Morning Coffee: NHL Draft Odds Shift Dramatically Following McKenzie’s Final Rankings

Shane Wright was the overwhelming favourite to be the number one overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft at FanDuel for over a month.

That changed late on Tuesday morning.

Shortly after Bob McKenzie’s Draft Ranking Show went live, FanDuel took their odds to be the first overall pick off the board.

At the time, Wright to be the first overall pick was -900.

When the draft odds came back online moments later, FanDuel had Wright at -210 to go number one.

Juraj Slafkovsky, the Slovakian winger who Bob McKenzie had No. 1 in his final draft ranking, went from +450 to +130 as the second choice to be the top pick at FanDuel.

Less than one week after the unprecedented sports betting experience that was the 2022 NBA Draft, we got a major move in the NHL Draft betting market that created a unique opportunity for anybody following it.

Here’s the TSN EDGE Morning Coffee for Wednesday June 29th, 2022.

Who Will Go No. 1 In 2022 NHL Draft?

It’s important to keep Bob McKenzie’s draft ranking decision in context.

McKenzie called his final draft ranking a “photo finish”, explaining the split between Slafkovsky and Wright among the NHL scouts that he spoke with, and noting that if he had talked with a separate set of scouts then they might have arrived at a different conclusion.

You can read his full article below.

It’s a photo finish for the No. 1 spot on TSN’s 2022 NHL Draft Final Ranking from @TSNBobMcKenzie and, by the slimmest of margins, it’s Juraj Slafkovsky over Shane Wright... The Final Top 90 and 10 Honourable Mentions: https://t.co/n8kTicQVAH#TSNHockey | #DraftCentre pic.twitter.com/OUCyGa3mmq

As far as the betting market reaction, everything that we saw on Tuesday went as anticipated.

At the time that the final ranking was released,