When the Vancouver Canucks lost the 2026 NHL Draft Lottery, moving from the first overall selection down to the third overall selection, it marked the seventh time in franchise history they’d been bumped down the draft order.

Really, it’s just one more loss via ill fortune in a season defined by loss for a franchise defined by ill fortune. But it’s also one of those occurrences that might make a fan wonder if the Canucks really are a cursed organization. This is a team, after all, that has never really drafted at first overall across more than five decades of history.

With that in mind, we wanted to take a look at the Canucks’ run of luck at the lottery and compare it against that of the rest of the NHL. This is a pretty big task, so we had to narrow down our methodology a little, and here’s what we came up with:

– We’re looking at all draft lotteries from 2016 to the present. The 2016 Draft Lottery marked the start of the ‘modern’ draft lottery, in which multiple draws are conducted and in which all non-playoff teams receive multiple chances to move up…or down. Three draws were held from 2016 to 2020, and there have been two draws from 2021 to the present day.

– We’re devising a manner of ‘records’ for these teams in which we track move-ups, stays, and move-downs as a result of the lottery, as well as recording the percentages of each from a team’s total draws.

– To build our ‘records’ for teams, we’re only focusing on those teams that finished in the bottom five of the standings. These are the teams that had the best shot at winning each lottery and who felt the most impact when they did not win them. This is meant to reflect that not all lottery wins and losses are equal – the Nashville Predators, who were bumped from third overall to fifth overall in 2025’s lottery, for example, suffered more of a loss than the Pittsburgh Penguins, who were bumped from ninth to eleventh. (This means we won’t be counting all the Canucks’ lottery losses, like the 2018 loss that saw them bumped from sixth to seventh overall.)

– We’re going to list them team-by-team, with Vancouver first and everyone else listed in alphabetical order. Only those teams that finished in the bottom five at least once over the past decade will be included.

It’s not a perfect methodology, but it should give us enough data to roughly compare the Canucks’ luck over the past 11 draft lotteries with the rest of the NHL, and that should tell us whether the Canucks are just unfortunate or uniquely unfortunate.

The Canucks have actually dropped five times in the past decade, including that aforementioned sixth-to-seventh drop in 2018 and the ninth-to-10th drop in 2019. But only three of those lotteries featured the Canucks finishing in the bottom five: in 2016, 2017, and, most recently, 2026.

Thus, these three losses hurt a little bit more than the rest, and they do confirm that the Canucks have been quite unlucky at the lottery table, especially when it matters most. But let’s check in with the rest of the NHL before we jump to any conclusions.

The Ducks have never moved up, but they’ve stayed at their proper spot twice and moved down twice for a nice, even split. Given the players they’ve wound up with as a result of these picks, it’s hard to call Anaheim any form of unlucky.

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. The Coyotes were just as unlucky as the Canucks at the lottery table, losing three times, which probably had something to do with them eventually losing their franchise. Maybe a couple more lottery wins would have kept the Coyotes alive for longer.

The Bruins have been in one lottery since 2016 and moved down, which gives them the same percentage of success as the Canucks, but also proves that quantity and quality really matter here. One move-down just doesn’t hit nearly as hard as three, and the one move-down was just from fifth to seventh — no big deal.

The Sabres have been unlucky everywhere else – up until this current season – but not especially so at the lottery table. They haven’t moved up, but they’ve retained the first overall selection twice and only ever moved down once. Now, they are reaping the benefits of that, especially since one of those retained firsts was Rasmus Dahlin.

There’s some comfort in the fact that the Flames have been almost, but not quite, as unlucky as the Canucks with the lottery. This most recent 2026 drop, from fourth to sixth, was probably the most significant.

The Blackhawks have what has to be considered the perfect spread in a world where moving down is always more likely than moving up. They’ve drawn four times, moved up once, stayed once, and moved down twice. It’s not exceptionally good luck, but it’s definitely good enough for Chicago’s rebuilding purposes.

No one is going to shed any tears for the Avalanche not winning their one and only draft lottery of the past decade. They’ve managed to pick up plenty of talent, all the same.

The Blue Jackets are often thought of as a hard-luck franchise, but not so at the draft lottery. With one move-up, two stays, and one move-down across four lotteries, Columbus is actually the third-most-fortunate team on our list, even if they haven’t done much with all that luck yet.

The Red Wings have the same record as the Canuck, and it’s perhaps caused even more consequences for their would-be rebuild. Some suggest that lottery luck has been the primary thing holding Detroit back in the GM Steve Yzerman era, and these three losses have undoubtedly played a factor in their inability to get back to the postseason with consistency.

Like the Colorado Avalanche, no one will feel bad for the Oilers having lost a single lottery. Their previous run of luck is more or less responsible for the current iteration of the lottery, and they’ve accumulated more than enough talent besides.

The Kings have had two lotteries, and it’s been a coin flip for them. One move up, one move down, and we’ll have to call it a draw at the lottery draw.

The Canadiens just don’t lose at the Draft Lottery. In four draws, they’ve never moved down, they’ve moved up once, and they’ve stayed thrice, including at first overall in 2022. That makes Montreal the second-luckiest on our list, and we’ll be getting to first place in a brief moment.

Throw the Predators on what is becoming a long list of teams that have visited the draft lottery once in the past decade, lost, and decided not to visit again.

Say hello to your Draft Lottery champs. Somehow, the Devils have entered four draft lotteries, each time with the highest odds being their moving down, and walked away with three wins and one stay. That’s resulted in two first overall selections – Nico Hischier and Jack Hughes – and a second overall. That hasn’t directly translated into much on-ice success yet, but it’s an amazing run of fortune all the same.

Technically, the Rangers are another one-lottery, one-loss team. But this is quite misleading, as is any suggestion that New York has had poor lottery luck. During this same decade, the Rangers have had two huge lottery climbs, going from sixth to second in 2019 and from eighth to first overall in 2020 to draft Alexis Lafrenière. This is where our top-five-focused methodology shows some obvious flaws.

The Senators technically join the Canucks, Coyotes, and Red Wings in the thrice-unlucky club, at least as far as their own picks are concerned. However, this is also a bit misleading, because it would not factor in the conditional 2020 first-round pick the Senators received from the San Jose Sharks in the Erik Karlsson trade, which won a lottery to stay at third overall and resulted in Tim Stutzle. Since that pick became Ottawa’s as a result of trade conditions, we’re counting it as them having “stayed” once.

The Flyers are another slightly misleading record here, because although they’ve moved down within the top-five twice, they’ve also had a big win in 2017, moving all the way from 13^th up to second to pick Nolan Patrick. (Well, a big lottery win, anyway.)

The Sharks can’t hate their luck at the lottery table. They’ve never moved up with the top-five once, but they’ve managed to stay where they were on three of four occasions, and those stays have yielded players like Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, and Michael Misa. This also doesn’t account for the Sharks’ lottery win this year, which moved them up from ninth to second.

The Kraken have had a coin flip at the lottery table since joining the league, with one move up, one move down and zero stays. They just haven’t done much of note with any of those actual picks.

The Leafs’ record here doesn’t exactly stand out, but make no mistake, this is still a run of good fortune. Toronto stayed at first overall to draft Auston Matthews in 2016 and then rose from fifth to first in 2026 to draft (presumably) Gavin McKenna, book-ending the decade rather nicely for themselves.

That the Vegas Golden Knights moved down in their one and only (inaugural) draft lottery is probably the only bit of fortune that hasn’t broken their way since joining the league.

Are the Canucks unlucky at the draft lottery? Yes, that can’t be denied. Three bottom-five finishes translated into three lottery losses over the past decade, combined with those non-bottom-five lottery losses, is a lot of lottery losing.

But uniquely unlucky? That’s a little harder to claim, as far as this specific measuring tool goes, especially when the Arizona Coyotes, Detroit Red Wings, and Ottawa Senators have also suffered three bottom-five lottery losses over the past decade. Heck, one of those teams doesn’t exist anymore!

The jury is still out on any curse, but there’s definitely at least some sort of fortune disparity at play here between those teams like the Canucks and those teams like the Canadiens or Devils.

Some teams go to the Draft Lottery to win, and some go there to lose. The Canucks fall into the latter camp.