A terrible Chicago Blackhawks performance at least helped their NHL Draft Lottery odds

No one played well in the Chicago Blackhawks' 4-0 defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

It was so bad that there was a long team meeting after the game. With only four games remaining, it is worth questioning whether holding this meeting makes sense since the season was lost in November.

However, as long as the veterans addressed the young guys that how the team played last night was unacceptable, it has some value.

Mind-boggling is one way of describing how bad the Hawks played. Uninspired might be another. Either way, no one played well, save rookie Sam Rinzel.

It is not a great look when the franchise cornerstones in Connor Bedard and Artyom Levshunov are that far in the negative. They are still teenagers, however that excuse can only last so long.

You can see that a good postgame discussion among teammates was warranted.

The defeat is not terrible in the long run, even if it was painful to watch.

That is because the Nashville Predators beating the New York Islanders last night allowed the Blackhawks to secure that their NHL Draft Lottery odds will be no worse than second.

The Blackhawks still have a chance to finish with the least number of points in the standings and thus secure the best odds to win the No. 1 pick.

The Sharks still have five games left, with the Hawks just being four points ahead of them in the standings.

Although it is going to be a tall order for the Sharks to somehow end the season with more wins or at least forcing five more overtimes, while the Hawks straight up lose in regulation over their final four games.

The Sharks face the Minnesota Wild, then have two games against the Edmonton Oilers, two against the Calgary Flames, and a matchup against the Vancouver Canucks. That is stretch involving one official playoff team in the Wild and three more chasing a playoff spot.

Plus, the Sharks have been playing just as badly as the Hawks since both are 2-7-1 over their past 10 games.

Hey, the Blackhawks won the lottery in 2023 without the most ping-pong balls, so at least securing a guarantee of the second-best odds is still a good deal.

Some fans are getting tired of monitoring Tankathon. That is fair since this team has done a lot of losing since 2017. The 2015 Stanley Cup run seems like a lifetime ago rather than just 10 years.

Although winning the NHL Draft Lottery this year might not be such a huge victory.

There is no prospect at the top of the rankings that is considered generational like Bedard. There is no true consensus top prospect like there was last year with Macklin Celebrini.

However, Michael Misa is the ideal skilled center with the size the Hawks could use to complete the rebuild. While the Blackhawks have plenty of promising young defensemen, it can never hurt to add one more like Matthew Schaefer.

That is why it would be great to have the No. 1 pick, even though it would be a tough decision to make on who to go with. It would not hurt to have the second pick either with the chance of getting whoever the team ahead of the Blackhawks does not take.