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The NHL draft lottery is Tuesday, and here are the rules

Bill Daly lottery

The NHL’s draft lottery will occur Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET, hosted by deputy commissioner Bill Daly and airing on NBCSN and TSN.

For those that may have forgotten the rules, here’s the deal:

Only non-playoff teams participate in the lottery.

The team that wins the lottery moves up four positions. Therefore, only teams that finish in the bottom five of the standings have a shot at the first overall pick.

Last year, the New Jersey Devils won and moved from eighth to fourth, allowing the last-place Oilers to keep the first overall pick.

The chances of being selected in the lottery are as follows:

30th place team - 25.0%
29th place team - 18.8%
28th place team - 14.2%
27th place team - 10.7%
26th place team - 8.1%
25th place team - 6.2%
24th place team - 4.7%
23rd place team - 3.6%
22nd place team - 2.7%
21st place team - 2.1%
20th place team - 1.5%
19th place team - 1.1%
18th place team - 0.8%
17th place team - 0.5%

For Blue Jackets fans, this means Columbus (guaranteed to finish last overall) has a 48.2% chance of keeping its first overall pick.

The last team to move up to the first overall pick was Chicago, which jumped from fifth to first in 2007 and selected Patrick Kane. The last-place Flyers were forced to choose second and got James van Riemsdyk. Three years later, the ‘Hawks and Flyers met in the finals and Kane scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal.

In 2004, the Washington Capitals jumped from third to first and picked Alex Ovechkin, dropping Pittsburgh to second (Evgeni Malkin) and Chicago to third (Cam Barker).

So yeah, the NHL draft lottery can have an impact.