The 2022 NHL Draft Lottery is coming up — it’s on Tuesday, May 10, to be specific — and that’s a day Vegas Golden Knights fans should definitely have circled on their calendars.
Since the Golden Knights will not be participating in the postseason, they’ll have a chance at winning the draft lottery. And if they do end up winning the lottery, they’ll be able to keep their 2022 first-round draft pick.
Back in November, the Golden Knights traded their first-round pick in this year’s draft, among several other assets, to the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for Jack Eichel. However, their first-round draft pick is top-10 protected, so if the Golden Knights end up getting lucky during the draft lottery, the Sabres will get their first-round pick in next year’s draft instead.
Unfortunately, the Golden Knights’ odds of winning the draft lottery are, well, not so great. The NHL announced the odds for each team participating in the draft lottery, and the Knights have only a 0.5% chance of striking gold. So don’t count on it.
If they do get lucky, though, the Golden Knights will have an opportunity to draft an extremely talented player. They will not be able to select the consensus No. 1 overall pick Shane Wright due to a new rule that no team can move up more than 10 spots in the draft order through the lottery, so the highest pick they can possibly acquire is the sixth selection. Still, they would be able to draft an exciting prospect like Brad Lambert, Joakim Kemell or Conor Geekie — all of whom would be welcome additions to the Knights’ farm system.
The likelihood of the Knights winning the lottery is extremely slim, but even a slim chance is better than no chance at all.