Could a lottery win spark a team’s playoff chances next season?

With the 2026 NHL Draft Lottery set to commence, there’s a wonder that whoever’s ball is picked out of the cup might be heading on an upward trajectory, and fast.

This year’s draft lottery features a number of teams that were either surprisingly bad or are a team on the rise and need just one more piece to get over the hump. The Vancouver Canucks enter Tuesday night with the best odds (25.5%), thanks to finishing with the worst record in the NHL. The Chicago Blackhawks (13.5%), New York Rangers (11.5%), Calgary Flames (9.5%) and Toronto Maple Leafs (8.5%) round out the top-five teams with the best odds to pick first-overall, leading to potentially picking Gavin McKenna in June’s event.

On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton discuss whether the team that wins the draft lottery qualifies for next year’s postseason.

Carter Hutton: I don’t actually hate Chicago in a sense. I feel like they made a big step forward. I think Spencer Knight is good, and those guys keep going. For Vancouver, New York, Calgary, I still think they’re a little bit of ways away…I think there’s a lot of teams that are in the playoffs now that feel like they’re really here to stay.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Call me insane, and I’m not just doing it ’cause the Leafs Nation viewers just popped up in our chat. I think Toronto could do it, man. If they stay in the top five, maybe they move up a spot. They have a 16-17 percent chance of picking first or second overall. If you can get first or second, and you add a young player to this lineup next season, and Chayka has an offseason where he maybe adds a piece or two, and you fix the blue line, and the goaltending gets back to being the goaltending you got two years ago, I think there’s this weird outside shot for it to actually go well for Toronto, but I do think it hinges all on tonight’s lottery.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…