Canucks continue to court bad luck

TORONTO • On the outside, a gracious Trevor Linden wore the sincerest of grins as he extended his hand in congratulations to GM Ray Shero, whose New Jersey Devils had just won the NHL draft lottery on Saturday night.

On the inside, however, you had to figure the result of the league’s annual pingpong ball sweepstakes was eating him up inside.

A year ago, the Vancouver team president came into the lottery with the thirdbest odds to snap up the No. 1 pick only to see his Canucks drop two spots to fifth.

This time, the Canucks with the second-best odds only behind the Colorado Avalanche, looked like a sure bet to at least pick in the top three. Instead, they plummeted three slots and will select No. 5 again for a second consecutive year, barring a trade of the pick.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of movement every year with this lottery where a lot of teams are going to be shuffling around,” Linden said. “It shows you how fortunate (the Toronto Maple Leafs) were to win it last year.”

Indeed, finishing dead last in the final NHL standings guarantees a team very little when it comes to the opportunity to select No. 1. Only once in seven drafts — including the upcoming one this June in Chicago — has the league’s basement dweller earned the right to pick first overall, that coming last year when the Maple Leafs were given the chance to select potential franchise player Auston Matthews.

“We had a better chance to move down than up and that’s what happened,” Linden said, adding that he’s enthused about the youth movement the Canucks are in entering a new era under recently hired coach Travis Green.

Saturday’s events were just the latest in a line of draft-related bad luck the Canucks have suffered through dating back to the team’s inaugural season of 1970.

Meanwhile, Shero and the Devils players figured Christmas came early when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly held up the card with the Devils’ logo on the front when announcing who had won the right to pick first overall.

Tweeted Devils star forward Taylor Hall: “Officially adding ‘NHL lottery ball specialist’ to my hockey resume.”

The Devils came into the lottery with an 8.5 per cent chance of moving up to pick first.

And now the debate becomes who is No. 1? According to the majority of scouts, this will be the tightest battle to go first overall since the debate between Tyler Seguin and Hall in 2010.

The two prospects who are vying for that 2017 No. 1 slot: Brandon Wheat Kings centre Nolan Patrick from the Western Hockey League and Swiss centre Nico Hischier of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Halifax Mooseheads.