Vancouver Canucks clinch last place and here are their draft lottery odds
The Vancouver Canucks just did something not seen in over 50 years.
On Thursday night, the Canucks clinched last place in the NHL after losing 5-2 against the Minnesota Wild. They haven’t finished a season as the worst team in the league since their second season back in 1971-72.
This wasn’t something that anyone expected entering the campaign. In a year where the mission was to keep Quinn Hughes, there was some poetic irony in the fact that they clinched last place after losing to their former captain’s new squad.
Ironically, by losing to Hughes, Minnesota clinched its own postseason berth.
While the Canucks organization can’t be feeling good about how the season transpired, there’s a pretty enticing reward for being this dysfunctional.
By losing on Thursday, the Canucks have secured the best odds in the 2026 NHL Draft lottery.
That means when the lottery balls tumble on May 5, the Canucks will have 25.5 per cent odds of drafting first overall.
Of course, their most likely outcome is picking third overall, where they have 55.7 per cent odds of doing so.
The Canucks have locked up last place in the NHL, meaning they’ll draft no worse than third overall. (Tankathon)
While the Canucks have secured the league’s best lottery odds, fans in this market know all too well about the team’s misfortunes with the ping pong balls.
The NHL changed its draft lottery rules in 2016, in an effort to curtail tanking. Unfortunately, that aligned with the Jim Benning era, where the Canucks were among the league’s worst teams.
In 2016, they dropped two spots to fifth overall. They ended up in the same slot in 2017, when they fell three spots in the lottery. The Canucks then dropped one spot in both 2018 and 2019, sliding seven spots total in four years.
Could their luck finally change?
Fans surely aren’t banking on it, but at least the Canucks have done their job.
Ever since trading Hughes became an inevitability, finishing last overall in the league was the best-case scenario.
Whether they win the lottery or not, Vancouver will end up with their highest draft pick since 1999. That was the year in which they landed both Henrik and Daniel Sedin, second and third overall.