Auston Matthews at a game in Zurich, Dec. 4, 2015. For 2016, Matthews is the player expected to go No. 1 in the NHL draft lottery.PASCAL MORA/The New York Times
Let's hope Auston Matthews is fond of the cold after playing in Zurich this season.
Because the odds are the star 18-year-old from Arizona – who is expected to go first over all in the NHL draft this June – is coming to Canada.
The league's long-awaited draft lottery will finally play out Saturday night on Hockey Night in Canada (8 p.m. EDT), and it will be the first chance for the seven Canadian teams to have a starring role during the NHL playoffs.
All seven teams finished in the NHL's bottom 12 – including five in the bottom six – and missed the postseason this year. Under the league's new lottery format – in which all of the top three picks will be involved in separate draws – the reward for that futility means that a Canadian NHL team has a 68.5-per-cent chance of getting the first overall pick.
Matthews – a talented two-way centre who grew up in Scottsdale as a fan of the Phoenix Coyotes – isn't making any predictions.
"We'll see what happens," said Matthews, who will watch the lottery unfold in the middle of the night from a TV studio in Helsinki, where he will be training with Team USA in advance of next week's world hockey championship in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The lottery is expected to be a big ratings draw for Rogers, which is the main reason it was delayed until the second round. The Toronto Maple Leafs were last this season and as such have the highest chance of getting the top pick (20 per cent), followed by the Edmonton Oilers (13.5) and Vancouver Canucks (11.5). Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal and Ottawa also all have reasonable chances of picking in the top three.
In the new format, teams can't fall further than three spots from their place in the standings, meaning the Leafs will pick no worse than fourth overall. Edmonton, which has had the first pick four of the past six drafts – including Connor McDavid last year – can fall no further than fifth.
The chance that the Canadian teams will come away empty-handed is negligible. According to hockey statistician Micah Blake McCurdy, the likelihood of no Canadian team getting a top three pick in the lottery is only 2 per cent.
The probability of a Canadian sweep of picks one through three, meanwhile, is 25 per cent.
This would be a strange year for Canadian NHL teams to have every high pick, if that's how it plays out. More than any draft in recent history, the top end of the draft may not have much Canadian content at all.
Matthews, the top prize, would be the first No. 1 pick from a non-traditional, warm-weather city. The next two highest ranked prospects are Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi, who led Finland to gold at the world juniors in January.
It's possible a Canadian player isn't picked until seventh over all, as some scouting services have Matthew Tkachuk (USA), Olli Juolevi (Finland) and Alexander Nylander (Sweden) tabbed to go in the top six. It's never taken longer than six picks in the past for a Canadian to be drafted, dating back to 1999 when Patrik Stefan and the Sedin twins went 1-2-3 followed by Pavel Brendl and Tim Connolly at four and five.
As few as three Canadians could go in the top 14 this year, which would be another historic low. Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jakob Chychrun (who was born in Boca Raton, Fla.) and Michael McLeod are widely considered this country's top draft-eligible prospects this year.