2015 NHL Draft Lottery Results

Tonight Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly presented the NHL Draft lottery results live on CBC, with the top overall pick in the 2015 NHL Entry Draft, to be held on June 26-27, 2015 in Sunrise, Florida, being awarded to the perennially awful Edmonton Oilers.
The actual lottery was conducted 30 minutes earlier in Rogers Sportnet's Toronto studios. This video from 2013, featuring NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman offers a detailed explanation of the process.
Designed to guard against teams purposely losing regular season games to improve their draft position, the weighted lottery system implemented prior to the 1995 NHL Entry Draft provides weaker teams with a greater chance of a higher pick without any guarantees for poor performance.

Until 2013, only the league's five worst regular season teams were eligible for the top overall pick, allowing teams to advance up to four spots and fall only one spot in the lottery. That changed in 2013 with all non-playoff teams eligible for the top overall pick albeit with their statistical likelihood directly tied to their final regular season standing. A team can still only fall one spot in lottery position.

In 2014, additional changes were implemented for the lottery to reflect he competitive balance of the league, with more balanced odds being introduced in 2015 and separate draws in 2016 for the first four positions ( as opposed to just for the top overall pick), allowing the league's worst regular season performer to slip as low as fourth overall (as opposed to just second overall under the current regime).  

For the fourth year in a row, the top pick went to someone other than the statistical favorite with the last place Buffalo Sabres edged out by the lottery winning Oilers. The win gives Edmonton their fourth top overall pick in six years (Taylor Hall 2010, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 2011, Nail Yakupov 2012).

Other than Edmonton pushing Buffalo and Arizona down two spots, the remaining clubs placed as predicted by their statistical probabilities. The chart below shows final draft position by team and their accompanying odds of having won first pick overall in the lottery.

Draft Position	Likelihood of 1st Pick
1. Edmonton	11.5%
2. Buffalo	20.0%
3. Arizona	13.5%
4. Toronto	9.5%
5. Carolina	8.5%
6. New Jersey	7.5%
7. Philadelphia	6.5%
8. Columbus	6.0%
9. San Jose	5.0%
10. Colorado	3.5%
11. Florida	3.0%
12. Dallas	2.5%
13. Los Angeles	2.0%
14. Boston	1.0%

Remaining NHL Entry Draft positions are set after the playoffs with the Stanley Cup champion and runner-up picking 30th and 29th, respectively. Conference finalists (28th, 27th) as well as division winners and wildcard teams (26th through 15th) are then ordered among their respective subgroup based on regular season standings, positioning teams with better regular season records to pick later than their peers.

* See also 2018 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2017 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2016 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2014 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2013 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2012 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2011 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2010 NHL Draft Lottery Results.
* See also 2009 NHL Draft Lottery Results.