{"id":567694,"date":"2026-05-05T19:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/567694\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T19:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T19:39:14","slug":"2026-nhl-draft-lottery-whats-at-stake-for-sharks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/567694\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NHL Draft Lottery: What&#8217;s At Stake For Sharks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another year, another chance at the No. 1 overall pick for the San Jose Sharks, but it is different in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>After finishing last in the NHL for the past two seasons and having the best odds at the first-overall pick, the Sharks will have a lesser chance this season. Finishing 24th in the NHL in 25-26, San Jose has the ninth-best odds to win the lottery. There are two lottery draws, one for the first pick and one for the second. <\/p>\n<p>There will be a lottery machine with 14 ping pong balls loaded, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/news\/2026-nhl-draft-lottery-drama-to-play-out-in-real-time\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"(opens in a new tab)\">four-digit order<\/a> will be drawn, creating 1,001 combinations. The San Jose Sharks will have 50 combinations for the first lottery, a 5% chance. If the Sharks don\u2019t win the No. 1 pick in the <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/2026-nhl-draft\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"3159\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2026 NHL Draft<\/a>, they will still have a 5.3% chance for the second-overall pick.<\/p>\n<p>The lottery will be conducted live on TV for the second straight season on ESPN at 4 p.m. ET. Last season, the Sharks did not win either lottery but only fell one spot in the <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/2025-nhl-draft\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"729\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2025 NHL Draft<\/a> order. They would go on to select <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/michael-misa\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"730\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Misa<\/a> second overall.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/new-york-islanders\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"674\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Islanders<\/a> moved up nine spots from No. 10 to draft <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/matthew-schaefer\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"731\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Matthew Schaefer<\/a> first overall. The <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/utah-mammoth\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"2606\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Utah Mammoth<\/a> shocked the hockey world as they won the second lottery with just a 1.5% chance (14th-best odds). Teams can move up a maximum of 10 spots, <\/p>\n<p>In 2026, the San Jose Sharks have six possible outcomes:<\/p>\n<p>1: Win the draft lottery first draw and draft No. 1 in 2026 (5%)<br \/>2: Win the draft lottery second draw and draft No. 2 in 2026 (If a team 12-16 wins the first draw, VAN is locked at No. 1) (5.2%)<br \/>2a: *See outcome 6 if the team ranked No. 12 wins.<\/p>\n<p>3: Don\u2019t win, either draw, and no team from 10-16 wins, locking the Sharks at No. 9 (64.4%)<br \/>4. One team from 10-16 wins first draw, slide back to pick 10 (23.5%)<br \/>5. Two teams ranked 10-16 win both draws, slide to pick 12 (1.7%)<br \/>6. <a href=\"https:\/\/sharkshockeydigest.com\/tag\/new-jersey-devils\/\" type=\"post_tag\" id=\"368\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New Jersey Devils<\/a>, ranked 12th, win the first draw, and the Sharks win the second draw, pick No. 3 (0.2%)<\/p>\n<p>Today, May 5th (5\/5), the Sharks have a 5% chance at winning the NHL Draft Lottery. If they do, the No. 1 pick at the 2026 NHL Draft will be at KeyBank Center in Buffalo on June 26-27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another year, another chance at the No. 1 overall pick for the San Jose Sharks, but it is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[584,7704,40821,5,374,375,159,4,168,24660],"class_list":["post-567694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2025-nhl-draft","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-2026-nhl-draft-lottery","tag-hockey","tag-matthew-schaefer","tag-michael-misa","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sj-sharks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116523667507245660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}