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If the lottery was held today, the Detroit Red Wings, ranked No. 31 overall, would have the best odds of winning the No. 1 overall pick at 18.5 per cent and would be followed by the No. 30-ranked Senators at 13.5 per cent. But Ottawa actually has a combined 25 per cent chance of winning the lottery because it also holds the San Jose Sharks’ top pick from the Erik Karlsson trade, and their odds are 11.5 per cent.

The Los Angeles Kings are at 9.5 per cent while the Habs currently have the eighth-best odds at six per cent.

Those teams in the lottery would battle any potential change because those rules were put in place a long time ago and it would be nonsensical to start trying to come up with a different idea just because a small portion of the schedule didn’t get played. Yes, these are unique circumstances, but it doesn’t mean it calls for wholesale changes.

One executive cautioned there may have to be small modifications to the lottery because not everybody involved has played the same number of games. The Wings and Senators have both played 71 games while the Kings have 12 left to play. One possibility is to go with winning percentage instead of points, but that wouldn’t really change a whole lot as far as the format goes.

The draft hasn’t been rescheduled, but when it is the expectation is it will either be a scaled-down version at a Montreal hotel ballroom like it was at the Westin Hotel in Ottawa in 2005 or it could possibly be done online.

“They’re going to have to do something for television,” another executive added. “It’s a pretty big event.”

You can bet the teams involved in the lottery would be willing to accept a tweak or two, but they wouldn’t be wiling go for wholesale changes and it certainly doesn’t sound like the league would go that route when all this is determined in the days ahead.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

Twitter: @sungarrioch