On Tuesday, Daily Faceoff published their “chaos rankings” for the 2026 NHL Draft Lottery. The Vancouver Canucks have the best odds of landing the first overall pick at 25.5%, but they also have roughly a 55.7% chance of dropping down to third overall, according to tankathon.com.

The draft lottery, set to be held on May 5th at 4 PM PT, will once again feature a live drawing of the lottery balls, so fans will be able to follow along in real time to see where their team will select in June’s draft.

Before we dive into DFO’s chaos rankings, we first need to explain what the term “chaos ranking” even means. Essentially, it seeks to rank which NHL teams winning the lottery would piss off the most opposing fanbases the most. Typically, these will be teams who already have a bevy of top prospects, teams that were a contender not all that long ago, or just teams that opposing fans don’t really want to see succeed.

Now that you know how the ranking works, it should come as no surprise to find out that the Florida Panthers came in at number one on the list. The Panthers won back-to-back Stanley Cups the past two seasons and were terribly banged up this season. With all the injuries (captain Sasha Barkov being the big one), Florida just wasn’t really ever able to find their footing this season.

And yet, it feels a lot like the Panthers will be back with a vengeance next year. That their contention window is far from closed. So adding Gavin McKenna to that mix? Yes, that would and should infuriate hockey fans everywhere. I mean, it’s great managing from Florida to put themselves in this position, but you’re still right to be angry about it if that’s how the balls fall on May 5th. They have a 6% chance of landing the first overall pick.

Also high up on the chaos rankings was the Toronto Maple Leafs, who will head into May 5th with an 8.5% chance of landing the first overall pick. The 2025-26 Leafs ended a nine-season playoff streak that began shortly after they were gifted Auston Matthews after winning the NHL Draft Lottery in 2016. The Matthews-led Leafs haven’t been able to do much of anything over their time in the playoffs, but you certainly wouldn’t know it based on the coverage that team has gotten at the National level over the last decade. The Leafs have an uncertain road ahead of them, and hockey fans everywhere would prefer they embark on that road without Gavin McKenna or Ivar Stenberg on their roster.

The rest of Daily Faceoff’s Chaos rankings:

3. New York Rangers (11.5% odds at first overall)
4. Chicago Blackhawks (13.5%)
5. San Jose Sharks (5.0%)
6. Winnipeg Jets (6.5%)
7. Vancouver Canucks (25.5%)
8. St. Louis Blues (3.0%)
9. Seattle Kraken (7.5%)
10. Nashville Predators (3.5%)
11. Calgary Flames (9.5%)

Obviously, Canucks fans only really care that one team win the NHL Draft Lottery, and that’s of course the Vancouver Canucks.

Over on Canucks Conversation — live at 2 PM daily on the CanucksArmy YouTube channel and available wherever you get your podcasts — we run a draft lottery simulator at the end of every show. Naturally, that’s led to a wide range of results, and the reaction of our live chat has helped us determine that the teams Canucks fans least want to see win the lottery are pretty similar to Larkin’s rankings. If we approach it from a Canucks perspective though, the list would probably look more like this after Florida and Toronto:

1. Florida Panthers
2. Toronto Maple Leafs
3. Calgary Flames: Division rivals, had some success not that long ago.
4. Chicago Blackhawks: chances of Connor Bedard being unhappy enough in Chicago to want to come to Vancouver as a UFA decrease. Also, just a general desire to see the Hawks fail.
5. New York Rangers: The JT Miller wounds seem to have healed, thanks to such an awful season for the Rangers, but they’ve been a playoff team for years now, and nobody should get to successfully pull off a “retool” like they want to.
6. San Jose Sharks: Adding McKenna to Celebrini’s wing — not to mention the embarrassment of riches the Sharks still have coming down the pipeline — seems unfair. Also, division rivals.
7. Seattle Kraken: Hard to say whether Canucks fans would rank the Kraken, Blues, or even the Predators higher on this list, but because Seattle is in the Pacific Division, we’ll say seeing McKenna land in Seattle would upset Canucks fans more than if he ended up in Nashville.
8. St. Louis Blues: You don’t get to win a Stanley Cup within the last 10 years and also get the first overall pick. Sorry, we don’t make the rules. This is basically a very watered-down version of why people don’t want to see the Panthers win the lottery.
9. Nashville Predators: Recent playoff opponent.
10. Winnipeg Jets: Feels like there’s little animosity between Canucks and Jets fans. The Jets often seem to be Canucks fans’ second-favourite Canadian NHL team as well.
11. Vancouver Canucks (obviously.)

Agree? Disagree? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

You can read the full Draft Lottery chaos rankings from Daily Faceoff here!