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The NHL’s draft lottery race is changing. Bedard and Celebrini are a big reason why

Mike Gould
Mike Gould
Nov 13, 2025, 14:04 EST
The NHL’s draft lottery race is changing. Bedard and Celebrini are a big reason why
Credit: Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images

We’re more than a month into the 2025-26 NHL regular season, and for the first time in many years, neither the Chicago Blackhawks nor the San Jose Sharks are anywhere close to being in last place.

The Sharks are one of the league’s hottest teams, with their current four-game winning streak putting them right on the precipice of the Western Conference playoff picture. The Blackhawks can do them one better; with 20 points and an impressive plus-11 goal differential, they currently occupy the second Wildcard playoff spot.

In both these cases, there’s no real secret to their newfound success. Having been at the bottom for so long, the Sharks and Blackhawks have both won the right to pick at No. 1 overall in the draft. And it’s the superstars they took at that spot that have them back in the hunt.

As of Nov. 13, Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini are both tied for second overall in league scoring with 26 points, putting them six behind the leader, fellow No. 1 overall pick and Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon. In an increasingly star-driven league, Bedard and Celebrini have already cemented themselves among the brightest.

With that, their teams are looking less and less likely to factor into the draft lottery in any meaningful way this coming spring. Over the past five years, the Sharks and Blackhawks have been perennial fixtures in the drawing, and even when they haven’t won outright, they’ve still been able to draft the likes of Will Smith, Michael Misa, William Eklund, Anton Frondell, and Artyom Levshunov right near the top.

Those days might be over. At the very least, it certainly looks like we’ve gotten past the era of Chicago and San Jose being the uncontested two worst teams in the league. They’ve both taken big steps forward, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see at least one of them — if not both — stay in the hunt for a playoff spot for most of the year. In any case, they’ve built up a decent-sized cushion over the true basement clubs.

And who are those new cellar dwellers? The Eastern Conference is largely devoid of the flotsam, with the possible exception of the Buffalo Sabres, whose 5-7-4 start is already drawing refrains of “here we go again.” But for the most part, the worst teams in the league are concentrated out West, where three clubs have already sunk below the rest.

Contrary to the situations surrounding the Sharks and Blackhawks (and the Sabres, for that matter), it’s been some time since the Calgary Flames, Nashville Predators, and St. Louis Blues were in the position of being effectively out of the playoff hunt five weeks into the season. The Blues haven’t picked first overall since 2006, when they selected Erik Johnson; the Flames and Predators have never done it, and the Flames haven’t even made a single top-three pick in their history. In recent times, these teams have been on the playoff bubble pretty much every year; now, they could be on the verge of truly bottoming out.

This year’s top prize is Gavin McKenna, a 17-year-old Penn State University freshman who also has three seasons under his belt with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers. McKenna scored 41 goals and 129 points in 56 games with Medicine Hat as a 16-year-old in 2024-25; for comparison, Bedard tallied 100 points (51 goals, 49 assists) in 62 games with the Regina Pats at the same age.

McKenna, a six-foot left winger from the Yukon, has racked up 14 points in his first 12 games at Penn State this season — very respectable numbers, and yet somehow a little disappointing after his truly transcendent final WHL campaign. But not many collegiate players average four shots per game, and that’s exactly what McKenna has managed through his first dozen contests as one of the youngest players in the nation. He’ll be a superstar.

When a beleaguered team drafts a prospect of that caliber at No. 1, it doesn’t turn things around overnight. The Blackhawks and Sharks both needed a year or two to recharge after getting Bedard and Celebrini, and they had to develop their games to become what they are now. But when players like them reach their potential, they bring everybody up around them.

For the Flames and Predators especially, a player like McKenna would work wonders toward rejuvenating their struggling young core groups. You can bet Matt Coronato and Luke Evangelista would love to have a top pick to work with, and it’d take less pressure off the likes of Nazem Kadri and Ryan O’Reilly to play above their means. If anything, it might open the door for management in Calgary and Nashville to be more receptive to offers for those veterans, if it means passing the torch to a new generation of stars.

If the 2025-26 season ended today, the Flames would have slightly better than 1-in-4 odds of picking McKenna first overall. Nashville would be right behind them. The Sharks and Blackhawks wouldn’t have a chance. It’s a testament to the cyclical nature of the building process done right, and one way or another, it looks like this might be the year where a long-middling team finally gets its due.

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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