Could the Carolina Hurricanes Actually Pick 1st Overall?
By Austin Isham
The Carolina Hurricanes have a shot at the 1st pick in the Draft
One of the NHL’s qualifying teams has won the 1st overall pick. Could that mystery team potentially be the Carolina Hurricanes?
With the NHL draft lottery now completed it appears as if a mystery team has won the first overall pick. That mystery team will be determined after the qualifying rounds are completed. Could that team be the Carolina Hurricanes?
Now for this to happen the Hurricanes would, unfortunately, have to lose to New York in the qualifying, which we don’t want to have happened, but is always a possibility. The Canes have struggled against the Rangers over the years, with goal-scoring the main concern.
Going 0-4 against them this season, a lot of things are going to have to go right for Carolina. Now I think that the Canes are the deeper more skilled team, but in the short best of five series after a long hiatus know you never what can happen.
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Should they lose, they will join the rest of the eliminated teams in another draft lottery. Each team will have a 12.5% chance at than winning the top selection in this year’s draft.
Of course, Carolina has two first-round selections, with the later belong to the New York Rangers. Should Toronto lose their series and win the lottery, they will get to keep that pick, however, as it is top ten protected.
Therefore, the only way Carolina will be able to select first is if they lose their series and win the lottery. As much as losing to New York would sting, getting the chance to add Alexis Lafreniere to the young core of Andrei Svechnikov, Sebastian Aho and Martin Necas upfront would be exciting.
Lafreniere is already an NHL caliber forward today and is a true star in the making. His name has been thrown around as the next Crosby or MacKinnon among others. Recently compared to Mikko Rantanen of the Colorado Avalanche, he could easily slot into any team’s top six right away and make an impact.
He is a strong power forward with elite offensive abilities. In his last two seasons in junior, he has put up an impressive 217 points in just 113 games. Clearly a dominant player among his peers, it won’t be long until he puts up monster numbers year after year in the NHL.
Now aside from being eliminated from playoff contention for this to happen, another downside to a qualifying team winning the lottery is that someone like New York or Pittsburgh could end up with the pick. The last thing we need is another top prospect and superstar talent joining another Metropolitan Division rival.
Following the lottery results he NHL has announced that, should the play in rounds not happen for any reason, that the next eight lowest seated teams (Montreal, Chicago, Arizona, Minnesota, Winnipeg, Calgary, New York [Rangers] and Flordia) will have an equal chance at the first overall selection. Should this occur, the Hurricanes won’t have any chance to get the pick.
The Carolina Hurricanes have never had the first overall pick. They have had the second overall selection twice (Staal in 2003 and Svechnikov in 2018).
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Question for CC readers: What do you think of the draft lottery results?