No Jack Hughes, no Kaapo Kakko; Avalanche fall to fourth place again in NHL draft

Does everybody feel foolish now, rooting hard for the Ottawa Senators to lose all season long?

The Avalanche proved again Tuesday night that owning the rights to the lottery pick of the worst team in the NHL doesn’t matter much when it comes to getting that cherished top pick, as the Avs struck out with the ping-pong balls and will pick fourth in the NHL draft this June.

That’s as low as the Avs could have picked, just like it was in 2017 when, despite a 48-point season, they fell to fourth. That pick turned out to be Cale Makar, so it doesn’t mean the Avs won’t get a damn good player with this pick.

But there’s no question that this was a big disappointment for an Avs club and its fans, who had visions of Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko in mind. Maybe because the NHL was burned so badly by teams that truly did tank in the past to finish last and get the top pick (Pittsburgh admitted they did it in 1984 to get Mario Lemieux), the NHL has instituted a lottery system that gives the last-place team higher odds of picking out of the top three than being in it (the actual chance of the Avs getting the fourth pick was 50.4 percent). The chance that they would get the No. 1 pick were 18.5 percent.

Joe Sakic didn’t react one way or the other when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly turned over the card with his team’s logo on it for the fourth selection. When the Chicago Blackhawks moved from their No. 12 position in the odds to a guarantee of the top three, that was a bad moment for the Avs’ No. 1 chances.

The fact that the Avs won’t get a Hughes or a Kakko (barring moving up in the draft via trade) means they might have to get more aggressive in the free-agent market this summer, for guaranteed help from a top-six forward. Scoring depth, beyond the first line, remains an issue with the club, and not having a Hughes or a Kakko to count on means the Avs will have to either perhaps be more patient with that first pick than they expected, or have to go out and acquire more immediate veteran help.

For more on who the experts believe are the top players beyond Hughes or Kakko, this article is a great source of information.