The first pick in the draft will be Alexis Lafreniere from the Rimouski Oceanic, a very talented scoring winger. I “root” for the Buffalo Sabres, so yeah, they are kind of a mess right now. They are currently 7th in the draft order, so they have a little bit of a chance to move up to #1. This is a pretty strong Top-10, though, so they should get a good player as long as they don’t get skunked in the lottery draw (tonight is the lottery draw, though, not the draft)…
As for the draft lottery, I’m not a big fan of the lottery in general, and particularly not a fan of the current version of the NHL lottery. If they insist on having a lottery, then it should only include the bottom 3, or maybe the bottom 5, teams. There will be good, mediocre, and bad teams every season, and the teams in those categories change every season. I understand the reasons for having the lottery (to prevent tanks), but the league has gone too far in trying to prevent this from happening. In the end, bad teams should be drafting the top players so they don’t stay bad (in theory, anyway).