Lottery win was a franchise-changing moment for the Islanders

The New York Islanders made history on Monday night, winning the NHL Draft Lottery and moving up from the 10th spot to earn the first overall pick in the upcoming draft. 

While the Islanders have selected first before, grabbing John Tavares with the No. 1 pick in 2009, getting back to the top of the draft order marks a franchise-altering moment and also pushes their efforts to attract a new General Manager after parting ways with Lou Lamoriello. 

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli broke down what the chance to select a top prospect means for the Islanders’ future. 

Yaremchuk: That’s one of the most insane Draft Lotteries we’ve ever seen. The Islanders had just a three percent chance to pick first overall and shot all the way up from No. 10 to No. 1

The last time they picked first overall was in 2009 when they selected John Tavares…a massive break for the Islanders as they head into a transformational summer for their franchise.

Seravalli: I’d say [this is] franchise-changing in the sense that this job for candidates has now gotten that much more interesting. Now, whether that’s Ken Holland or someone like him coming in as President of Hockey Operations, or we’ve heard Marc Bergevin and his name connected or whoever it might be, you’ve got some interesting building blocks now and some optionality in net with Ilya Sorokin, Noah Dobson on the back end, and Matt Barzal up front. 

If you can add a top-pair defenseman in Matthew Schaefer, that’s just so much more ammo than you would have otherwise had, so it’s another building block that is so important for trying to assemble players that can be difference makers. 

This is a huge leg up, and definitely an unexpected one, with a 96.5 percent chance that it wouldn’t happen.

You can catch the full NHL Draft Lottery breakdown and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…