In what has become an annual event, the NHL Players’ Association has yet again approved changes to the NHL Draft lottery odds. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that the NHLPA today signed off on a new lottery set-up recently submitted by the league. It marks the third season in a row that the odds have been altered.
The percentage chance that a team is selected to pick first, second, or third, as expressed by the number of ping pong balls present in the lottery draw, is dependent on where they finish in the overall league standings. Unsurprisingly, the changes to the odds first agreed upon in the Collective Bargaining Agreement began with the Edmonton Oilers and the painful realization that they had won yet another lottery in 2015 and would move up in the draft order to select Connor McDavid as their fourth first overall pick in a six year span. In response, the league significantly boosted the odds in 2016 toward the teams finishing last winning the lottery – expecting that Edmonton would no longer be in that range – as LeBrun notes that the 30th-place team had 20% odds of picking first two years ago. After the worst team in the NHL, the Toronto Maple Leafs, retained the top pick that year and selected Auston Matthews, the league and NHLPA again agreed to lessen the odds and insert more chance (and excitement) into the lottery. LeBrun indicates that last year the league’s worst, the Colorado Avalanche, had an 18% chance of holding on to the top pick. However, in a wild turn of events, three teams outside the bottom four won the lottery and moved into the top three draft slots, the biggest shift being the Philadelphia Flyers, who narrowly missed the playoffs, picking second. So, to perhaps combat another clean sweep, the odds have again been increased for those toward the bottom
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the new odds of selecting first for the upcoming 2018 NHL Draft will be 18.5% for 31st, 13.5% for 30th, and 11.5% for 29th. With the addition of an extra non-playoff team, there is also a new distribution which in fact increases the odds for the last team to miss the playoffs, the 17th-place finisher, by a tenth of a percent to 1%. This is accomplished by lessening the odds for the middle-of-the pack lottery teams. It may not be a coincidence that the Oilers are part of that group. Nor may it be a coincidence that the current bottom three – the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, and Arizona Coyotes – are all teams that have been struggling for years and would certainly appreciate retaining their high picks. This yearly change in draft lottery odds seems to be very responsive to the results of each prior lottery, but that isn’t a bad thing. So long as both the league and NHLPA agree, it’s safe to assume that the changes have the best interests of competitive balance in mind.
If the Oilers won the lottery in 2016 and added Matthews I cant imagine the change they would have made.
If the Oilers somehow finish with the #1 pick this year, they’ll make even more changes. As hectic as the draft odds are in the NHL though, they do a better job at addressing tanking than the NBA.
They’d give the Oilers a single ping pong ball entered into the lottery and somehow they’d still win haha
My simple solution I’ve had for all sports for years but no one will listen.
Top 10 picks each team has 1/31 odds for each pick. After that, reverse order of points.
If you’re the worst team in hockey, the worst pick you’d get is 11th overall.. not a game changing pick like mcdavid, but still a potential impact pick and it completely deters tanking and stops rewarding Edmonton for ineptitude.
Picks that are traded before the lottery are still the receiving team’s property. If Oilers are a poor team and you trade for their pick, it still has only 1/31 odds of being first overall, but still a better pick than Predators pick because it’s guaranteed to be in the top half of the draft.
Yes, the team that hoists Lord Stanley’s Cup at the end of the season has the same odds of getting the first overall pick next year as Buffalo or Edmonton Or one of the other poor teams, but I think it would provide for some draft excitement in years where we get an impact player (Crosby, Ovi, Eichel, McKinnon, McDavid etc).
Imagine the Pens getting the top overall pick and landing McDavid. I think the long term consequences would strengthen rivalries (if you already hate a team you’re going to hate them even more).
My simple solution works something like this:
Take all the owners to the arctic and drop them naked into a hole in the ice. Guy who stays in longest gets first pick, guy who stays in second longest gets pick #2 and so on.
I think this is pushing it too much. a team that wins the cup shouldn’t then be able to pick near the top with their own pick. You just potentially decrease the bad teams even more.
what I would do is say the bottom 5 have the same odds of winning the lottery. I also don’t believe anyone outside the top 5 should be able to move up more than 3 spots without winning the first pick. Phil last year was stupid.
It looks like they won’t be happy until the lottery process becomes as complicated as obtaining that free Loblaws card.
Of course they want to change it after the Avs got COMPLETELY screwed last year. What an absolute sham.