for their play-in series win in the 2020 COVID bubble. We aren’t quite at the juncture of believing the Hawks are squandering all their young talent and the career of Bedard, but we aren’t that far from it, either, and it doesn’t feel like they’ve earned yet another future superstar. It’s safe to say GM Kyle Davidson has more than enough blue-chippers to work with here, and the Hawks have picked no worse than third at the top of the past three drafts. They almost had an extra lottery eligible-pick for this year, but the Panthers finished low enough in the standings that it reverted to them as top-10 protected.
3. New York Rangers (11.5%)
Now we reach the tinfoil-hat tier. The Rangers won lottery picks in 2019 and 2020, landing Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere at No. 2 and No. 1 in consecutive drafts. The haters believe the NHL wants the market of Gary Bettman’s headquarters to flourish, that the decision makers in dimly lit rooms feel the sport is healthier when Madison Square Garden hosts playoff games. If deputy commissioner Bill Daly pulls the Blueshirts’ card in the top two May 5, it’ll mean a team two years removed from a Presidents’ Trophy wins its third lottery in an eight-year stretch.
2. Toronto Maple Leafs (8.5%)
The Leafs not ranking No. 1 comes as a mild surprise. They remain arguably the most reviled franchise and fan base in the NHL among other fan bases. And if they finish a nine-season playoff streak by winning the lottery and landing a superstar building block after just one year out of the playoffs, it’ll be a “head straight to Twitter for the comments” kind of night. Tears will flow. Keyboard warriors will mash their fingers bloody. Conspiracy theorists will feel vindicated. The fallout would epitomize post-lottery chaos, and it could change the Leafs’ trajectory – specifically, what their incoming GM will do about Auston Matthews’ future.
1. Florida Panthers (6.0%)
…can you imagine? The franchise perceived to already have the NHL’s most advantageous setup…The franchise that signs all its players at discounts thanks to no state income tax and a favorable media & weather playing environment……the franchise that won consecutive Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025 and only missed the playoffs this season due to an injury apocalypse…the franchise that probably never imagined its top-10 protection on the pick it traded to Chicago for Seth Jones would come in handy…the franchise the tinfoil-hat brigade believes is favorably treated because its assistant GM Gregory Campbell is the son of NHL hockey operations head Colin Campbell…that team wins the lottery? Thirty-one fan bases would spark their torches immediately. The TV feed might suddenly cut out. The outrage would be unprecedented.
Angel on the shoulder: it would be bad for the game, so let’s hope it doesn’t happen.
Devil on the shoulder: it would be pretty hilarious.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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