San Jose Sharks come away as winners of the 2020 NHL Draft Lottery
By Justin Fried
The San Jose Sharks emerged as winners of the 2020 NHL Draft Lottery despite not taking part.
The San Jose Sharks didn’t participate in this year’s NFL Draft Lottery, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t manage to come away as one of the event’s biggest winners.
The 2020 NHL Draft Lottery had the potential to be disastrous for Sharks fans.
Not only did they have the displeasure of seeing what should have been their first-round pick being used by the Ottawa Senators, but one of their key division rivals, the Los Angeles Kings had a good chance of receiving a high pick as well.
The Senators (via the Sharks) had the third-highest chance of receiving the No. 1 overall pick while the Kings sat right behind them with the fourth-best odds. It would have been painful to see either team come away with the No. 1 overall selection for different reasons.
And this year more than most, that No. 1 overall pick meant a lot given the fact that Canadian forward Alexis Lafreniere is widely considered to be a step above every other player in the class.
The lottery could have proved disastrous, but as well all know, it proved to be more chaotic than anything.
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When the dust settled, the Senators maintained their No. 3 overall pick (and received the fifth overall pick by virtue of their original selection) while the Kings jumped a couple of spots to the No. 2 overall selection.
However, neither team came away as the expected winners of the Lafreniere sweepstakes. That team is, well, to be determined.
In a development that sent the NHL world into a state of chaos, one of the eight placeholder teams (the eight teams that are knocked out in the Stanley Cup Playoffs qualifying round) will receive the No. 1 overall pick despite entering the lottery with the 12th-best odds.
The NHL world may not be happy about the results, but the San Jose Sharks likely aren’t complaining.
A good portion of hockey fans weren’t too pleased by this development. But Sharks fans were likely one of the few fanbases breathing a sigh of relief.
It would have been painful to see the pick that should have been the Sharks in the first place be used to take one of the best prospects to enter the draft in years. And it would have been equally as damaging to see him go to a division rival.
Now, they don’t have to worry about that.
Of the 16 teams that could still pick first overall, only the Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks, and Arizona Coyotes reside in the Pacific Division. Sharks fans will likely take those odds.
Does this help justify the Erik Karlsson trade even more? Perhaps not directly, but it would have been painful to see Ottawa land Lafreniere with the Sharks’ original pick only to see him go on to become a superstar.
Next. San Jose Sharks: A complete offseason strategy to fix the team. dark
Fortunately, the Sharks dodged two major bullets on Friday night and emerged as winners despite not even participating in the event.