Last-place Leafs win lottery

Brendan Shanahan's job of rebuilding the Toronto Maple Leafs got a big boost after the last-place team won the NHL draft lottery, putting it in a position to take U.S. center Auston Matthews with the first pick.

With a 20 percent chance of winning the lottery on Saturday night, the Maple Leafs became the first last-place team to retain the position in the draft order since the Edmonton Oilers in 2010.

The Winnipeg Jets made the largest jump, moving from the sixth to the second selection. The Columbus Blue Jackets moved up one spot to third.

What was also significant is the Oilers didn't win. Edmonton dropped two spots, and will be picking fourth. The Oilers had the first pick in four of the previous six drafts and won the lottery three times.

The Vancouver Canucks slipped from third to fifth. The Calgary Flames dropped one spot and will be picking sixth.

The order of the final eight teams stayed the same.

The draft will be held in Buffalo on June 24-25.

"We earned this the hard way. It wasn't a whole lot of fun this year," said Shanahan, the Maple Leafs' president. "When you have an opportunity to pick first overall, it's an important moment for the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's an important moment for our fans and our ownership group, who have given us the support to do this build the right way."

The Maple Leafs have had the first pick just once, in 1985 when they selected Wendel Clark. Shanahan wouldn't provide any hints as to which player the Leafs might select.

Listed at 6-foot-2 and 194 pounds, Matthews is an Arizona-born forward and rated by NHL Central Scouting as the draft's top prospect. After spending three seasons playing for various USA Hockey developmental teams, Matthews elected to play for Zurich in Switzerland's professional league. He had 24 goals and 22 assists for 46 points in 36 regular-season games, but managed just 3 assists in 4 playoff games before Zurich was eliminated.

Matthews hasn't played since March, but will have an opportunity to showcase his talents by representing the United States at the world hockey championships in Russia next month.

The NHL's last-place team has won the lottery just six times in the 21 times it has been held. The Oilers in 2010 were the last last-place team to win the lottery, which led to them selecting Taylor Hall.

The NHL revised the lottery this year by watering down the chances of the last-place team landing the top pick, and for the first time allowing all non-playoff teams a chance to land one of the top-three selections.

In previous years, only the No. 1 pick was subject to the lottery, meaning the team finishing last could fall no further than landing the second pick.

One significant concern was the Oilers winning the lottery a year after they jumped two spots and selected highly touted forward Connor McDavid.

The Oilers have remained at the bottom of the standings despite picking no lower than 10 in each of the previous seven drafts. Edmonton finished 29th in the standings to extend the franchise's playoff drought to 10 seasons.

Calgary Flames President Brian Burke was quoted on the team's website questioning whether teams should be allowed to have No. 1 picks in consecutive years by noting "you can't get rewarded for continued failure or continued luck."

On the NHL's pre-draft lottery TV show, Oilers General Manager Peter Chiarelli noted his franchise took plenty of what he called "flak" from around the league for winning last year.

Sports on 05/01/2016

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