The draft lottery has never been lucky for this team, and that streak is not broken — CBJ will pick in the #4 spot in June.
This has arguably been one of this franchise’s biggest shortfalls — that they’ve been bad pretty consistently, but not bad enough to get some extra balls in the lottery and come up with a top pick. Aside from picking Nash in 2002 (and trading up from #3 to do it), they’ve consistently had picks in the #4-8 range, thus not being able to pick players like Ovechkin, Doughty, Toews, etc. One can argue that the players they did pick weren’t necessarily the best choices, or that the team’s development system has consistently failed to turn raw but talented prospects into quality NHLers. And I wouldn’t disagree with that. But looking at some of the teams that did get those #1 or #2 picks over the past few years, and the players they got, and the way those franchises turned around…yeah, it burns.
Although if Cam Fowler falls into the CBJ’s laps, I may be willing to forgive and forget…
The Neutral Zone Trap 
To say that the CBJ “lost” by not getting the number one overall pick, for which they had just over a 10% chance of getting in the lottery, seems like a stretch.
I would suggest that they neither won nor lost last night. Now, falling back to 5th – that would have been a loss in my book.