NHL.com: The NHL will be holding the draft lottery on Saturday, April 18th around 8:00 pm EST. It will be shown on CBC and TVA Sports in Canada and NBC in the United States, before the start of the Rangers – Penguins game.
| RK | TEAM | Odds of Winning | Odds of Staying Put | Odds of Moving Down |
| 1 | BUFFALO SABRES | 20.0% | 20.0% | 80.0% |
| 2 | ARIZONA COYOTES | 13.5% | 20.0% | 66.5% |
| 3 | EDMONTON OILERS | 11.5% | 33.5% | 55.0% |
| 4 | TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS | 9.5% | 45.0% | 45.5% |
| 5 | CAROLINA HURRICANES | 8.5% | 54.5% | 37.0% |
| 6 | NEW JERSEY DEVILS | 7.5% | 63.0% | 29.5% |
| 7 | PHILADELPHIA FLYERS | 6.5% | 70.5% | 23.0% |
| 8 | COLUMBUS BLUE JACKETS | 6.0% | 77.0% | 17.0% |
| 9 | SAN JOSE SHARKS | 5.0% | 83.0% | 12.0% |
| 10 | COLORADO AVALANCHE | 3.5% | 88.0% | 8.5% |
| 11 | FLORIDA PANTHERS | 3.0% | 91.5% | 5.5% |
| 12 | DALLAS STARS | 2.5% | 94.5% | 3.0% |
| 13 | LOS ANGELES KINGS | 2.0% | 97.0% | 1.0% |
| 14 | BOSTON BRUINS | 1.0% | 99.0% | 0.0% |
To determine the winner, the official lottery machine is loaded with 14 balls, each bearing one number, 1 to 14. The NHL Draft Lottery involves drawing one set of four numbers from the machine. One ball is expelled from the machine at a ten-second interval until four balls are discharged.
Without regard to the order the numbers are drawn, there are exactly 1,001 four-number combinations. Each of the 14 teams in the NHL Draft Lottery is assigned the number of combinations corresponding to the odds allocated to them by their regular-season finish (i.e., the team given a 20% chance to win the NHL Draft Lottery is represented by 200 of the 1,001 possible combinations, the team with a 13.5% chance is assigned 135 combinations, and so forth). One combination (11, 12, 13, 14) has been designated as a “re-draw,” allowing for the division of exactly 1,000 combinations proportionately.
If you like looking at a lot of numbers, the NHL released two PDFs: Draft Lottery look-up table: Numeric and Team.