Where the Nashville Predators are Projected in the NHL Draft Lottery
In just over 24 hours, the Nashville Predators will find out which pick they will have in the first round of the 2026 NHL Draft.
The Predators are one of 16 teams that missed out on this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs and will let the draft lottery decide their fate for where they will be drafting. Tuesday night, Nashville will know the answer to that question.
But first, let’s look at where the Nashville Predators are projected to land in the first round and their odds to get the top pick in the draft.
With their record being 38-34-10 during the 2025-2026 season, the Predators finished in 23rd in the league overall and are projected to receive the 10th pick in this year’s NHL Draft if the lottery follows the chalk.
A positive with finishing in the bottom 11 teams of the league is that there is a chance for each of the 11 worst teams to win the top pick in the lottery. According to NHL lottery rules, a team can move up a maximum of 10 spots from their originally projected spot, meaning teams 12 through 16 in the lottery cannot win the first pick in the draft.
With the Predators being 10th in the league, Nashville has a 3.5% chance to win the top overall pick in this year’s draft and a 3.7% chance to win the No. 2 overall pick in the draft.
However, the most likely spot the Predators will land is the 10th pick, which has a 73.3% chance of happening, according to draft lottery analytics. Additionally, they also have a 18.4% chance to fall one spot and land the 11th pick in this year’s draft and a 0.9% chance to move down to 12th in the first round.
The Predators are coming off a season in which it had a rough 6-12-2 start that forced them to play catch up the rest of the season. Nashville was able to turn things around and even battle for the final wild card spot in early April, but ultimately finished 4-5-1 to end the season and finished four points shy of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
A year ago, the Predators fell to the No. 5 pick in the draft after having the third-best odds to win the lottery. This year, they are hoping the lottery balls will treat them kindly.
The 2026 NHL Draft Lottery will take place Tuesday night at 6 p.m. CT on ESPN.
Follow us on Twitter/X, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, Bluesky and Instagram for the latest news.
Graham Baakko is a lead writer for both Nashville Predators On SI and Vanderbilt Commodores On SI, primarily covering football, basketball and baseball. Graham graduated from the University of Alabama, where he wrote for The Crimson White, WVUA-FM, WVUA 23 as he covered a variety of Crimson Tide sports. He also covered South Carolina athletics as an intern for GamecockCentral.