If you didn’t hear last night, the Blackhawks won the 2023 NHL Draft Lottery and get the opportunity to select Connor Bedard, a potentially franchise-altering talent, with the first overall pick. Social media was out of it’s ever-loving mind last night in Chicago, celebrating what could amount to the most significant moment since Gary Bettman handed the Stanley Cup to Jonathan Toews at the United Center in 2015.
- Here’s how the Blackhawks’ party reacted last night at the United Center:
- They should be happy! According to Darren Rovell, ticket sales took off last night!
- This really grabbed my heart as a dad. Kyle Davidson shared this story last night.
- Here’s the complete results of the draft lottery. The only change is the Blackhawks moving up from third to No. 1 overall.
- You know what’s especially awesome about this lottery result? Arizona stayed at No. 6 (though they acquire Ottawa’s pick at No. 12 as well), St. Louis did not move up from No. 10 and Nashville didn’t move up from No. 15. Keep the division rivals as low as we can, folks, even though they’re going to get really good players in those spots.
- Here’s the actual drawing:
- Lots of people are going to talk about the oops moment on ESPN last night for a long time. โAnd thereโs our first change in the order, with Columbus dropping to third, so now either Anaheim or Chicago will select first overall,” said Kevin Weekes before ESPN cut to commercial. Let the conspiracy theorists go crazy, but it was a teleprompter mistake according to Aaron Portzline of The Athletic, who was in the room for the actual drawing.
- It just keeps getting better, too. Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allan and Colton Dach will continue their playoff journey after winning the WHL’s Western Conference championship last night. All three played against Bedard in the WHL and with him on Canada’s World Junior team. Now they’ll be his teammate at some point in Chicago. What a time to be alive!
- The game that happened after the lottery didn’t have my focus at all because CONNOR BEDARD!!! but the Vegas Golden Knights really took it to the Oilers. Here’s what’s happening tonight:
- The speculation that the Rangers would go after Joel Quenneville may have hit a speedbump this weekend when Larry Brooks of the New York Post reported he was not on their candidate list, but there’s still a lot of buzz around his name. There is also increasing talk that teams are intrigued by Stan Bowman coming back as a general manager. However, Greg Wyshynski of ESPN reported on Monday that both would need to be reinstated by the commissioner to accept a job.
- Finally, the vibes are just so dang good with the Blackhawks right now I don’t want to think about the Willson Contreras show at Wrigley last night. So let’s focus on a young player working hard to get better.