NHL draft simulator has fans dreaming
Rob Zaenglein does not remember who won the first mock draft.
It might have been Dallas, he said. Or Philadelphia. “I know it wasn’t Buffalo,” Zaenglein said. “And it wasn’t Toronto, because I would hate that.”
As the playoffs get further out of reach for the NHL’s basement dwellers — Buffalo had lost 14 straight games before beating Montreal on Tuesday and Toronto has now lost 10 straight — the NHL draft and the lottery to choose the order becomes more interesting to the fans of those teams
Zaenglein has created a site to let fans dream at least for a few minutes about having Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel in their team’s uniform.
The NHL Lottery Simulator allows fans a real look at whether their dead-end team actually has a shot at winning the No. 1 pick. The no-frills site keeps track of the overall standings and the percentages of winning. With one click, it randomly generates one possible scenario based on the current odds.
It can be addictive. And based on how some teams are playing these days, more enjoyable than watching an actual game.
A longtime sufferer of Buffalo sports — “I’m a Bills fan too,” he said — the 23-year-old web developer at the University of Buffalo created the simulator in December right after the Sabres had gone 10-3-0 and moved into 25th place in the league standings.
“I was starting to panic,” he said.
According to Zaenglein, the site has received more than 100,000 unique visitors in the 20 days it has been operational. Canadians represent 66 per cent of the traffic, with Toronto leading the way with 28 per cent.
As Zaenglein tweeted, “Well I think the lottery simulator has finally gone viral on hockey Twitter and all it took was the leafs losing 10 in a row!”
The real NHL Entry Draft Lottery works by having the 14 teams that do not qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs entered into a lottery for the chance to win the No. 1 pick. Odds are weighted based on where teams finish in the standings. In each of the last three years, the second-worst team has won the lottery and picked first.
Based on the current standings, the last-place Sabres have a 20 per cent chance of winning this year’s lottery. The 29th-place Edmonton Oilers have a 13.5 per cent chance, while the 25th-place Leafs have a 7.5 per cent chance — although that number keeps improving with every loss.
The site allows you to run the lottery as many times as you want, so fans can keep trying until their favourite team comes out on top.
“It definitely is fun for them,” Zaenglein said. “I don’t know if it’s hope, because a Toronto fan is probably seeing them lose it more times than they win it. The NHL is not going to pick a ball 10 times. They’re going to pick it once and it’s over. But for fans, they get to click and click until their team wins.
“It’s something to get over the misery of losing all the time.”