OPINION DIVIDED ON NHL DRAFT LOTTERY
Finishing last is hardly a guarantee of landing top pick, and the math backs it up
It has the potential to be a gamechanger for a National Hockey League franchise.
Even though the Maple Leafs are finished, there will be no shortage of action at the CBC studios in Toronto as the second round of the NHL playoffs shifts into high gear Saturday night. That’s because representatives of 14 teams that missed the playoffs will be in the house to find out where they’re going to pick in the draft set for June 22-23 in Dallas.
League executives have to accept the reality that a big part of the future of their franchises relies on where their number falls in three separate lotteries to be held before the broadcast. This is the format the NHL has adopted to set its draft order after various teams had been accused of tanking over the years to get the top selection.
The league first went to the lottery format in 1995, not long after the Ottawa Senators were accused of intentionally losing games during their first season in the league — a year they finished with a 10-70-4 record — to get the No. 1 pick in the 1993 NHL draft.
The Senators will pack their bags for Toronto on Saturday, along with Canadian counterparts from the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers, to see who will come out the winner.
The Calgary Flames would have had the 12th-best odds at 2.5 per cent, but they dealt that selection to the New York Islanders for defenceman Travis Hamonic last summer. The pick wasn’t protected by general manager Brad Treliving, so it’s gone.
Picks from No. 4 to No. 15 will be announced during the pregame show on CBC, and then the top three are going to be revealed in the second intermission (about 9:30 p.m.) of the playoff game between the San Jose Sharks and Vegas Golden Knights.
With a 13.5-per-cent chance of winning the lottery, the 30thranked Senators will have the best odds of any Canadian team. The Buffalo Sabres lead the pack with an 18.5-per-cent opportunity, while the Arizona Coyotes have the third-best chance with 11.5-per-cent odds.
So, the real question is: Has the NHL’s weighted lottery worked?
It makes for a good debate and there are arguments for both sides, but it hasn’t completely halted teams from throwing in the towel since the opportunity is there to get better odds. The reality is, though, there’s more risk than reward because there’s an 81.5-per-cent chance the NHL’s worst team won’t get the top pick Saturday.
The format for the lottery shifted to its current form in 2016, when the NHL switched to conducting three separate draws to determine the top three positions, and that’s given more teams the opportunity to move. Last year, New Jersey went from No. 5 to No. 1, Philadelphia went from No. 13 to No. 2 and Dallas moved from No. 8 to No. 3.
“There are critics who say that there are teams that are legitimately bad and they deserve to get the pick they’ve earned,” a league executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Postmedia earlier this week. “I think it works (to prevent tanking).
“I just think with the possibility of moving down, teams don’t have the incentive to play poorly for a better draft position.”
If you want to know what winning the draft lottery can mean to a franchise, look no further than the Leafs. Since 2012, they are the only No. 1-ranked seed in the lottery to actually win it. They used that pick in 2016 to take all-star centre Auston Matthews, and by putting good players around him they’ve made the playoffs for two straight years.
Before facing the Senators in February, coach Mike Babcock told reporters a story about watching the lottery and his response when he found out the Leafs had kept their spot as the No. 1 seed. That’s only happened eight times in 23 lotteries, and the 24th lottery was after the 2004-05 lockout and the sweepstakes were wide open for Sidney Crosby.
“Well, we got Auston (Matthews),” Babcock said. “What if we don’t? I remember when we got to three, I was jumping up in the living room, and then when we got to one, I had tears.
“People don’t understand. You need real players. You can do everything you want, put them in the right spots. You need real players. You need lots of real players if you’re going to be good in the end. If you’re going to put your name on the silver thing, you need a real group of players.”
If you want to have an impassioned argument with somebody in the NHL, then bring up this
topic because there are points to be made on both sides. The Pittsburgh Penguins were close to bankruptcy at the time of the lottery coming out of the lockout in 2005 and were able to select Crosby.
Make no mistake, no team intentionally tries to lose once they put on the uniform nightly. However, over the years, teams have unloaded at the February trade deadline because management knows they have little or no chance at making the playoffs. So they clear the decks and see what happens down the stretch.
The Senators have the option of sending their top selection to the Colorado Avalanche as part of three-way deal the club struck — which also involved the Nashville Predators — that brought Matt Duchene to Ottawa. But general manager Pierre Dorion has already declared he’s “99.9 per cent” sure he’s going to keep the selection.
“Teams are still looking at (tanking) as an option and realize it will just increase their odds of getting the No. 1 pick and that they’ll be in the mix,” said former Maple Leafs assistant GM Dave Poulin, a colour analyst on TSN. “I really don’t think it has changed the philosophy of getting worse before you get better.
“To me, the effective model was Boston because they built around five players that they had — (Tuukka) Rask, (Zdeno) Chara, (David) Krejci, (Patrice) Bergeron and (Brad) Marchand — and they built around those guys with college free agents, players in Providence (AHL) and draft picks. That’s the more accelerated model, but you won’t know for four years, when those guys have moved on, if it works longer term.”
And there are those who believe the process should be done away with completely by giving every team that misses the post-season the same chance to get the No. 1 pick.
“It is way too much of a reward for the teams that fail when there’s a salary cap and revenue sharing,” said another league executive. “Why would the teams that fail continue to get rewarded with high picks like they do? All the teams that miss the playoffs should have the same chance to get the first pick.
“Have a lottery, but not a weighted lottery, and that way everybody is trying to make the playoffs and you don’t get penalized for trying to make the playoffs when other teams are specifically trying to tank.”
It’s a good point, but no change is coming any time soon and, if you look at the history of this lottery, in the big picture it’s working.
At this point, you can be certain only one team will walk away completely satisfied Saturday night with the outcome of the draft lottery, and it’s anybody’s guess who that might be.