The Blue Jackets are back in the NHL draft lottery for a sixth time since last qualifying for the playoffs in 2020, and they again hold slim odds.
The lottery will be drawn live for the second straight year, starting at 7 p.m. May 5 at the NHL Network’s studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, and airing on ESPN.
The Blue Jackets, who have never won the lottery in their 25 years of existence, are 14th going in and have a 1.5% chance of moving up by winning the first of two draws to determine the picking order of the upcoming draft, which will be June 26-27 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, New York.
Teams can move up a maximum of 10 spots and drop no more than two, so the highest the Jackets can pick is fourth and 16th is the lowest they’d drop.
Last year, the Utah Mammoth went into the lottery with the 14th pick and won the second draw to move into the fourth overall slot. That bumped the Blue Jackets back a spot to 14th overall, where they took Jackson Smith, a smooth-skating defenseman who went to Penn State and impressed this season.
Gavin McKenna, a skilled Penn State forward, is likely to be selected first overall in 2026, with competition for that spot from Ivar Stenberg, a forward from Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League.
Both are expected to be taken by the time the Blue Jackets pick, even if they move up to fourth overall.
Columbus Blue Jackets number combinations in 2026 NHL Draft Lottery
The NHL uses 14 lottery balls numbered 1-14 that are placed into the bin of a machine that mixes them up and draws them out one by one until a four-number combination is derived. A total of 1,001 combinations is possible, so the league designates one (11-12-13-14) as a redraw to allow for an even distribution of 1,000 combinations for 16 teams.
Number combinations are assigned based on reverse standings order among the NHL’s 32 teams, with the best odds to win the lottery going to the worst team. The Vancouver Canucks get that dubious distinction this year with 185 number combinations for an 18.5% chance to win.
The Blue Jackets won the first lottery draw four out of 50 times when the Dispatch recently ran Tankathon’s NHL lottery simulator, which works out to 8% or almost eight times higher than their 1.5% odds to win the actual draw with one of their 15 assigned combinations.
The NHL has made all 16 teams’ number combinations available through the league’s site. You can access that here. The Blue Jackets’ assigned combinations are as follows:
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Blue Jackets hold low odds in NHL lottery. Here are their numbers
Reporting by Brian Hedger, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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