Looking for luck in draft lottery
Sharks have a 6.7% chance at top pick
The NHL draft lottery will be held today, and this is what’s at stake for the Sharks: The chance to draft someone who can offer immediate help, or having to wait another year or two for that help.
The Sharks, per tankathon.com, have a combined chance of about 13.6% of drafting first or second overall, and roughly an 86.4% chance of ending up with the seventh, eighth or ninth picks. The Sharks went 3-10-3 over the final month of the season to finish with the seventh-worst record in the NHL at 2128-7.
The Sharks have only had three draft picks inside the top 10 in the last 16 years. They drafted Devin Setoguchi eighth overall in 2005, Logan Couture ninth overall in 2007, and Timo Meier ninth in 2015. Setoguchi and Couture both stayed in junior hockey for another two seasons after they were drafted, and Meier went one more year
before he turned pro.
The last player the Sharks drafted who made a significant impact in the NHL immediately was Patrick Marleau, who was taken second overall as a 17-year-old in 1997.
“If you’re not picking first, second or third overall, if you’re not getting the Nathan MacKinnons, the Cale Makars, the (Sidney) Crosbys or (Connor) McDavids,” Doug Wilson Jr., the Sharks’ director of scouting, said last month, “if you’re not getting those players, you have to wait three or four years to see your firstround pick be a true NHL player.”
There will be two drawings today in Secaucus, N.J. — one to determine the team that selects first overall, and the second to determine which gets the second pick. The 14 teams not selected will be assigned their draft selection 3-16 in inverse order of regular-season points.
The expansion Seattle Kraken will draft no lower than fifth.
If the Sharks are not awarded the first or second pick, they will select seventh, eighth, or ninth. Although the Sharks ended up with the league’s seventhworst record, they could fall back if one or two spots if another non-playoff team with a better record wins one of the draws.
Out of the deep 2020 draft, four players were able to play in NHL games this season: the top three selections in Alexis Lafreniere (Rangers), Quinton Byfield (Kings), and Tim Stützle (Senators), and sixth overall pick Jamie Drysdale (Ducks).
Wilson Jr. did not want to opine how many drafteligible players he feels would be ready to crack an NHL roster in the fall. Although there does not appear to be a generationaltype talent available in the class of 2021, like a McDavid or Crosby, there are several players who could have exceptional careers.
At 6-foot-5 and 214 pounds with a tremendous hockey IQ, University of Michigan defenseman Owen Power is considered to be the top player available. Right behind him are defenseman Simon Edvinsson and forward William Eklund, both of Sweden, WHL forward Dylan Guenther, and Michigan center Matty Beniers.
There is no guarantee that drafting any of these players — just by itself — would make the Sharks a playoff team next season. Still, earning the right to select first or second overall in the July draft would be a massive boost to a Sharks team that has just started to stock its organizational cupboards with higher-end talent.
Already, the players the Sharks drafted last year are considered some of their best prospects, including Michigan center Thomas Bordeleau, WHL forwards Ozzy Wiesblatt and Tristen Robins, and USHL forward Danil Gushchin.