Canucks could land No. 1 pick should they lose to Wild

Assuming the NHL plays games in August, the Vancouver Canucks still have a chance to pick first overall in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.

One of the eight teams to lose in the 2020 Stanley Cup play-in round will select first when the draft takes place in October.

The first phase of the 2020 draft lottery, held Friday night, resulted in a to-be-determined team winning the top pick.

The Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators will pick second and third overall, respectively, after winning the draws for those two selections. The five other teams not advancing past the qualifying round will make the next six picks.

Because the draft lottery usually has the 15 non-playoff teams in the mix, the NHL elected to include balls in the three draws representing the eight teams that will lose in the qualifying round.

Team E, which won the draw for the No. 1 pick, had only a 2½ per cent chance of being selected.

A second phase to the draft lottery will take place after the qualifying round, which is scheduled to be played during the first two weeks of August.

The eight teams that lose in that round will each have a 12½ per cent chance in the Phase 2 draw. If the Canucks lose to the Minnesota Wild, they’ll actually have a better chance of picking first overall this year, when they contended for the playoffs, than they did in 2016, when they finished third-last in the league and had an 11½ per cent chance of winning the draw for first overall.

If the qualifying round can’t be completed because of the COVID-19 pandemic — or some other reason — the eight teams in the Phase 2 lottery will be determined using points percentage in each conference, which would make the Canucks the eighth and final “playoff” qualifier in the Western Conference. That would mean they would cede their firstround pick this year to New Jersey, which has acquired the conditional first round pick the Canucks dealt to the Lightning at last year’s draft for J.T. Miller.

The 2020 NHL draft is expected to take place online in late October.