{"id":578963,"date":"2026-04-03T05:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578963\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T05:49:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T05:49:20","slug":"vancouver-canucks-clinch-last-place-and-here-are-their-draft-lottery-odds-daily-hive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/578963\/","title":{"rendered":"Vancouver Canucks clinch last place and here are their draft lottery odds | Daily Hive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Vancouver Canucks just did something not seen in over 50 years.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday night, the Canucks clinched last place in the NHL after losing 5-2 against the Minnesota Wild. They haven\u2019t finished a season as the worst team in the league since their second season back in 1971-72.<\/p>\n<p>This wasn\u2019t something that anyone expected entering the campaign. In a year where <a href=\"https:\/\/dailyhive.com\/vancouver\/what-quinn-hughes-said-first-game-against-canucks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the mission was to keep Quinn Hughes<\/a>, there was some poetic irony in the fact that they clinched last place after losing to their former captain\u2019s new squad.<\/p>\n<p>Ironically, by losing to Hughes, Minnesota clinched its own postseason berth.<\/p>\n<p>While the Canucks organization can\u2019t be feeling good about how the season transpired, there\u2019s a pretty enticing reward for being this dysfunctional.<\/p>\n<p>By losing on Thursday, the Canucks have secured the best odds in the 2026 NHL Draft lottery.<\/p>\n<p>That means when the lottery balls tumble on May 5, the Canucks will have 25.5 per cent odds of drafting first overall.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, their most likely outcome is picking third overall, where they have 55.7 per cent odds of doing so.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dailyhive.com\/canucks-clinch-last-place-draft-lottery-odds\/screenshot-2026-04-02-at-8-42-31-pm\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2258537 nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"canucks draft lottery odds\" title=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1540\" height=\"1004\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2258537\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-8.42.31-PM.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2258537\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Canucks have locked up last place in the NHL, meaning they\u2019ll draft no worse than third overall. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tankathon.com\/nhl\/pick_odds\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tankathon<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>While the Canucks have secured the league\u2019s best lottery odds, fans in this market know all too well about the team\u2019s misfortunes with the ping pong balls.<\/p>\n<p>The NHL changed its draft lottery rules in 2016, in an effort to curtail tanking. Unfortunately, that aligned with the Jim Benning era, where the Canucks were among the league\u2019s worst teams.<\/p>\n<p>In 2016, they dropped two spots to fifth overall. They ended up in the same slot in 2017, when they fell three spots in the lottery. The Canucks then dropped one spot in both 2018 and 2019, sliding seven spots total in four years.<\/p>\n<p>Could their luck finally change?<\/p>\n<p>Fans surely aren\u2019t banking on it, but at least the Canucks have done their job.<\/p>\n<p>Ever since trading Hughes became an inevitability, finishing last overall in the league was the best-case scenario.<\/p>\n<p>Whether they win the lottery or not, Vancouver will end up with their highest draft pick since 1999. That was the year in which they landed both Henrik and Daniel Sedin, second and third overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks just did something not seen in over 50 years. On Thursday night, the Canucks clinched&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-578963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}