Canadians are left to sit and play the lottery
We just might want to make April 30 a holiday . . . in Northern Alberta, at least
I’m not a gambler, but I have been playing the lottery lately. Like most poor lottery-playing souls, I never win. Of course, I can’t win, because I do not have a horse in the race. I’m just mashing buttons, and daydreaming about better lives. Vancouver. Winnipeg. Edmonton. The NHL lottery order will be determined April 30, and it will be the biggest Canadian hockey moment since the last one, when Gary Bettman watched stone-faced as Edmonton worked their devil magic again. Connor McDavid didn’t look happy either, but he’s making the best of it. He should win the Calder Trophy, by the way. He’s probably going to be the best player in the league within a year or so, if he isn’t already. Edmonton. Toronto. Calgary. Canada hasn’t been shut out of the playoffs since 1970, but like Edmonton picking first overall, history repeats itself. We are a nation of hockey incompetents this year, in mostly different ways. Montreal lost the best goaltender in the world. Calgary got the worst goaltending in the world. Winnipeg got the third-worst goaltending in the world. Get a goalie, kids. They come in handy. Winnipeg. Vancouver. Edmonton. So I am refreshing the NHL lottery simulator, which lives at nhllotterysimulator.com, and every result is full of imagined hatred and envy and sadness and joy. Good lord, Edmonton might win it again. Oh my god, imagine if Canadian teams get shut out of the top three. Every result has weighted odds, but it’s random. The actual draw will only happen once. Last year, going into the final ball, the Leafs had twice the odds of Edmonton of getting McDavid. The universe is a random place, and time only moves forward. Possibilities abound. Columbus. Arizona. Edmonton. Canada’s teams are all at different stages of the wasteland. Vancouver is just entering the desert, after a prosperous run. Calgary and especially Toronto are starting something. Winnipeg and Montreal seem the most likely to be just visiting, and Ottawa pops in and out, on the eternal return voyage of the semi-damned.
Edmonton lives in the desert, and has set up a tent and an irrigation system. Sometimes it feels like it will never leave. Detroit. Calgary. Edmonton. Every team in Canada has wasted a year of its best players, and in some cases great players. In Vancouver, the Sedins are one year older, and are still doing what is left of their precise, peerless dance. (Career points per game: Henrik, 0.8336, Daniel 0.8276.) In Calgary, the Flames are one year further into the career of Johnny Gaudreau, Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, Sean Monahan. Same for Blake Wheeler and Dustin Byfuglien in Winnipeg. Edmonton only got McDavid for half a season. In Ottawa, the brilliant Erik Karlsson may win another Norris while Ottawa spins its wheels, and in Montreal, they have lost a year of P.K. Subban and Carey Price.
Toronto? Well, come back next year. Toronto was the one Canadian team that actually meant to do what it did this season, by the way.
Arizona. Edmonton. Vancouver.
At least this year we don’t have to endure the eternally dumb argument over whether Canada should unite as a nation behind the last Canadian team left. The answer is always, no, we should not. We are a hockey nation of seven warring tribes, and that is how it should remain. Calgary. Toronto. Edmonton. To that end, April 30 will be a riot. If Edmonton gets Auston Matthews, maybe a literal riot. If Toronto does? Oh, how the country will wail. Whoever does well will be the jerk franchise, the lucky bastard.
See? Let the hatred flow through your veins. At least then, we can all feel something besides disappointment.
But everyone has a chance, because this was the year of failure. Is there a pattern? No, not really. This country does tend to love its teams to death, and the pressure and scrutiny has often weighed on front offices, on players, on everyone. As one former member of the Leafs organization put it once, “Everyone comes in preaching patience, and then they get a little taste of success, and they see how good it could be, and that’s when their eyes get wide.”
Still, that’s not a universal condition this year. There is no one problem, and no one solution. Ottawa. Edmonton. Winnipeg. No matter what happens April 30, some Canadian teams will get screwed by math, relatively or otherwise. Matthews, the American centre, is seen as the consensus No. 1 pick, and Finnish wingers Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi after that, and then a slight dropoff from No. 4 to 12.
As it stood Friday morning, Edmonton had a 20 per cent chance at No. 1, Toronto 13.5 per cent, Vancouver 11.5 per cent, Winnipeg 8.5 per cent, Calgary 7.5 per cent, Montreal 5 per cent, Ottawa 3.5 per cent. That makes a 69 per cent chance a Canadian team gets Matthews. And if you are Canadian, there is at least an 80 per cent chance that your favourite team will not.
Carolina. Edmonton. Vancouver. Carolina? Perhaps this post-season drought will be helpful, a break. No postseason stress. More time on our hands. Maybe Canada can spend their NHL playoff time going for walks, reading a book, having a nice conversation. Is there a little restaurant you’ve been meaning to try? Maybe this is the year. Toronto’s used to it, by now.
Just keep April 30 open. We all know Edmonton’s going to win, but until then, we can at least pretend otherwise.