Travis Yost: Connor Bedard the prize as NHL draft lottery race takes shape

There were moments during this year’s World Juniors where Team Canada, the prohibitive favourites, were pushed to the brink. The continued development of international players over the past few decades has laid the foundation for parity in men’s international hockey we historically aren’t accustomed to, and it can lead to stretches (or full games) where Canada looks like the weaker of two sides.

But Canada still won the gold in Halifax, owing in large part to the play of superstar forward Connor Bedard. The 17-year-old entered the tournament not only as the consensus best player for the Canadian team, but the odds-on favourite to be selected first overall in the 2023 NHL Draft. And Bedard continues to live up to the hype. If his 64 points in 28 games with the Regina Pats this season before the tournament was the appetizer, his main course was the best scoring performance we have observed at the World Juniors in 30 years – nine goals and 14 assists in seven games, and all of them needed to secure Canadian gold. 

Whenever you are knocking on the door of one Peter Forsberg, whose 31-point performance in 1993 laid the groundwork for his NHL stardom, you are a high-profile prospect. That’s why we see a handful of rebuilding and underperforming teams across the NHL not exactly disappointed their season is over at the halfway mark.

Bedard brings the type of draft pedigree and hype you rarely see, even from first-overall picks. He looks like the type of attacker who can change the fate of a franchise the moment it wins the draft lottery.

And speaking of the draft lottery, we aren’t far away from knowing where Bedard will land. If we peek at the lottery standings as of Jan. 9, we see very few surprises as to who is at the top of the leaderboard – it’s a collection of expectedly bad teams, most of whom also have a tremendous amount of cap space to supplement their rosters aggressively should they land Bedard:

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The NHL has changed the lottery odds a few times over now, but the recent rendition still creates great incentive for teams to finish dead last in a year with a premier target at the top of the draft board. The Chicago Blackhawks, who currently hold the top spot in the draft lottery, have a better than one-in-four chance of landing Bedard and are guaranteed to pick inside of the top three. That’s tremendously valuable for a rebuilding team like the Blackhawks.

Also of note is the likelihood of Bedard ending up with a Canadian franchise, which right now is about 22 per cent. I’m not sure what the pre-season odds would have been for that scenario, but disappointing seasons in both Vancouver and Ottawa have greatly enhanced those odds. We knew Montreal was going to be vying for this pick to start the year, but the Florida Panthers being so poor this season – a season in which Montreal owns their first-round pick by way of the Ben Chiarot trade – has also helped.

How would I handicap the race for seeding the rest of the way? It’s an interesting question that requires us to consider both the points banked (or not banked) through the first half of the year and how these teams will fare over the next three months.            

There is a sizable standings gap between the bottom three teams (Chicago is on pace for 47 points; Columbus for 56 points; Anaheim for 57 points) versus the rest of the lottery contenders. Not only have these franchises put serious daylight in terms of standings points between them and the field, but their underlying numbers are also hideous.

Whereas teams like the Florida Panthers (-4) and Ottawa Senators (-4) aren’t as bad by goal differential as their win-loss record would indicate, the opposite is true for these laggards, who carry decisively negative margin of victories. Margin of victory is a better lead indicator of future outcome than binary team records. If you follow that, you see how much ground these teams will have to make up to be as bad as the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets and Ducks: 

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The one team who seems to have the grimmest underlying numbers outside of the big three is the Canadiens, who are seeing their average game end with them losing by more than a goal. The problem for Montreal could be November. Martin St. Louis’ team played to an 86-point pace over the first two months of the year, banking a bunch of early points. Those early-season upside surprises can be great for team building and player development, but in terms of the draft lottery, they are murderous.

But keep an eye on Montreal. Not only do they have Florida’s pick in their back pocket, they – much like the three teams they are chasing – are likely to dump more rostered players at the trade deadline for futures, further depleting talent across their lineup. They’ve also turned in several disappointing performances in recent weeks, closing the gap with the teams they are chasing to the bottom of the standings:

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It wasn’t long ago the Canadiens were 40 goals better than the Ducks and 20 better than the Blue Jackets. Take a quick look at the standings now, and you can see how much capitulation we have seen from Montreal in recent weeks after a staggering run of multi-goal losses.

The playoff race is on. But so too is the race for Bedard. Depending on which team you cheer for, these races can be equally compelling. Now, we wait and see just how much Montreal can plummet in the standings to become a credible fourth entry in the draft lottery race.  

Data via NHL.com, Hockey Reference, Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, Tankathon, HockeyViz