Blackhawks nearly locked into second-best lottery odds with 11 games left

Jeff Chiu/AP Photos

The Blackhawks’ last two results — losing to the Ducks and beating the Sharks — have gone a long way toward permanently solidifying the bottom of the NHL standings this season.

With 11 games left for the Hawks and either 11 or 12 left for the other two teams, the Sharks have 40 points, the Hawks have 45 and the Ducks have 52.

The Sharks seem unlikely to make up a five-point gap during the season’s final weeks, and the Hawks seem equally unlikely to make up a seven-point gap, especially considering how infrequently these bottom-dwellers earn points at all.

Above the Ducks, the 29th-place Blue Jackets sit all the way up at 58 points, creating another gap that seems unlikely to be bridged.

That means the top of the draft-lottery order seems nearly locked in — even though the league has curiously not announced a date for the lottery yet.

Barring any huge movements, the Sharks will possess a league-best 25.5% chance of ending up with the No. 1 pick and presumptive top selection Macklin Celebrini. The Hawks will have a 13.5% chance and the Ducks will have an 11.5% chance (the odds the Hawks won with last year).

The Hawks will also be guaranteed a top-four pick, as they will not be able to fall lower than that, but that certainty matters less this year since there’s such a murky hierarchy of prospects beyond Celebrini. Michigan State freshman defenseman Artyom Levshunov might be emerging as a slight favorite to go No. 2 overall, but even that is far from a sure thing.

Hypothetically, had the Hawks not pulled off their enormous comeback Saturday against the Sharks — rallying from 4-0 down to win 5-4 in overtime — they would still be within shouting distance of the best lottery odds. Sweeping the three-game season series against San Jose, however, accounts for the entire difference between the two teams.

Despite the win over the weekend, coach Luke Richardson was angry about the Hawks' overall effort on their three-game California road trip, which he expressed at the end of practice Monday by bag-skating the team up and down the rink.

He called the first half of the Sharks game a "disaster," and he obviously disliked the fact the Kings and Ducks outscored them by a combined 11-2 margin, too.

"That's just not professional enough for me," Richardson said. "[Our bag skate reflected] the way the game is played: up and down the ice, or over and back. It sets home that it's really unacceptable for the standard that we want to have for work ethic. So we worked in practice today."

The forward lines were shuffled again to create a more balanced set of trios, with the most notable change being red-hot Ryan Donato joining Connor Bedard and Philipp Kurashev on the top line. Before practice, Reese Johnson (concussion) and Connor Murphy (middle-body injury) skated individually, but Colin Blackwell (upper-body injury) did not.

After two more games this week against subpar opponents — Tuesday against the Flames and Thursday against the Senators — the Hawks will close the season with nine straight matchups against teams in the playoff race, including six currently in the field.

"The season [has been] a difficult one for everybody," defenseman Jarred Tinordi said Monday. "We expected to take a step and improve a little bit [compared to last season]. I didn't think we would be in the situation that we're in now, but it is what it is. Now the goal is to try to finish the year off the way we want to."