Preview: 2025 NHL Draft Lottery - How It Works and Where the Preds Could Slot

A potentially franchise altering night is ahead in the National Hockey League, and the Nashville Predators are right in the thick of things.

The 2025 NHL Draft Lottery is set to take place on Monday evening - with a live drawing for the first time ever - at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN, and the Preds own the third-best odds to earn the top selection.

After finishing the 2024-25 season third from the bottom of the League, the silver lining arrives with the Predators taking an 11.5 percent chance to pick first in the 2025 NHL Draft, which is set for June 27-28 in Los Angeles.

While the Preds may not win the Lottery, they will not pick any lower than 5th overall with their top selection, the first time Nashville has had a pick in the top five since they took defenseman Seth Jones at No. 4 overall in 2013.

The Lottery process is one that’s precise and technical with a slew of combinations available to each team to determine the order of selection for the 16 clubs who missed out on qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

From the NHL, some explainer points on how the Lottery is managed:

• The 2025 NHL Draft Lottery will be conducted in two phases, the first to determine the first overall pick in the 2025 Upper Deck NHL Draft and the second to determine the second overall pick.
• In each phase 14 balls, numbered 1 to 14, will be placed into a lottery machine with four drawn. The resulting four-digit series is matched against a look-up table that lists the 1,000 possible combinations to determine which team was assigned the winning combination.
• The look-up table of the 1,000 four-digit combinations assigned to each team participating in the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery is available on NHL.com. The table also lists combinations by team.
• As each ball is drawn, odds change and teams are eliminated. The viewing audience will learn who is still in the running in real time.
• There is a limit on the total number of selections (10) a team participating in the Draft Lottery can “move up” in the event it wins one of the Lottery Draws. Thus, only the top 11 seeds will be eligible to receive the first overall selection in the 2025 NHL Draft.
• The 14 teams not selected in the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery will be assigned the remaining 2025 Upper Deck NHL Draft selections (among 1 through 16 in the first round), in inverse order of regular-season points.

With their 11.5 percent odds to pick first, the Predators 115 out of those 1,000 different combinations to determine the winner.

Be sure to catch the Draft Lottery on Monday night on ESPN at 6 p.m. CT, and then stay tuned to NashvillePredators.com throughout the next two months as the Preds prepare to make their selections in the first round and beyond.