If this were the year Sidney Crosby or Alex Ovechkin was available in the NHL draft, Avalanche general manager Greg Sherman probably would have carried a suitcase full of rabbit’s feet and other good-luck trinkets to tonight’s draft lottery in Toronto.
Although the players available in June’s draft do not come close in hype to Crosby or Ovechkin or any other recent NHL superstars, the Avs certainly should get a very good player, and tonight they’ll find out exactly where they’ll pick in the first round.
The Avs’ magic number is 18.8. That’s their percent chance of the team winning the lottery and selecting first in the draft, to be held June 24-25 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. Sherman will be the Avs’ lone representative when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly unseals the envelopes with the order of selection for the 14 teams that didn’t make the playoffs.
The Avalanche finished 29th out of 30 teams in the league standings and by league rules cannot pick any lower than third, no matter the results of the lottery, which will be televised at 6 p.m. on Versus.
The last-place Edmonton Oilers will have a 25 percent chance of winning the lottery. The 14th-place Dallas Stars have a 0.5 percent chance of winning the lottery, but no team may move up more than four positions. Therefore, only the bottom five teams have a chance at getting the No. 1 pick.
The Avs also could get a second pick (11th overall) in this year’s first round. They have a 98.5 percent chance of doing so. Because the St. Louis Blues did not finish as one of the league’s 10 worst teams (19th overall), they must surrender this year’s first-round pick to Colorado as part of the Erik Johnson-Chris Stewart blockbuster trade in February. The only way the Avs won’t get the 11th pick is if the Blues win the lottery, but the chance of that happening is just 1.5 percent.
The NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau came out with its final list of rankings for players expected to be available, and Western Hockey League center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is ranked No. 1 among North American skaters. A 6-foot-1, 164-pound center who turns 18 today, Nugent-Hopkins had 106 points (75 assists) in 69 games for Red Deer. He is a native of Burnaby, British Columbia, the same hometown as Avalanche executive adviser Joe Sakic.
Defenseman Adam Larsson of Sweden is the No. 1-ranked European skater by Central Scouting. At 6-3, 200, Larsson has the size and skill that teams covet on the blue line.
The second-ranked North American skater is left wing Gabriel Landeskog of the Kitchener Rangers. Landeskog, a Swede, had 66 points in 53 games for Kitchener and is considered a gritty power forward whom scouts have compared to Philadelphia’s Mike Richards.
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com
NHL draft lottery
Where: Toronto
When: 6 p.m. tonight
TV: Versus
The 14 teams not in the playoffs will be in a lottery to determine the draft order. No club may move up more than four positions in the order. The only clubs with the opportunity to receive the first selection are the five teams with the lowest regular-season point totals or the clubs that acquired an eligible club’s first-round draft pick. No club will move down more than one position as a result of the draft drawing. The percentage chance of a team being selected No. 1 in the draft drawing:
Edmonton 25.0%
Colorado 18.8%
Florida 14.2%
N.Y. Islanders 10.7%
Ottawa 8.1%
Atlanta 6.2%
Columbus 4.7%
New Jersey 3.6%
Boston (from Toronto) 2.7%
Minnesota 2.1%
Colorado* 1.5%
Carolina 1.1%
Calgary 0.8%
Dallas 0.5%
*—Conditional/optional from St. Louis
