The Chicago Blackhawks suffered the worst-case scenario at the 2026 Draft Lottery on Tuesday night, as the ping pong balls determined they will be selecting fourth in the upcoming NHL Draft this summer. Entering the selection process, the Blackhawks had the second-best odds of winning the Draft Lottery and could finish no worse than fourth.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s undoubtedly a disappointing result for the Blackhawks, who finished bottom-three in the NHL standings for a fourth consecutive season, only to likely miss out on both Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg. <\/p>\n
General manager Kyle Davidson acknowledged afterwards that based on the odds, falling to No. 3 or No. 4 were the most likely outcomes. The Hawks had a 13.1% chance of winning the lottery, a 14.1% chance of staying put at No. 2, a 30.7% chance of dropping to No. 3, and a 41.7% chance of falling two spots to No. 4.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the odds, we were expecting it was going to be three or four, and it was four\u2026 We\u2019re gonna get a great player. If you asked me a couple of days ago how many players could be in contention\u2026 I would have put 5 or 6 guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who the Blackhawks end up drafting with the fourth pick in late June will heavily depend on how the board shakes out ahead of them. The Toronto Maple Leafs, winners of Tuesday\u2019s Draft Lottery, and the San Jose Sharks, who vaulted up seven spots to claim the No. 2 pick, are two teams desperately in need of more defensive help moving forward. With a slew of defensemen in the top-five conversation, there\u2019s a chance that one of them gets picked a little earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
However, there\u2019s still a slim chance that either McKenna or Stenberg make it to No. 4, as the Vancouver Canucks would almost assuredly snatch up either, should they make it that far. The most likely options for the Blackhawks at this point are forward Caleb Malhotra, or one of four defensemen \u2014 Keaton Verhoeff, Chase Reid, Carson Carels, or Alberts Smits.<\/p>\n
Davidson was also asked about potentially trading the No. 4 overall pick, to which he said he \u201cis open\u201d to doing so, but admitted those types of selections get dealt very rarely. When asked about whether he\u2019s leaning towards taking a forward or defenseman with the pick, Davidson didn\u2019t tip his hand. He said the Blackhawks will enter the Draft with a \u201cbest-player available\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n
Here are the complete results from Tuesday\u2019s 2026 NHL Draft Lottery.<\/p>\n
For more Blackhawks news, visit Chicago Hockey Now<\/a> and like our Facebook Page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Follow us on X:<\/p>\n @chihockeynow<\/a>, @JackBushman2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks suffered the worst-case scenario at the 2026 Draft Lottery on Tuesday night, as the ping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5115],"tags":[40821,521,63782,63783,39813,21431,37,96,5263,766,5,629,2529,4,591],"class_list":["post-568148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-blackhawks","tag-2026-nhl-draft-lottery","tag-blackhawks","tag-blackhawks-2026-nhl-draft","tag-blackhawks-draft-lottery","tag-caleb-malhotra","tag-chase-reid","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-chicagoblackhawks","tag-gavin-mckenna","tag-hockey","tag-ivar-stenberg","tag-keaton-verhoeff","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-draft-lottery"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116526829000060735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568148","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=568148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}