6 times Vancouver Canucks got screwed by NHL draft lottery
It’s a tale as old as time. When the NHL draft lottery balls fall, Vancouver Canucks fans always walk away disappointed.
Will things be different in 2026?
This is the first time in the NHL Draft Lottery era that the Canucks have secured the best odds of drafting first overall, giving them a 25.5 per cent chance of drafting first overall.
Surely, most Vancouver fans aren’t banking on them actually winning, right?
The Canucks have been involved in 16 draft lotteries throughout their history, dropping five times while standing pat on 11 occasions.
With the 2026 NHL draft lottery set to take place next week, it’s worth revisiting the team’s unfortunate history when it’s up to the ping pong balls to dictate the team’s future.
1. Expansion draft lottery (1970)
Something was in the water at the 1970 NHL expansion draft lottery.
The Canucks and Buffalo Sabres have combined to go 110 seasons without winning a Stanley Cup. While the Sabres finally ended a 15-year playoff drought, the Canucks are as far away from winning as they’ve ever been.
But for the Canucks, the 1970 draft lotto was their first big loss.
The right to select first overall was solely between the Sabres and Canucks. Vancouver originally thought they won, but a closer look revealed that Buffalo actually had the winning number.
Buffalo ended up drafting Hall of Famer Gilbert Perreault. The Canucks got three seasons of Dale Tallon.
2. First draft lottery era screwjob (1998)
Up until 1995, there was no NHL draft lottery. The worst team in the league got the first overall pick.
When the lottery was first introduced, every non-playoff team was involved, but squads could move up no more than five spots.
The closest the Canucks got to actually winning a lottery was back in 1998. They finished with the third-worst record, and wouldn’t you know, the team with the third-best odds won the lottery.
That would have been the Canucks, except for the fact that Vancouver downgraded to having the fourth-best odds. The Nashville Predators leapfrogged them, getting preferential lottery treatment as an expansion franchise.
If the Canucks won, they would have been primed to select Vincent Lecavalier. Instead, they ended up with Bryan Allen at fourth overall.
While this wasn’t a typical lottery screwjob, it certainly stands out as a franchise-altering miss.
The Canucks drop in 2016 led to them drafting Olli Juolevi. (Timothy T. Ludwig/Imagn Images)
3. The Olli Juolevi Draft (2016)
Ah, yes, the era of pain Canucks fans know all too well.
Father Time finally caught up to the Canucks in 2015-16, where they went from the league’s eighth-best team one year to the third-worst the next.
Just one year before, the third-worst team in the NHL won the draft lottery. That’s when the Edmonton Oilers got the right to select Connor McDavid.
There was no such luck for the Canucks in 2016. They dropped two spots in the lottery after being jumped by the Winnipeg Jets and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
They selected Olli Juolevi at fifth overall. Reporting from The Athletic suggests they would have taken Pierre-Luc Dubois if they remained in the top three.
4. Best odds, worst result (2017)
The Canucks finished with the NHL’s second-worst record in 2017, but a wild draft lottery saw the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, and Dallas Stars all take gargantuan leaps up the draft standings.
That didn’t matter for the Canucks, as Elias Pettersson turned out to be arguably the second-best player taken anyway, behind Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar.
At least, that seemed to be the case until about 2024. Pettersson has gone from first-line All-Star to having one of the worst contracts in hockey.
The Canucks reportedly also had Makar at No. 1 on their board in this draft. What could have been.
5. Lottery loss, draft floor win (2018)
Jim Benning’s Canucks continued to struggle on the ice and at the draft lottery.
At least in 2018, they only dropped one spot, from sixth to seventh overall, after the Carolina Hurricanes jumped from 11th to second in the lottery.
And, the Canucks nailed this pick, somehow snagging Quinn Hughes at seventh overall. He currently leads his entire draft class in points.
6. Four straight years of dropping (2019)
Whether it was Trevor Linden or Jim Benning in the draft lottery room, the Canucks still couldn’t get a win.
In 2019, they dropped from ninth to 10th in the lottery, where they selected Vasily Podkolzin. The Chicago Blackhawks won the third-place lottery, jumping up nine spots from 12th overall.
The Canucks have been involved in four draft lotteries since this draft, standing pat on every occasion with their odds being no better than eighth-best.
However, the Utah Mammoth, who had the 14th-best odds last season, won the second-place lottery, moving up 10 spots to fourth overall. The Canucks had the 15th-best odds.
Just like that, a brand-new franchise has won more draft lotteries than the Canucks ever have.