NHL announces draft lottery, draft times for 2013

Courtesy of NHL.com

NEW YORK -- The 2013 NHL Draft Lottery, to be held this year on Monday, April 29, will be the first in NHL history where all 14 clubs not qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, or the clubs that have acquired the first-round drafting positions of those non-playoff clubs, will have a chance at winning the right to the first overall selection. Under the previous lottery system, only the five teams with the fewest points in the standings had the opportunity to win the first overall selection as rules dictated no team could move up more than four spots.

The NHL Draft Lottery is a weighted system to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2013 NHL Draft. Teams finishing with the fewest points during the regular season possess the greatest chance of winning the right to the first pick in the NHL Draft. Fourteen balls, numbered 1 to 14, are placed in a lottery machine. The machine expels four balls, forming a series of numbers. The four-digit series resulting from the expulsion of the balls is matched against a probability chart that divides the possible combinations among the 14 participating clubs.

While the top pick can now go to any of the 14 non-playoff clubs, or the team owning the rights to the first pick of a non-playoff club, the odds of winning the lottery are unchanged from previous years. The teams in the drawing are ranked in inverse order of their regular season point totals, with team one being the club with the fewest points, and team 14 being the club with the most points among those outside of the playoffs.
The likelihood of each team gaining the right to the first pick is as follows:

Team 1  25.0%
Team 2  18.8%
Team 3  14.2%
Team 4  10.7%
Team 5  8.1%
Team 6  6.2%
Team 7  4.7%
Team 8  3.6%
Team 9  2.7%
Team 10  2.1%
Team 11  1.5%
Team 12  1.1%
Team 13  0.8%
Team 14  0.5%

No club will move down more than one position as a result of the Draft Lottery. The remaining first round drafting positions are determined by the results of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

2013 NHL Draft
The 2013 NHL Draft will be held Sunday, June 30th, with all seven rounds being conducted on the same day for the first time since 2006. As previously announced, the New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center will host the event, the first NHL Draft ever held in the New York City metropolitan area.
The draft gets underway at 3 p.m. ET as James Duthie hosts live coverage in Canada on TSN direct from the draft floor along with TSN's panel of experts. RDS will present exclusive French-language coverage throughout Canada. In the U.S., NBC Sports Network presents live coverage starting at 3 p.m. ET, while NHL Network in the U.S. continues live late-round coverage starting at 8 p.m. ET.
NHL club executives, scouts and coaches will gather on the NHL Draft floor while more than 10,000 fans and 500 print, television and radio media are expected in attendance to witness the selection of the NHL’s next generation of superstars.

Recent overall No. 1 picks include Alex Ovechkin (Washington, 2004), Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh, 2005), Erik Johnson (St. Louis, 2006), Patrick Kane (Chicago, 2007), Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay, 2008), John Tavares (NY Islanders, 2009), Taylor Hall (Edmonton, 2010), Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (Edmonton, 2011) and Nail Yakupov (Edmonton, 2012).

For more historical information and past draft selections, visit www.nhl.com/draft. Ticket distribution plans and other details pertaining to the 2013 NHL Draft will be announced at a later date.

The Philadelphia Flyers will host the 2014 NHL Draft at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Results of Previous Draft Drawings
Year	Selected	Effect on Draft order	Player selected
1995	Los Angeles	Moved from 7th to 3rd	D Aki Berg
1996	Ottawa	Retained 1st selection	D Chris Phillips
1997	Boston	Retained 1st selection	C Joe Thornton
1998	Tampa Bay	Moved from 3rd to 1st via trades	C Vincent Lecavalier
1999	Chicago	Moved from 8th to 4th	RW Pavel Brendl *
2000	NY Islanders	Moved from 5th to 1st	G Rick DiPietro
2001	Atlanta	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Ilya Kovalchuk
2002	Florida	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Rick Nash **
2003	Florida	Moved from 4th to 1st	G Marc-Andre Fleury ***
2004	Washington	Moved from 3rd to 1st	LW Alex Ovechkin
2005	Pittsburgh	N/A	C Sidney Crosby
2006	St. Louis	Retained 1st selection	D Erik Johnson
2007	Chicago	Moved from 5th to 1st	RW Patrick Kane
2008	Tampa Bay	Retained 1st selection	C Steven Stamkos
2009	NY Islanders	Retained 1st selection	C John Tavares
2010	Edmonton	Retained 1st selection	LW Taylor Hall
2011	New Jersey	Moved from 8th to 4th	D Adam Larsson
2012	Edmonton	Moved from 2nd to 1st	RW Nail Yakupov
* NY Rangers obtained Chicago's pick in a trade (via Vancouver and Tampa Bay). The Rangers selected RW Pavel Brendl fourth overall.
** Columbus obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Blue Jackets selected LW Rick Nash first overall.
*** Pittsburgh obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Penguins selected G Marc-Andre Fleury first overall. (Ed. note -- the closest the Flyers have come to winning the draft lottery was 2007, when they finished last in the NHL with 54 points, but ended up second to Chicago and selected James van Riemsdyk).