2023 NHL Draft Lottery Chaos Rankings: Which Connor Bedard landing spot would send fans into a frenzy?

Credit: Connor Bedard (© Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports)

Hi. It’s me, Matt. The guy who tweets the ‘Elmo with a raging fire behind him’ meme regularly.

Why do I do it? Because it represents something I love in sports: chaos. The Tage Thompson late breakout is chaos. The Florida Panthers and Seattle Kraken pulling historic first-round upsets is chaos. Johnny Gaudreau signing with the Columbus Blue Jackets seemingly out of nowhere last summer was chaos.

And when it comes to Monday’s 2023 NHL Draft lottery: while I have no stake in the game, I will indeed be rooting for chaos when we wait to see who earns the right to draft incoming generational talent Connor Bedard first overall.

What would represent chaos in this context? I would quantify it as some combination of (a) upsetting the league’s power balance unexpectedly and (b) Sending multiple fan bases into a panic.

So with all due respect to a team like the Columbus Blue Jackets, for instance, seeing Bedard don their sweater would be the opposite of chaos. It would be a rather beige result: bad team in small market lands superstar. Good for them if it happens, but…yawn. Right?

Which teams would ignite the chaos inferno and inspire Twitter warriors to pen manifestos about Gary Bettman rigging the process? I present to you my Connor Bedard Draft Lottery Chaos Rankings, with each team’s odds in brackets.

11. Columbus Blue Jackets (13.5%)

In terms of landing spots, the Blue Jackets would easily be the least interesting for Bedard. He could form an exciting first line with Gaudreau and Patrik Laine. He’d be joining a franchise that already has a promising young nest egg including Kent Johnston, David Jiricek, Cole Sillinger and Jordan Dumais. “Bad team accumulates prospects and drafts elite player” is a pretty standard script. The Jackets’ future would instantly become promising with Bedard but, from a marketing perspective, a Columbus lottery win wouldn’t have the NHL jumping for joy.

10. San Jose Sharks (9.5%)

The Sharks inched closer to bottoming out when they dealt Timo Meier this season, but they still have a collection of decent veterans in tow, including Logan Couture, Tomas Hertl and 100-point defenseman Erik Karlsson. If the Sharks landed Bedard and ended up not trading Karlsson this offseason, it would be fascinating to see what they could accomplish offensively as a duo. Other than that, Bedard to San Jose is another straightforward phenom-helps-weak-team story.

9. Anaheim Ducks (25.5%)

On one hand, the Ducks are one of the league’s most obscure markets, having finished 2022-23 at 28^th in attendance by capacity. Their fans will only fill the Honda Center for a winner. It could take a while before Bedard helps turn them into one; they finished last overall in the NHL this season. That said: the idea of Bedard and Trevor Zegras on the same team is awfully exciting. Zegras has made himself into one of the game’s more marketable young stars. Whether the dinosaurs like his fancy puck antics or not, his polarizing nature is part of his appeal. He and Bedard would become highlight-reel fixtures slinging the puck together on the power play. Also: as is the case with a few other teams on this list, a Pacific Division landing spot would make Bedard and Connor McDavid divisional neighbors.

8. Detroit Red Wings (5.0%)

The Red Wings’ ‘Yzerplan’ rebuild is creeping along. Their 25-year playoff streak has given way to a seven-year playoff drought, now quietly the second-longest in the NHL behind only the Sabres’ NHL-record 12-year hiatus. The Wings are slowly assembling an impressive stable of young talent, from Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson on defense to Lucas Raymond and Marco Kasper up front. They also have their captain Dylan Larkin locked up on a new eight-year extension. What they lack is any player in the entire system, top to bottom, with real superstar upside. Bedard would change that in an instant – and instantly make the Red Wings the most relevant they’ve been in a decade. Unlike the teams behind them on this list, the Wings could become instant playoff contenders with Bedard added to their lineup.

7. Chicago Blackhawks (11.5%)

I surprised myself by placing the Hawks this low. But hear me out: While seeing Bedard land in a robust market would be a major plus on the Chaos scale, this franchise is so devoid of immediately impactful talent at the moment that I’m not convinced Bedard’s arrival would make them particularly relevant or interesting, at least not right away. Their most exciting forward prospect in the system at the moment, Frank Nazar, is likely staying at NCAA Michigan another year. Blueliner Kevin Korchinski is still a teenager and thus isn’t a lock to break camp with the big club next season. So a Bedard rookie year might consist of him wading through a wasteland of a supporting cast. That said, I acknowledge it’s Chicago we’re talking about here, so I put this landing spot in the middle of the pack.

6. Philadelphia Flyers (6.5%)

On one hand: The idea of Bedard, a superstar with limitless offensive potential, playing for hardass John Tortorella doesn’t sound too fun. On the other hand: Bedard would be playing for a rabid fanbase and one that, unless you count peak Claude Giroux, hasn’t had a true superstar since Eric Lindros (or a couple abbreviated years of aging Peter Forsberg). With the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals aging out of contention and missing the playoffs this season, there’s room to climb in the Metropolitan Division, and Bedard would accelerate things. The Flyers have some youthful upside in their lineup with Travis Konecny, Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett, not to mention Tyson Foerster (Cutter Gauthier is going back to school), so Bedard would have at least a little something to work with.

5. Arizona Coyotes (7.5%)

I’m guessing most wouldn’t rank the Coyotes this high. Bedard? Playing for the NHL’s most financially shaky franchise? At Mullett Arena? But Bedard swooping in to save the Coyotes from possible relocation would dump kerosene on the fire for the conspiracy theorists who believe Gary Bettman riggs draft lotteries. Also: the Coyotes’ lineup will quietly already be gaining Logan Cooley (probably) and Dylan Guenther (definitely) as full-time top-nine forwards next season – and already saw massive jumps in production from Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton this season. Given how wide open the Central Division seems to be behind the top two teams going forward, Bedard could help make them a surprisingly tough out as soon as next season.

4. Washington Capitals (6.0%)

Connor Bedard. Alex Ovechkin. On the same line. Need I say more? Not only could Bedard’s presence rejuvenate a team that still has Ovi, Tom Wilson, John Carlson and Darcy Kuemper among its foundational blocks, but Bedard’s presence could be a boon to Alex Ovechkin’s hunt for Wayne Gretzky’s goals record. Bedard is obviously known as a deadly goal scorer himself rather than a pure playmaker, but his general offensive skill and awareness are unlike that of any other potential Ovi linemate as he plays out the final three seasons of his contract. He’s currently 73 goals away from breaking Gretzky’s goal record of 894; Bedard would no doubt increase the odds of that happening.

3. St. Louis Blues (3.5%)

The Blues aren’t a hockey media hotbed. They aren’t starved for a championship. There’s no specific drama hanging over the franchise at the moment. So why are they third? Because they, more than any other team in the running for Bedard, have the best chance to instantly become a playoff team if they land him. They sold pending UFAs Vladimir Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly leading up to the 2023 Trade Deadline, yes, but they did the same with Paul Stastny in 2018 and won the Stanley Cup the following year – largely on the strength of the draft pick they got for Stastny, which they used to acquire O’Reilly. General manager Doug Armstrong is armed with three first-round picks for the 2023 Draft and could use them as trade capital to retool and add an impact player. The Blues still have Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou as core forwards to build around, not to mention Pavel Buchnevich and reclamation project Jakub Vrana. Imagine if the Blues land Bedard and another top-six forward in a trade. They’d become a top-three team in the Central Division going into 2023-24.

2. Vancouver Canucks (3.0%)

Local boy Bedard. Elias Pettersson. Quinn Hughes. Thatcher Demko. Andrei Kuzmenko. That would be quite the quintet of core stars for a Canucks team that found its footing late in the 2022-23 season under new coach Rick Tocchet. As a Canuck, Bedard would also be joining a team surrounded by drama and trade rumors involving forwards J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. And it’s a Canadian market to boot – sharing a division with McDavid’s Edmonton Oilers. Oh, the storylines! Bedard to the Canucks checks pretty much every Chaos box.

1. Montreal Canadiens (8.5%)

The Canadiens used to be the breeding ground for the game’s superstars. That was literally a lifetime ago for many fans. The storied franchise’s only superstars of the past 40 years or so have patrolled their crease: Patrick Roy and Carey Price. Bedard’s arrival would be the most anticipated since…Guy Lafleur’s? Yes, the Habs already picked first overall last season, but the 2022 Draft class was never perceived to be elite, and the order was so fluid that Juraj Slafkovsky didn’t even surface as their pick until the days and hours leading up to the draft. Bedard exists in a different stratosphere. A player of his caliber would make the Bleu, Blanc et Rouge appointment viewing in a manner they haven’t been since Roy carried them to a Stanley Cup in 1993.

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