The New Jersey Devils are one of the worst teams in the NHL this season, but a recent winning streak has moved them away from a top pick in the NHL Draft.

The New Jersey Devils came out of a Western Conference road trip on a high. They went 3-1-1 while picking up major wins over the Vegas Golden Knights (essentially making things nearly impossible to bounce back), Arizona Coyotes and Dallas Stars. The wins aren’t major because of what they mean for the Devils, but they’re major for what they mean for the standings.

The Devils entered the road trip one point behind (or ahead depending on how you look at it) the Philadelphia Flyers. They were fourth from bottom, and the Montreal Canadiens and Seattle Kraken were within striking distance. Now, just two weeks later, the Devils find themselves in fifth place, and a victory Thursday night would put them in a tie with the Chicago Blackhawks for sixth place.

The Devils have six games left as of this writing. They’ll probably have five games left once you read this. They have games against the Sabers, Red Wings and Senators on the schedule. They’re all in the bottom ten of the league and they’re battling for NHL draft positioning with the Devils.

The way the NHL Draft Lottery odds work this season makes it much more difficult to progress. In fact, it makes teams more likely to go down.

So right now the Devils are fifth from bottom. This means they have a 9.1% chance of winning the first overall pick and an 8.1% chance of winning the second overall pick. That means a chance to draft Shane Wright, Logan Cooley or Simon Nemec. However, their next possible pick is fifth overall, where they currently sit in the standings. They only have a 24.5% chance of getting the fifth pick. They actually have the best chance of getting the sixth pick, at 45.3%.

If the Devils only dropped one spot in the standings, which would take a three-point swing with the Seattle Kraken, the numbers would all go up one spot. So their most likely choice becomes the fifth choice, they have about a 15% chance of getting the fourth. And they have a slightly better chance of getting the first overall pick.

Going down two spots actually puts them in a position to only get one top-five pick, which is probably where the team wants to be when it comes to long-term strategy. To do that, they must usurp the terrible Philadelphia Flyers. The Devils are four points behind their rivals, but overtaking them would be best to win the long-term rivalry.

We’ve been pretty vocal about tanking in the past. It’s been a topic of conversation for years. That’s what happens when the team is bad so often. However, this year it seems to make sense. This draft has a lot of talent, and going up could give the Devils an opportunity. The season is a mess, half the team is injured, the goalkeepers are always absent and everything has gone wrong. Getting a better draft pick once again would really help the team in the long run, and losing might be the right move so the front office can make the necessary decisions in the offseason.