Getting lots of questions on the NHL draft lottery. When will it be? How many teams? What format? Odds? For now, a lot more questions than answers. Not even the GMs who are in the lottery, or hope to be, seem to have many, if any, firm details on it.

There is, however, lots of speculation. Bits and pieces of info or concepts that may or may not turn out to be accurate. So bearing that in mind, let’s engage in some lottery spitballing until such time that we get the actual details, which with any luck won’t be too much longer.

What about odds? The bottom seven are hoping/expecting their odds will be at least what they would have been in a normal lottery. That would be:

DET 18.5
OTT 13.5
SJ/OTT 11.5
LA 9.5
ANA 8.5
NJ 7.5
BUF 6.5

If that’s the case, what about the odds for the next eight teams, whomever they may be? Well, there is a remaining 24.5% up for grabs. I suppose it’s possible the next 8 could get the “normal” lottery odds — 6/5/3.5/3/2.5/2/1.5/1.

Let’s start with timing of the lottery. Earlier today, @renlavoietva reported he’s hearing Friday June 26, the day the actual draft was originally scheduled. I’ve heard something similar but the NHL party line right now is that no decision has been finalized.

How many teams? Well, now that the NHL is believed to be imminently firming up RTP formats for 24 teams, the seven not coming back — DET, OTT, SJ (really OTT), LA, ANA, NJ, BUF — will most certainly be in the lottery. There’s lot of spec those 7 will be joined by 8 more.

If that’s the case, then we could conceivably be looking at a “normal” lottery line up of 15 non-playoff teams — the seven clubs not playing again and perhaps the eight teams who lose the best-of-five “play-in” series that will precede the NHL’s Pandemic Playoff (16 teams).