The Blackhawks were (potentially unwilling) participants in the NHL Draft Lottery tonight. They came into the annual event in the 12th spot after a late-season faux playoff run which did nothing but decrease their chances of moving up greatly. The Colorado Avalanche, via the Ottawa Senators, came into the event with the best chance to take the first overall prize of U.S. National Development Program center Jack Hughes or big Finnish wing Kaapo Kakko thanks to last season’s trade of Matt Duchene. Duchene has been since traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Both Columbus and Colorado qualified for the playoffs, while Ottawa decided to keep last year’s first round pick and took big power forward Brady Tkachuk, who had himself a solid 45-point (22 goals, 23 assists) rookie season. Once the ping-pong balls dropped and the final lineup was announced, the Blackhawks moved all the way up to third overall. This will prove to be a very important draft year for the future of this team. The New Jersey Devils will pick first overall and the New York Rangers will pick second overall. Last season, the Blackhawks came into the 2018 NHL Draft Lottery as the seventh overall pick and left the building with the eighth overall selection. The story played out very well and they were able to select Swedish phenom Adam Boqvist with their pick. When you already know that the NHL rigged the draft lottery for you #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/dKYp8Liyrm — Aaron Goldschmidt (@lateinthegoldie) April 10, 2019 adsense Share this article: Tweet More<doc-sep>The Boston Bruins are one of the 16 teams lucky to be in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs, which means they weren't a participant in Tuesday night's NHL Draft Lottery. NHL Draft Lottery results 2019: Devils win No. 1 pick despite Rangers, Blackhawks moving up originally appeared on nbcsportsboston.com The Boston Bruins are one of the 16 teams lucky to be in the 2019 Stanley Cup playoffs, which means they weren't a participant in Tuesday night's NHL Draft Lottery. It was two other Original Six franchises that created plenty of drama during the lottery. The Chicago Blackhawks, who had the 12th-best odds to win the top pick, and the New York Rangers, who had the sixth-best odds, both jumped into the top three. The Rangers were represented at the lottery by general manager Jeff Gorton, who's from Massachusetts and once spent six seasons as Boston's assistant general manager. The New Jersey Devils entered the event with the fourth-best chance, and they also moved up to the top spot. The Devils now they get the first opportunity to select American forward Jack Hughes, who's widely considered the top-rated prospect in the 2019 draft class. New Jersey also won the draft lottery in 2017. The Rangers were slotted at No. 2, and the Blackhawks at No. 3. None of the Bruins' rivals in the Atlantic Division moved up in the lottery. The Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers, Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadiens all stayed put or dropped. The Ottawa Senators owe their pick to the Colorado Avalanche as part of the Matt Duchene trade. Here are the full results of the draft lottery. 1. New Jersey Devils 2. New York Rangers 3. Chicago Blackhawks 4. Colorado Avalanche (from Ottawa Senators) 5. Los Angeles Kings 6. Detroit Red Wings 7. Buffalo Sabres 8. Edmonton Oilers 9. Anaheim Ducks 10. Vancouver Canucks 11. Philadelphia Flyers 12. Minnesota Wild 13. Florida Panthers 14. Arizona Coyotes 15. Montreal Canadiens Click here to download the new MyTeams App by NBC Sports! Receive comprehensive coverage of your teams and stream the Celtics easily on your device.<doc-sep>On Tuesday night 15 NHL teams had a significant part of their future come down to a couple of ping pong balls. In the end, it was the New Jersey Devils getting the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 draft for the second time in three years, going from the third spot in the lottery up to the top spot. It is there that they will have the opportunity to select prized prospect Jack Hughes and add him to their core alongside Nico Hischier (the No. 1 overall pick two years ago) and, hopefully, Taylor Hall assuming they can work out a long-term contract extension. It was a great night for the Devils and their fans, but they were not the only team to win big. Others, however, lost big. It’s not an earth-shattering revelation to point out that there is a significant difference between picking first versus picking fourth, or picking third instead of 12th. You can find good players at any pick in any round, and there are always good players available, it’s just that your odds drop dramatically with each spot. Obviously the higher you pick in the draft, the better chance you have to land an impact player that can change the long-term outlook of your franchise. You expect to get, at the bare minimum, a consistent All-Star with the No. 1 or No. 2 overall pick. You might get a good first-or second-liner with the 10th pick. You hope to just find someone that will make the NHL and have a nice career as you get toward the bottom half of the first round and beyond. [Related: Devils win draft lottery, will get No. 1 overall pick] But what exactly does that look like from a numbers and production perspective, and how does that impact the big winners and losers from Tuesday night? The Colorado Avalanche were big losers The Avalanche entered the night with the best odds of winning the No. 1 overall pick (18.3 percent) due to the fact they have the Ottawa Senators’ top pick as a result of the 2017-18 Matt Duchene trade. It could have been a PR disaster for the Senators, especially after they passed on the opportunity to send their 2018 pick to Colorado and hang on to this pick to complete the trade. Had the Avalanche won there would have been a ton of second guessing going on in Ottawa. Story continues But the Avalanche not only did not win the top pick, they fell as far as they could have possibly fallen and ended up with the No. 4 overall pick. That is still a great position for a playoff to be in, but it is probably not going to be as franchise-changing as it could have been. The table below shows the past 20 players to go No. 1 and No. 4 overall, their career totals, and the average games played and total production from each slot. Obviously this is not the most scientific way to do this, but it does at least give us a little bit of a baseline of what to expect from each spot. Look at how big the drop off is, not only in terms of the star power each side has, but also in the overall careers. There are some outstanding players on the right side (Andrew Ladd, Ryan Johansen, Evander Kane, Seth Jones, Mitch Marner, Alex Pietrangelo) and a likely Hall of Famer (Nicklas Backstrom). There are also quite a few busts, or players that did not quite fulfill expectations. Then look at over the left side. You have two clear busts in Patrik Stefan and Nail Yakupov, a couple of really players in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Aaron Ekblad, and Erik Johnson, an injury ravaged career in Rick Dipietro … and then every other player is either a superstar or has the potential to be one day be one. There is a massive difference in value, and we are only talking about three spots in draft position, while they are both considered prime draft picks. This is a tough break for the Avalanche. The Los Angeles Kings were even bigger losers, while the New York Rangers were huge winners At least if you are an Avalanche fan you have a playoff team to watch this season, while you still have your own first-round draft pick to go with a top-four pick. That is a huge bonus and can still land you a really good young player to add to your core. Not getting the No. 1 overall pick might stink, but your team is still in a great position. The Kings, however, had some rotten luck because this is not the way they wanted their rebuild to start. Entering the night with the second-best odds to win the top pick, the Kings fell all the way back to the No. 5 overall pick. And if you thought the gap from No. 1 to No. 4 was big, the gap from No. 2 to No. 5 might be even bigger. The No. 5 spot has produced some legitimately great players (Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Carey Price, Thomas Vanek … Elias Pettersson is certainly trending in that direction) and some really good ones, but other than Ryan Murray, whose career has been sabotaged by injuries, and probably Kari Lehtonen, just about every player at the No. 2 spot has had an impact career as either a top-liner or franchise player. At No. 2 the Kings probably would have been guaranteed to get a star in either Hughes or Kaapo Kakko. They could still get a star, or at least a really good player, at No. 5, but history suggests their odds of doing so dramatically drop. Their fall down the draft board coincided with the Rangers going from the sixth spot to the No. 2 spot, where their rebuild now gets accelerated as they will be the ones getting the opportunity to select Hughes or Kakko. It is a huge win for them, and it all happened because of Ryan Strome‘s overtime goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the regular season finale. If the Rangers do not win that game, it is the Edmonton Oilers in the lottery spot that would have moved to the second pick. The Oilers, of course, traded Strome to the Rangers mid-season for Ryan Spooner. Luck is a funny thing sometimes. The Blackhawks were HUGE winners The Devils were the biggest winner of the night simply because they received the No. 1 overall pick. But the Chicago Blackhawks were not far behind them, and if you wanted you could probably build a convincing argument the Blackhawks were the biggest winners just because of how much they stand to gain by going from the No. 12 pick all the way up to the No. 3 overall pick. That is a massive jump in games, goals, points, production … everything. It should — should — help the Blackhawks land another young building block, and maybe even a potential star, to go with Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome, and their core of veterans that are still around. The ping pong balls falling the way they did may have helped keep the Blackhawks’ championship window open a little bit longer in the near future. The 2019 NHL Draft will take place at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. The first round will be held Friday, June 21. Rounds 2-7 will take place Saturday, June 22. — Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.<doc-sep>
DALLAS, TX - JUNE 22: Nicolas Beaudin poses after being selected twenty-seventh overall by the Chicago Blackhawks during the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft at American Airlines Center on June 22, 2018 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) The Chicago Blackhawks didn’t play well enough to be in the playoffs but they didn’t play bad enough to be lottery favorites, but they had a bit of luck. The Chicago Blackhawks finished near the bottom of the Central Division but they were in the race for real until the final weeks of the season. They ultimately missed but nobody really believed they had a great chance at the lottery. They only had a two percent chance at the number one overall pick. Their chances at a top-three pick were also slim. They had the luck on their side on Draft Lottery night though. They moved all the way up from 12 to three in the draft. They won the third lottery and will pick third in the draft behind the New Jersey Devils and the New York Rangers. There are a lot of things that they can do with this pick, it isn’t as clear cut as picks one and two. The New Jersey Devils are going to pick American center Jack Hughes with the number one overall pick and the New York Rangers are going to pick Kaapo Kakko second overall. After that, there is positional needs and scouting that will come into place. There are three guys that will likely be taken not too far after two in the draft. Dylan Cozens, Vasili Podkolzin, and Alex Turcotte are the likeliest candidates for that third overall pick. All three of these guys are capable of coming in and making an impact within a year or two. Whether or not they are NHL ready right away is still to be determined but they will be someday. The Blackhawks scouting department has a lot of work to do. Last time the Blackhawks selected third overall in the NHL Entry Draft, they selected a guy by the name of Jonathan Toews. He turned out okay. There is also a possibility they trade the pick away. They can package it with something for another NHL ready player that will make a more immediate impact. The Toronto Maple Leafs have a player or two they might be willing to trade or another restricted free agent that won’t return to his team. They won’t trade a pick of this magnitude for no reason so if they did you would know it would be worth it. If they decide to keep it, it is up to them to use it wisely. There are a lot of options available at three and it is important they take this gift that has been given to them and runs with it. There will be a lot of profiles of the possible selections for the Blackhawks here so make sure to follow along. This season wasn’t easy for Blackhawks fans but their support may have just been rewarded.