How NHL Draft Lottery Odds Impact the Bruins: What Toronto’s Conditional Pick Means for Boston

For the Bruins, the easiest way to explain it is:

• If Toronto wins the lottery and jumps to No. 1 or No. 2: the pick stays protected, and Boston waits.
• If Toronto stays at No. 5: the pick also stays protected, and Boston waits.
• If another team jumps ahead and pushes Toronto outside the top five: that is the result that could send the 2026 pick to Boston.

How the NHL Draft Lottery odds work

The lottery determines the order for the first 16 picks of the first round. It includes teams that missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as well as teams that acquired those first-round draft slots through trades. The lottery is held in two phases: one drawing for the No. 1 pick and another for the No. 2 pick.

There is also an important limit: teams can only move up a maximum of 10 spots. Because of that, only the top 11 teams in the lottery order are eligible to receive the No. 1 overall pick.

The Canucks have the best chance to win the first lottery draw at 18.5 percent, but their actual odds of receiving the No. 1 pick are listed at 25.5 percent because of the NHL’s 10-spot move-up rule. If certain lower-seeded teams win the draw but cannot jump all the way to No. 1, Vancouver can still end up with the top pick.

The top of the lottery order looks like this:

• Vancouver Canucks: 18.5 percent chance to win first draw; 25.5 percent chance to receive No. 1
• Chicago Blackhawks: 13.5 percent
• New York Rangers: 11.5 percent
• Calgary Flames: 9.5 percent
• Toronto Maple Leafs’ pick: 8.5 percent, conditional to Boston

* If Toronto's first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft is a top-five pick following the Lottery, Toronto will instead transfer its 2027 or 2028 first-round pick to Boston.

What Bruins fans should root for

For Boston, the best-case scenario is not Toronto landing a top pick. It is Toronto getting pushed out of the top five.

That could happen if a team behind the Maple Leafs in the lottery order jumps ahead of them. Teams like the Seattle Kraken, Winnipeg Jets, Florida Panthers, San Jose Sharks, Nashville Predators or St. Louis Blues moving up would matter to Boston because it could knock Toronto down from No. 5 to No. 6 or lower.

That would change the Bruins’ outlook in a big way.

Instead of waiting until 2027 or 2028 for Toronto’s first-rounder, Boston could get a 2026 pick in the top half of the first round. For a Bruins team trying to reshape its roster and add more young talent, that would be a valuable asset.