The NHL playoffs are nearly half over, which means it’s time to start looking toward next season already. That all begins with the NHL Draft Lottery, which solidifies the order for the first 16 picks in the upcoming draft.

While there’s reason to be excited about draft prospects every year, this year’s top prospect Connor Bedard is a once-in-a-generation talent, so the stakes to pick first overall feel much higher.

One of the 16 teams left in the NHL playoffs will win the Stanley Cup come June, but tonight, another team will win the opportunity to shape their franchise for years to come.

Want to watch it all go down? We have all the info you need to tune into this year’s NHL Draft Lottery.

The NHL Draft Lottery will take place tonight, May 8.

The NHL Draft Lottery airs live at 8 p.m. ET.

The NHL Draft Lottery will air live on ESPN. If you have a traditional cable subscription, all you have to do is tune your TV to ESPN shortly before 8 p.m. ET tonight.

For those without cable, there are still a few ways to watch the NHL Draft Lottery live.

The first is with ESPN+. ESPN+ costs $9.99/month, and in addition to streaming the Draft Lottery live, you’ll also be able to watch a number of NHL Playoff games live, in addition to hundreds of out-of-market games during the regular season.

You’ll also be able to tune into the NHL Draft Lottery live with any live TV streaming service that carries ESPN. Those include fuboTV ($75/month), Sling ($40/month), and Hulu + Live TV ($70/month + includes ESPN+).

The NHL Draft Lottery ensures that multiple bottom-finishing teams will have a chance at the first overall draft pick, instead of it automatically going to the team who finished dead last (in this case, the Anaheim Ducks).

Based on changes first instituted in the 2021 draft, teams can move up to 10 spots higher than where they initially finished, meaning 11 teams could potentially get the first, second, or third overall pick (If a 12-16th place team gets selected, the first pick automatically becomes Anaheim’s). While there’s a huge opportunity to jump ahead for many teams, the most any team can drop is two spots.

So how does this actually work? The fate of all 16 teams lies in some ping pong balls.

14 ping pong balls are loaded into a lottery machine; each ball is numbered with 1 through 14. This ensures 1,001 possible number combinations — 1 more than the 1,000 necessary to complete the lottery.

Each team in the lottery is assigned a group of randomly selected number combinations. The amount of number combinations corresponds to where you finished during the regular season so the last place team will get the most number combinations and the most chances to have their combination come up with the ping pong balls.

The numbers are pulled ahead of time in a highly secretive meeting that includes NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and one representative from each team. What airs on TV (Bettman revealing the draft order using team logo placards) is filmed next, though the ping pong ball pulling is typically filmed and released on YouTube following the airing.

Connor Bedard, a centre from Vancouver, British Columbia, is 2023’s top draft prospect. The 17 year old previously played in the Canadian Hockey League’s Western Hockey League, and is one of a handful of players to be granted “exceptional status” that allowed him to join the WHL at 15, instead of the standard 16.

Aside from Bedard, some top prospects include University of Michigan’s Adam Fantilli, William Smith from Boston College, and European players Leo Carlsson, Matvei Michkov, and Dalibor Dvorsky.

In theory, there are 11 teams that can win the 2023 NHL Draft Lottery. These are the teams that finished 21st to 32nd in the regular season.

However, the Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, and Chicago Blackhawks are in the best position to be win the Draft Lottery after finishing 32nd, 31st, and 30th, respectively.

The 16 teams who are participating in the NHL Draft Lottery are: Anaheim Ducks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, Montreal Canadiens, Arizona Coyotes, Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, Nashville Predators, and Calgary Flames.

According to The Athletic, the odds to “win” the first overall pick in the 2023 draft are as follows:

*If this team wins the draft lottery, Anaheim gets the first overall pick.