If you're a fan of the Detroit Red Wings, Friday night's pain might've been worse than the regular season that saw the team combine to lose 54 times in 71 games.

The Red Wings fell down three spots in the NHL Draft Lottery, moving from 1st overall to 4th overall, incensing the Red Wings fan base and hockey fans around the league since the 1st overall pick with going to a placeholder team competing in the 24-team play-in tournament.

In a conference call on the Red Wings website, Steve Yzerman was obviously disappointed but isn't going to sit around and pout about it.

"We're going to get a great prospect, and how good of a player he becomes, time will tell. So we can sit here today and feel sorry for ourselves if we want, it doesn't matter," Yzerman said via the Red Wings website on a conference call with reporters.

"The system is what it is, and it's the same for all the teams. We're going to get a great prospect, we're going to do everything that we can to develop him, and maybe we will get lucky."

Coming off a historically bad season that saw them win only 17 games, the Red Wings desperately needed a franchise alternating piece. Alexis Lafrenière, the projected first overall pick in this year's draft, would looked great in Detroit alongside Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha, giving the team a legitimate top-end scoring line.

The Wings had the best odds coming into the lottery to pick first overall but also had a 50 percent chance of picking 4th, where they ultimately ended up.

"I'm not surprised. Again, we had an 18.5% chance of winning the first pick. So realistically, I'm prepared to be sitting here today not talking about the first pick," Yzerman said. "I'm not really surprised ... the eight playoff teams had a 24.5% chance combined of getting the pick, so the odds were better that the first pick went to the bottom eight than it did to us."

In the last three drafts, the 4th overall pick was Alex Turcotte, Brady Tkachuk, Cale Makar, so the Wings will likely be getting a potential star player.

TSN's Bob McKenize has OHL defenceman Jamie Drysdale out of the Erie Otters pegged as the consensus fourth best prospect in this year's draft.