The NHL Draft Lottery takes place Saturday. Considering how much difference one's draft position made for the Maple Leafs last year, this can make a major difference in how quickly a team turns around its fortunes. Here are the draft lottery odds for the #1 overall draft pick.

A year ago at this time, you wouldn’t have had time to read this story. You’d have been far too busy clicking on the NHL draft lottery simulator — over and over and over again.
It’s what Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan admitted to doing. It’s pretty much what every NHL fan in the country was doing. Part of it had to do with the potential of selecting a generational talent in Auston Matthews or Patrik Laine. But the bigger reason was that with all seven Canadian teams out of the playoffs, winning the lottery was the next-best thing to winning the Stanley Cup.
So when the Toronto Maple Leafs were awarded the No. 1 pick and the Winnipeg Jets moved up four spaces to win the No. 2 pick, it was almost parade-worthy.
“They needed some good news,” Shanahan said at the time. “I hope they’re out in the streets of Toronto right now just feeling a little bit better.”
This year’s NHL draft lottery, which takes place Saturday night in Toronto, is different.
While Vancouver finished with the second-worst record in the league and Winnipeg was 20th, five of the seven Canadian teams — Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto — qualified for the playoffs, with the Oilers and Senators advancing to the second round.
Fans in Vancouver are no doubt playing the simulator, given the Canucks have the second-best odds of picking first (12.1 per cent). But nationally, the landscape doesn’t seem as dire now that so many Canadian teams have already won.

“Last year’s lottery will always be a good memory for this organization as far as the opportunity to acquire a very special player,” said Jets general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, whose team has a 2.7-per-cent chance of winning this year’s lottery. “But obviously, the feel around the team last year was different than we are today.”
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