MONTREAL – The ice isn’t the only place NHL general managers are hoping to get a few lucky bounces.

On Tuesday night, the NHL will announce the draft lottery winner as well as what will be the final order for the first 14 picks in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. The draw will take place earlier that day and will follow a complex system which we’ll try our best to unravel for you in the next few paragraphs.

To begin with, it’s important to know that only the 14 non-playoff teams are eligible to participate in the lottery, in addition to the clubs that acquired the first-round draft picks of any of those 14 clubs.

If a team’s number is drawn, they can jump ahead no more than four spots. For example, in 2011, the New Jersey Devils were slated to pick eighth at the upcoming draft, but they won the lottery. They were able to jump four spots ahead to draft fourth overall. While a team can move up four spots, they can only drop one, so a team that finishes third last in the league will draft no lower than fourth overall in June.

When it comes to the teams’ chances of winning, the system is both simple and complicated. People might think each team’s logo would be stamped on a small ball, but that’s not quite how it works.

Fourteen balls with the numbers 1 to 14 are dropped into the mix and four of those balls are randomly selected. Depending on the final standings, a number of combinations are given out to each team. For example, the team finishing last will obtain 25% of the combinations, the team finishing 29th will have 18% of the combinations and so on through No. 14, who receives just 0.5% of the combinations.

The sequence of numbers drawn will then be compared to the chart of combinations. The winning team would then jump four ranks and every team below that rank will slide down one spot.

Vincent Cauchy is a writer for canadiens.com. Translated by Lee Anne Vincent O’Connor.