Evan’s Daily: Blackhawks Win NHL Draft Lottery And Chance to Take Connor Bedard, Avalanche Free Agents

Only one lucky team was going to win the NHL Draft Lottery on Monday night. Unfortunately, that lucky team is one that already has had it’s fair share of luck over the last 15 years.

Last week, we took a peak at what free agents the Colorado Avalanche might look at from other teams. On Monday, we took a look at their own free agents and who has the best chance of coming back.

All that and more in this Tuesday edition of Evan’s Daily.

Colorado Hockey Now

The Avalanche have 8 players who are set to become unrestricted free agents. They will want to bring back a few, but they certainly won’t be bringing back all of them. Who has the best chance of coming back? We took a look at that here.

Before the NHL Draft lottery occurred, we took a look at it from an Avalanche perspective. Unfortunately, the end result might have been the worst-case scenario for Colorado.

In other Avalanche news, veteran defenseman Brad Hunt will be joining Team Canada for the World Championships.

On Tuesday, we’ll have another mailbag coming up, as we received so many questions last week. We’ll also focus on another player in our season in review series.

To Rick

I wanted to take a quick moment to recognize Rick Sadowski, who passed away on April 27. Rick covered the Avalanche for years with the Rocky Mountain News and NHL.com. Joining the media as a young writer can be a little intimidating, but Rick was always kind to me and treated me with respect. The news on Monday was difficult to hear, as he’s been a part of the Avalanche family for a very long time and I have nothing but good memories of him.

You can read his obituary here, and we send our condolences to his family.

NHL Draft Lottery

The Chicago Blackhawks are just exiting the Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews era, so you can imagine why a lot of people are frustrated that they won the draft lottery on Monday, and will be able to select Connor Bedard to kickstart their rebuild.

The city of Chicago, obviously, is exhilarated.

In case you don’t know anything about Bedard, here’s a short video of what he can do. He’s a special player, and next season, the Avalanche will be seeing a lot of him.

2 minutes of Connor Bedard goals this season pic.twitter.com/DGE63gIoaK

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) May 8, 2023

Montreal managed to stay in the top five of the draft, and now can focus in on who they want to take.

The Red Wings stuck at the ninth pick, and I’m sure no Avalanche fans feel bad for them.

Like Detroit, San Jose stayed exactly where they started, and will pick fourth.

NHL Playoffs

Momentum continues to be non-existent in the NHL playoffs, as Vegas rolled into Edmonton and stomped the Oilers, taking the 2-1 series lead.

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