NHL pushes draft lottery start time back an hour, Oilers vs. Golden Knights back by 24 hours

The NHL and rescheduling events — name a more iconic duo, I’ll wait.

On Tuesday, the National Hockey League outdid itself when it pushed Monday’s draft lottery event back by an hour, but also changed the entire date of the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights game two matchup altogether.

One of these is obviously a lot more inconvenient than the other.

The draft lottery, originally set to begin at 7 PM Eastern Time on Monday, May 8th, will now take place an hour later at 8 PM ET — or 5 PM Pacific for us west coasters.

The Canucks enter the lottery with a 3% chance at winning the first overall pick, and in turn, the right to draft North Vancouver-born generational talent Connor Bedard.

If all you care about is the Vancouver Canucks and the draft lottery is the only part of this article that interests you, be sure to read the story from earlier today where we examined what the Canucks’ odds are heading into the lottery, and where they’re statistically most likely to select on draft day this summer. Hint: It’s at 11th overall. The Canucks have a 79.9% chance of selecting 11th overall.

As for the second game of the Oilers and Golden Knights’ series, that was originally supposed to take place this Friday, but the NHL has now changed it to Saturday, inconveniencing hundreds of Oilers fans — and just any out-of-town fans in general who had tickets to see the game — by doing so.

According to Oilers Nation’s Jason Gregor, the decision has more to do with the broadcast side of things. “It is more about TV partner. Hockey Night in Canada wants a game on Saturday with [a] Canadian team, especially with none the following Saturday,” Gregor wrote in a tweet.

The Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs are the only remaining Canadian teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as both teams managed to knock off their first round opponent in six games.