The Vancouver Canucks didn't lose Saturday's draft lottery—they just weren't one of the winners.
The Toronto Maple Leafs used their league-best 20 percent odds to grab the No. 1 draft position, but that didn't impact the Canucks. Winnipeg leapfrogged the Canucks, snagging the second pick after finishing 25th and Columbus grabbed No. 3 from the 27th spot, so those two teams pushed Vancouver back to No. 5.
Here's the complete draft lottery order:
Will the new system discourage future tanking? Based on the fact that the 30th-place Leafs got the No. 1 player, I'd say no. But according to
these detailed charts from Andrew Zadarnowski at Habs' Eyes on the Prize, this is the first time since 2010 that the last-place team actually won—it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Though Trevor Linden consistently stayed on message that the Canucks would get a good player no matter where they landed, his face gave him away when that No. 5 card was revealed.
So—now we set aside the dreams of Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi and sharpen our focus towards the next tier of players.
I caught bits and pieces of Saturday'a pre-show on CBC. The item that was most interesting to me was Brian Burke talking about how he was able to swing the trade that brought both Sedin twins to Vancouver.
The twins are the only first-rounders from their draft year to have played over 1,000 NHL games. The only others who even broke the 500-game mark are Tim Connolly (fifth), Taylor Pyatt (eighth), Barret Jackman (17th), Nick Boynton (21st) and Martin Havlat (26th).
Burke said the only reason he was able to make the deal to acquire the second first-round pick was because that 1999 draft was perceived to be so weak. He said, with this year's strong group of players, it's much less likely that teams will be willing to part with those top picks.
Of course, we have a long way to go between now and Draft Day on June 24, so we should never say never. But for the time being, I'm going to assume that the Canucks will stay at five.
But here's where it gets complicated: in terms of organizational need, the Canucks could really use a top centre or defensemen. The players ranked right behind the top three on
TSN's Draft Ranking are all wingers: Matthew Tkachuk, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Alex Nylander.
Then, it's the three defensemen that we've discussed many times in the past. The next centre on the list after Auston Matthews comes up at No. 10—Clayton Keller of the U.S.
Now—it was big Logan Brown who got a lot of the attention during the Americans' bronze-medal run at last week's U18 tournament, but his teammate Keller was also pretty great. Keller's only 5'10" compared to Brown's 6'6", but it was Keller who finished second in tournament scoring behind Canada's Tyson Jost with 4-10-14 in seven games and was a plus-11.
Behind Keller at No. 10, TSN ranks Jost, also a centre, at 11 and Logan Brown at 13.
It's unlikely that the Canucks would dip so deep from the fifth pick. Though the order shuffled around a bit, Bob McKenzie's
Top 10 from 2015 lined up pretty closely with the
actual outcomes, with no player moving more than two or three spots from his projected position.
Jim Benning's scouting savvy should keep things interesting as we try to read the tea leaves for the next two months before draft day.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»