HOCKEY DRAFT Penguins lose the lottery, but have hope for Lemieux

The Capitals won the No. 1 pick, but the Penguins may get back Lemieux.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Losing the NHL draft lottery means that the Pittsburgh Penguins probably won't have Russian star Alexander Ovechkin when they next take the ice.
Coach Eddie Olczyk will happily settle for the player the Penguins drafted the previous time they finished last in the NHL standings: Mario Lemieux.
Lemieux, the Penguins' owner and Hall of Fame player, gave Olczyk every indication Tuesday that he will play next season, barring a lockout that would shut down the league. Lemieux missed all but 10 games this season with a hip injury.
"Getting Mario back, that's going to fill a void in the way teams play against us, the way teams coach against us," Olczyk said.
Capitals leap ahead
The Washington Capitals, coming off their worst season in 26 years, leaped ahead of Pittsburgh and Chicago to gain this year's No. 1 overall draft pick at Tuesday's lottery in New York.
Pittsburgh will choose second, Chicago third, Columbus fourth and Phoenix fifth. All 14 non-playoff teams took part. The draft is June 26-27 in Raleigh, N.C.
The Penguins were 3-4-3 until Lemieux was hurt Nov. 1 -- not a championship pace, but one much better than their final record of 23-47-8-4.
"Again, people don't realize that early in the season when Mario was in the lineup, teams were matching lines, they were changing up," Olczyk said. "That's such an important part to our club and makes us so much better, makes us so much deeper."
Strong finish
Without Lemieux, the Penguins were challenging the franchise record for fewest victories in a season, 16. But a 12-5-3 finish gave them hope that their transition from expensive veterans to lower-priced younger talent was beginning to take shape.
"I saw Mario this morning and we had a nice little discussion, and my perception was he's extremely excited about how we finished," Olczyk said. "He's not only our best player and my boss, he really likes what we did and how we improved."
Apparently, so much so that Lemieux is already planning to return next season, when he'll be 39.
No doubt the Penguins would have loved to play Lemieux and Ovechkin together; general manager Craig Patrick called Ovechkin "head and shoulders" above anyone else in the draft.
Some scouts consider Russian center Evgenii Malkin the next-best player available. The 6-foot-3, 185-pound Malkin had a goal and four assists in six games during the world junior championships, while Ovechkin had five goals and two assists.
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