As the second half of the NHL season ramps up and teams begin jockeying for playoff spots, there's another battle going on at the bottom of the standings.

The allure of drafting NHL Central Scouting's No. 1 skater in their midterm rankings, Connor Bedard, is strong. Saying it's "strong" is putting it very lightly because we haven't seen this kind of fervor for the cellar since 2015 when Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were the prizes atop the draft board. Even though the rules on the draft lottery are a little different compared to back then, it hasn't stopped executives from attempting to set their teams up to be in the best position to be No. 1 at this summer's draft.

Even though the bottom 11 teams have the opportunity to pick first, there are seven teams that are making the hardest run at having the best odds for the lottery. No disrespect (?) intended for the likes of St. Louis, Ottawa, Detroit and Philadelphia, but you guys are almost within sniffing distance of the playoffs, whereas the next seven teams we're going to rank out are not.

We're ranking out which teams among the bottom seven could stand to win the lottery the most and come away with Bedard, a prospect thought of to be in the same class as McDavid or Sidney Crosby. How does one rank out bad teams? We could be boring and just go by record and determine that's who needs Bedard most. But we're not boring, no, no.

We're going to slot out the insignificant seven based on how long they've been bad, bad luck in previous lotteries and how recent they've had a No. 1 pick, along with how poorly they're playing this season. We need some gray area in there so you can turn red in the face and yell about it in the comments. And that's why we're really here, isn't it?

To the countdown!

7. Chicago Blackhawks

If there could be one united cause among NHL fans, it would be to make sure the Chicago Blackhawks do not win the NHL draft lottery and gain the No. 1 pick. The world is very much over the Blackhawks for myriad reasons.

We've seen Chicago a million times (rough estimate) in the spotlight since the Blackhawks emerged as the Stanley Cup champions in 2010. They've been in countless Cup Finals and outdoor games. They essentially copied the Detroit Red Wings' formula for how to win a pile of titles in a (relatively) short amount of time and were very successful as they won it in 2010, 2013 and 2015. If there was a marquee event to be played or a prime-time game to be played, chances were pretty high the Blackhawks with Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp were going to be a part of it.

Enough with the Blackhawks, they've had their fill.

As for this year's team on the ice, the 'Hawks front office has been making sure they can sink to the bottom, and that's even before they trade Kane and/or Toews. This year's team wasn't built to win, and that's just how they like it.

Listen, that's just how business gets done in these once-in-a-generation-player situations. It doesn't mean we have to want to see the Blackhawks come away with Bedard, and I can speak for a lot of the NHL world and say that we do not. Get 'em outta here.

6. Vancouver Canucks

You can make a sympathetic case for Vancouver Canucks fans to see their team win the lottery and snag Bedard.

Bedard is from North Vancouver, British Columbia, and the Canucks getting to draft him would be the ultimate hometown hero story that could double as a savior tale as well.

The Canucks are down bad in all kinds of ways, and things feel really tough there after Bruce Boudreau's long, drawn out firing. It's also looking more likely they'll trade soon-to-be unrestricted free agent, and team captain, Bo Horvat. And the injuries are mounting with Ilya Mikheyev out with an ACL problem, Thatcher Demko has been out with a lower-body injury since the beginning of December, and Tanner Pearson's hand injury has been operated on twice and got Quinn Hughes to sound off about how poorly he felt that situation has been handled.

Yikes. That's a lot for any player to walk into, never mind an 18-year-old who grew up as a fan of the team, particularly a team that's never had the No. 1 pick in the draft in its history. That said...it's really tough right now to want to see Canucks management come away with a win.

It's really hard to see what happened with Boudreau from the odd conditions that were laid down for the contract he received when he got the job to the unspoken-but-obvious lame-duck status he had for the past few weeks before he was ultimately relieved of the job Jan. 22. Boudreau was treated terribly and was left to dangle out in the open and had the support of the fans through all of it.

If there's such a thing as karma, it'll pay off with the Canucks extending their streak of never having the No. 1 pick by one more year.

5. Montréal Canadiens

The Canadiens' season started off with a lot of promise. The young and excitable Habs pushed the pace of the game, scored a bunch of goals and pressed teams all over the ice. It was a sight to behold...until the injuries started.

Montréal has a boatload of young players, including team captain Nick Suzuki, Kirby Dach, Cole Caufield (injured, shoulder), Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Jordan Harris and...oh right, last year's No, 1 pick, Juraj Slafkovský. Ah, there's the rub.

The Canadiens are building back from within, and they've got a lot of prospects coming up through the pipeline, many of which who've had to play in the NHL this season because of the medical mayhem. Seeing any team win the No. 1 pick in back-to-back years will make anyone apart from that team's fans upset, and given what Montréal has coming on the horizon, adding a player the caliber of Bedard feels like Spinal Tap turning the amp up to 11.

The stage la belle province would provide Bedard would be incredible. He's a player bound to be the next big star, and a hockey-mad city like Montréal feels like it would be an incredible setting for him. But do we really want to see it happen?

After all, we saw the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final just a couple of seasons ago because of the brilliance of Carey Price and the good fortune to be in the all-Canadian division loaded with teams that, ahem, have issues winning in the postseason. The Habs fall into the only category they could own: "Sure, it'd be cool if it happened. I just would rather not have to deal with it."

4. San Jose Sharks

I don't want to go biblical on the San Jose Sharks because they've had a rough go of things the past couple of seasons, but their plan to rebuild on the fly rather than tearing it down is a "pride goeth before the fall" kind of situation.

San Jose ownership is too proud to pull it apart at the seams and build back from the bottom. And it's somewhat understandable. For years the Sharks had supreme top-end talent with Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, and building around them was made easier by their abilities. When they eventually added the likes of Logan Couture and Marc-Édouard Vlasic through the draft and Brent Burns via trade, it turned them into a regular Western Conference contender and eventually to the Stanley Cup Final in 2016, where they lost to Pittsburgh.

Even this year they're at a crossroads of sorts. Couture and Vlasic are approaching their mid-30s, and their best seasons appear behind them. Timo Meier is on everyone's trade wish list, and even the thought of trading Erik Karlsson is out there despite his massive contract. Their prospect pipeline is building up but needs help, which should mean trades can help that out. But will they?

"Are you in, or are you out, McFly?"

Until the Sharks decide they're in on going to the bottom or out trying to fight the good fight, wanting to see Bedard go there is tough to want when there are other, clearer cases to be made. That said, the thought of Bedard playing with William Eklund and Thomas Bordeleau in the very near future would be very exciting. If they're going to get the first No. 1 pick in team history, it'd be hard to do better than Bedard.

3. Columbus Blue Jackets

The Blue Jackets need a boatload of help, and Connor Bedard would give them something they've never had before: a game-breaking No. 1 center.

No disrespect intended to Boone Jenner, Jack Roslovic or Cole Sillinger, of course, but Columbus landing Bedard would inject lightning into what the team is trying to build in Ohio's capital city.

The Blue Jackets get a lot of credit for what they're trying to do there in the fact that they're trying. Signing Johnny Gaudreau in free agency shows to the league that they're itching to get back to the postseason and maybe upset the No. 1 seed or, heck, become the No. 1 seed to be upset. Adding Gaudreau to a roster that already had Patrik Laine and young players like Sillinger and Kent Johnson who are on the rise means they've got a clue with what they want to do. Throwing Bedard into that cauldron could make the Blue Jackets a lot of fun to watch real soon.

The Jackets have picked No. 1 once in their brief history and hit it out of the park with Rick Nash back in 2002, a draft that wound up lacking in elite talent. Nash was great, but they weren't able to give him a lot of help over his time there. That would not be the case for Bedard.

Having that one No. 1 pick ever, however, is enough to edge them out of the top spot in this ranking. That it happened 21 years ago come June should be enough time to say it's been long enough in most cases, but the next two teams in line have some real hardship cases.

2. Anaheim Ducks

With the distinct lack of big American cities at the bottom of the NHL standings (apart from Chicago, that is), Anaheim provides a big city adjacent opportunity for Connor Bedard, and the Ducks' case for it comes with some sympathy.

Flash back to 2005 when the NHL held a league-wide draft lottery after the lockout wiped out what would've been the 2004-05 season. Without any standings to truly set the field, everyone went into the pool with things weighted to a degree based on how 2004 ended. The Ducks came away with the No. 2 pick and got Bobby Ryan out of it. Not bad, but they didn't get the No. 1 pick the Pittsburgh Penguins got to select Sidney Crosby. Would love to have the butterfly effect ability to see what that alternate timeline would've looked like, but instead we're in the real world where the Ducks have never had the No. 1 pick.

The Ducks have been stung by bad injury luck this season given Jamie Drysdale's long-term absence with a shoulder injury. They have Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry and Mason McTavish to make up part of their new, young core for the future. They're all exciting players and give hope to Orange County that the Ducks will rise again in the future, but adding Bedard to that mix would help make it happen sooner than not.

The Ducks have won a Stanley Cup in the 2000s (2007), and the one player from that team that's still in the league is Corey Perry, so it's been a while, but not forever. The Ducks are bad and have a ton of holes, but they're the kind of issues a guy like Bedard would help provide a lot of spackle to cover them in the meantime. If they get the top pick, it's not a crime against humanity, just one where you'd feel pretty bad for the No. 1 team on our rankings.

1. Arizona Coyotes

The Arizona Coyotes have been through hell, and they're trying to come back. They've been through ownership nightmares, they're sharing a (very cool) college facility as a home rink until a new one might be built, and if/when they open a new facility to once and for all cement their home in the desert, having a crown jewel kind of player to do so would make for a poetic, and likely deeply infuriating, end to the saga.

Deserves has nothing to do with anything, which is what makes these rankings great. I don't care who deserves anything, but if there were a team that you could say deserves a freakin' break, it's the Coyotes.

They got skunked in the 2015 McDavid lottery by the Oilers leapfrogging everyone to get to No. 1. Instead of McDavid or Eichel they selected Dylan Strome and allowed the Toronto Maple Leafs behind them to take Mitch Marner. Whoops. Their run in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2012 was impressive until they were steamrolled out of the postseason by the Los Angeles Kings. That they escaped being moved out of Arizona at least twice thanks to Glendale City Council votes is eye-crossing in how small-time that whole thing played out. Heck, they couldn't even get the No. 1 pick in 2016 to select native son Auston Matthews.

But if they're keeping the Coyotes in town (and they very likely will), having an elite talent there to fill up an arena in a big city that's only getting bigger will be key. The Coyotes coming away with the top pick this year could create a new hockey hotbed, as well as make a lot of people north of the border deeply angry.

The franchise has had a No. 1 pick before...back in 1981 when they were in Winnipeg and selected Hall of Famer Dale Hawerchuk, and just about everyone with the current Jets (the former Atlanta Thrashers) would claim that pick as theirs.

Give me the Coyotes landing Connor Bedard, and bring me the chaos that will go along with it everywhere else.