Do you believe in karma? That good things happen to people and organizations that act honourably and with integrity? In the world of professional sports, it seems like an oddly archaic question.

And yet, there was an unexpected reward for the Winnipeg Jets, for doing things the right way, awaiting them at the end of the NHL draft lottery rainbow Saturday night.

The Jets were the other big winners of the evening after Toronto, moving up four spots in the draft order – to second from sixth – a giant leap forward given how the top three draft-eligible players have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.

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In a year when all seven Canadian teams missed the NHL playoffs, the race to the bottom of the standings captivated a lot of Canadian hockey fans in the final month of the season. Some actually celebrated losses by their favourite teams, on the grounds that finishing down the standings greatly enhanced one's chance of picking higher in the annual NHL entry draft, and therefore landing a star prospect.

The Jets deviated from that script. They won their final four games of the regular season and went 6-2-2 in their last 10, a spurt that lowered their odds of winning the draft lottery to 7.5 per cent. The Jets didn't tank, didn't throw in the towel and kept playing to the end, which is what's supposed to happen in professional sports, but rarely does.

In the end, virtue was rewarded.

At the other end of the karmic scale were the Edmonton Oilers, who'd won four of the previous six lottery drawings. The Oilers had the second-best chance to move up to No. 1, but actually fell two places – to fourth from second, their luck finally running out. Maybe this will change things up for the Oilers – they can stop winning lotteries and start winning on the ice, where it really matters.

Calgary dropped one place in the draft order, to sixth from fifth, but the Vancouver Canucks were arguably the unluckiest team of all. They've never had a first overall pick, and slipped to fifth from third, which took them out of the running for either Patrick Laine or Jesse Puljujarvi, the two star Finnish prospects projected to go second and third behind the No. 1-ranked player, American teenage sensation Auston Matthews.

Laine was racing up the draft boards in the second half of the season and while he likely didn't overtake Matthews, his combination of size, speed and skill makes him an ultra-attractive commodity.

Instead of getting a good prospect who needs time in the developmental pipeline, the Jets are now in a position to draft a great prospect, who might even be NHL-ready by the fall.

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Matthews and Laine will play for the United States and Finland, respectively, at the world hockey championship in Russia, where Jets' general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff will be a keen observer. No team will ever commit publicly to a draft selection at this early stage because lots can happen between now and June 24, but assuming neither Matthews nor Laine gets hurt at the world championship, they will go 1-2.

Laine has been compared to former Jets star Teemu Selanne, who scored 76 goals as a rookie for the Jets, something that no one has come close to doing before or since. But Laine is flashy in the same way Selanne was; and his acquisition would add another quality young player to one of the deepest talent pools in the NHL.

A lot of general managers brought a lot of quirky good-luck charms to the CBC studios on lottery day. Many GMs are so deeply and weirdly superstitious that they wouldn't reveal what those talismans might be. Cheveldayoff didn't play the draft simulator and said his lucky charm was having his daughter born on St. Patrick's Day, which brought him the luck of the Irish, even though he isn't actually Irish. For anyone engrained in the hockey culture, that probably made total sense.

Whatever it took and however it happened, one thing was patently clear. The hockey gods took time out from their busy playoff schedules to smile on the Jets on Saturday night – and it felt like the right outcome.

Follow me on Twitter: @eduhatschek