No apologies from Dix as hub city dream ends
Unlike past, more normal seasons, Jim Benning says he's not sweating over how the lottery balls will bounce in the 2020 NHL draft lottery. Or where, and when, his Vancouver Canucks pick. Part of it is the GM is just so busy. Benning is getting his draft list organized. With Judd Brackett no longer the director of amateur scouting, he and assistant general manager John Weisbrod held meetings with regional scouts last week. Benning had meetings with the two remaining crossover scouts this week.
Benning is also dealing with the day-to-day COVID-19 logistics of bringing players back to Vancouver for training camp next month. And there's preparing for the hoped-for return to game action (and playoffs) in early August, wherever that may be.
Add in the fact his team isn't sitting toward the high end of probability in landing a top-three spot in the lottery draft, he's just not feeling any stress about today's draw.
“In this case we'll just sit back and enjoy the process,” he said this week over the phone. “We'll just see where it goes. In this world we live in now of unknowns, it's not a big one. I'm not going to worry.”
Phase 1 of this year's convoluted lottery goes today. The seven teams that are not competing in the qualifying round for the 2020 Stanley Cup post-season — which the NHL hopes will start in early August — have their names tied directly to balls that will go in the pot.
Another eight teams are in the mix as well, but until the qualifying round takes place, we don't know who they'll be. They're the so-called variables.
The Canucks could turn out to be one of the variables, but they won't know until after they finish the qualifying round. If they lose to the Minnesota Wild, they'll find themselves as one of the draft lottery variables. If they beat the Wild, then they cede their first-round draft pick to the New Jersey Devils.
On Friday, the NHL will run Phase 1 of the 2020 lottery, drawing three balls to determine the first three picks of this year's draft, which will likely take place in late October. If all three picks land with one of the seven initial teams in the lottery, then there's no worries. But if one of the still-playing teams gets pulled, then there will be a second phase to the lottery, taking place after the qualifying round.
The eight teams that lose in that round will be in the Phase 2 lottery.
THE WHAT-IFS
A Phase 2 lottery assumes the qualifying round actually happens. As has been demonstrated by the slow hub city selection process and the growing outbreaks of COVID-19 across large swaths of the U.S., nothing seems certain.
So what if the qualifying round doesn't happen?
According to TSN's Bob McKenzie, the NHL has a Plan B, but league officials have not shared that information. McKenzie reported one GM suggested to him the league should use a format similar to the one deployed in 2005, the draft after the unplayed 2004-05 season, which was lost because of the owners locking out the players in their efforts to secure a salary cap system.
With no standings to work with that year, the league put every team in the lottery.