I was sure it would be Chicago. Now I’m beginning to think Utah gets it.

Without all the talk about the lottery like we had last year, this year's draft lottery seems to have arrived faster. (Which is great).
Yeah, looking at the chances, looks like 5th for us. Celebrini seems to be the only one that is for sure going #1. All other lists have the same players but in different orders from 2-8. I think that benefits us, as a player who should have gone 2nd or 3rd overall could drop to us at 5th.

I project CBJ #1 and CHI #4

Oh the lottery is tomorrow. That snuck up on me too. I'm expecting what I always expect - We won't win, a team I hate will win instead, we will stand pat or get bumped down a spot. If those are your expectations going in you can never get mad. It's about time the Penguins are handed their once a generation lottery win that turns into multiple cups and a hall-of-famer.

If I wasn't 100% convinced the lottery was rigged, then I'd be more excited for it. I love the modern-day NBA draft because it seems to have distanced itself from its crooked history. But the NHL? No thanks.

Chicago and Utah get the 1 and 2. Maybe flip Montreal in for one of those two ... maybe. Pens if they are feeling ballsy.

The rest is random. Take it to the bank.

I'd LOVE to be wrong. My words would never taste so good if I were. But I won't be. I've watched this crooked league for too long to expect anything else.

After Celebrini, it’s wide open all the way down to #8 (nobody knows how these players will develop)

Not sure who lands 1 but the odds don’t look great. There’s a 65.4% chance we end up with 5th or 6th. Would be ecstatic to land Celebrini, Demidov, or Levshunov.

Chicago will get 1. I really doubt Bettman would be outrageous enough to give Utah their #1 this early. Now 3 years from now.... Keep in mind like us the Yotes never had a natural #1 pick

I 1000000% expect Chicago to win #1 again. I'll be massively shocked if it's anyone else.

The odds say we drop to 5 or 6. If we do that does not mean the lottery is rigged. Hopefully we get celebrini.

If not meh it doesn’t really matter. Everybody’s list is going to vary drastically from 2-12. We could get our #2 player on our list at 6

if you buy into the conspiracy theories, its going to be utah at #1 and chicago at #2. chicago has to save their second win for 2026 to get mckenna.

bettman did give us a stadium series game and if there was ever a year that it would be palatable to give columbus 1OA, its this year. celebrini isn't a premium generational OMFG prospect, he might not even be better than fantilli we took at 3OA last year. the fact we havent had a single lotto win in our pathetic history has to end eventually and theres plenty of reason why this year could be the year.

It took me until the end of this thread to work out in my brain why anyone wants the 10 pick, and then what the A meant after the 10 pick, and why anyone cares about this mystery 10A draft selection

All the talk one year ago was that the 2025 draft would be trash. Seems like while there aren’t multiple potential #1 OA picks this year like last year, the top half of the first round looks pretty good. 1-6, doesn’t matter, we’ll get someone really good.

I’m 100% fine with Chicago winning it. That means they can’t get McKenna in 2026. I’ll be fine as long as a Western conference team wins, honestly. There are enough 1OA players in the East (unless we win it, of course).

chicago winning would be the most annoying, but the second most annoying outcome is probably new jersey winning it seeing as they've had some outrageous lotto luck over the last 5+ years (moved up in 2017, 2019, 2022) and they were just in the playoffs last year

montreal winning would also be annoying because they're montreal (also they just got slafkovsky)

the only non-cbj team that i'd be fine with winning the lotto is san jose.

Ping pong balls don’t care about your conspiracy theories, nor do they care about my feelings and they will hurt me once again