Winning the 2021 NHL Draft Lottery should be a reason for the Buffalo Sabres to celebrate.

With the best shot at landing the No. 1 pick in next month’s NHL Draft — 16.6 percent — by virtue of finishing in last place overall this past season, the Sabres got the lucky bounce of the ball for the second time four years and will pick No. 1.

The Sabres previously won the lottery in 2018 and selected defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, who has shown signs he could be a star but, like many of the Sabres’ best prospects, hasn’t quite met his potential while playing in a losing environment for several different coaches over the past few years.

Ironically, Dahlin hasn’t quite panned out as a franchise defenseman yet, and the No. 1 North American skater available in this year’s draft is another defenseman: Michigan’s Owen Power. There isn’t much hype about him being a cornerstone player yet, but of course he could land in Buffalo and make a spectacular one-two punch with Dahlin.

"There's a lot of good players in this draft, so we're excited about it. ... It's a big step in the right direction of where we're headed,” general manager Kevyn Adams said Wednesday.

It’s difficult, though, to celebrate anything right now for the Sabres. The club is in a medical dispute with star center Jack Eichel, and if it doesn’t rectify the situation Buffalo could find itself farther behind in its rebuild than it was during its collapse in 2020-21.

The 6-foot-2, 203-pound Eichel, with five more seasons left on his contract at an average annual value of $10 million against the salary cap, is battling a herniated disk problem that cut his season short. He wants a surgery that’s never been performed on a professional hockey player. The Sabres disagree with Eichel’s desire, a position Adams reaffirmed Monday.

If Eichel is disgruntled with both with the medical dispute and the Sabres’ disappointing performance on the ice (he’s never made the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Sabres haven’t qualified since 2011), Buffalo could trade him. But what’s the value of a star player with a serious medical condition who wants to get a unique procedure done?

If they keep him and he gets healthy, will he be able to produce for an organization he had such a serious disagreement with?

It’s an unenviable position for the Sabres, especially Adams, who’ll be entering just his second season as an NHL general manager. Maybe selecting a new head coach that Eichel approves of will help. Perhaps the No. 1 pick will make staying with Buffalo more attractive. Or maybe there’s a team out there willing to give the Sabres the type of haul in young players and picks that would make an Eichel trade worthwhile for an organization that might need to just move on from the No. 2 overall pick in the 2015 draft.

If they trade Eichel (or even if they don’t), they might also consider dealing restricted free agent Sam Reinhart and veteran defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, who’s signed for one more season at $5.4 million. They have two second-round picks and two third-round picks this season already in addition to the No. 1 pick, and they could continue to replenish their prospect pool through a series of trades. They could also utilize their $32 million in cap space the way many teams did last season, stockpiling draft picks in exchange for lowering the salary-cap burden for other teams involved in trades.

It figures, though, that an organization that has known mostly misery for more than a decade should be plotting out a future built around Eichel, Dahlin and the 2021 No. 1 overall pick, and instead all it has is uncertainty and a possible longer rebuild to deal with.