A full breakdown of the Canucks’ draft lottery odds and where they’re most likely to pick

By now, you’re likely aware that the Vancouver Canucks concluded the regular season with a 3% chance at winning the draft lottery and winning the opportunity to draft the highly-coveted centre hailing from North Vancouver, Connor Bedard.

Ahead of the trade deadline, the Canucks held the fifth-best draft lottery odds with 8.5% — their best draft positioning of the season — and weren’t all that far out of falling into the top three. The club then went on a late season surge and ended up where they are now, the club with the lowest possible odds of winning the first overall pick. At least they didn’t move one spot further and lose any chance at winning the number one pick. At least this way there’s still something to hope for, right?

After all, this is the Canucks we’re talking about.

With the draft lottery just six days away, that 3% chance at Bedard is all anyone is going to be talking about, and for good reason. The kid has franchise-altering ability, and represents a proverbial get out of jail free card when it comes to roster building. Having Bedard on a three-year ELC is something all 32 teams would certainly jump at the chance to acquire. Again, for good reason.

But Canucks fans know better than to get their hopes up for draft lottery luck in general — let alone when it comes with 3% odds. The lottery has never been friendly to the Canucks, even if some of the players they’ve been able to select in spite of dropping in the draft order have been difference makers to the enth degree.

No, it likely won’t be Connor Bedard that the Canucks are walking away with on draft day. Instead, with a 79.9% chance, the Canucks are most likely to draft right where they are at 11th overall.

After that, their next highest odds are to fall back one spot and draft at 12th overall, and they have an 8.9% chance of that happening, per Tankathon.

From there, the Canucks actually have a better chance at “winning” the lottery in a different way — as their 3.2% odds of the second overall pick are marginally better than their chances at drafting Bedard. Could you imagine? The player they select there would almost certainly still be a difference maker, but whoever he is, he’s not Connor Bedard.

The Canucks then have a 0.5% chance at the 13th overall pick, and a 0.1% chance at the third overall pick.

As we mull over these odds, it’s hard to think about what the “most Canucks outcome” really is.

Is it finally getting some lottery luck only to miss out on Bedard by one pick? Or is it to fall to 13th, the outcome even less likely than getting Bedard, but infinitely higher on the Canucks fan pain-o-meter scale?

Just once, it would be nice for the lottery balls to fall the Canucks’ way. If there’s any year for it to happen, this has got to be it, right? If it happens, it was clearly destiny. And if it doesn’t, we did try to tell you not to get your hopes up.