Who To Pick For Nhl Draft?

Understanding the NHL draft lottery? LITY?

• Please tell me if this makes sense to you- So, you are a fan of the Tampa Bay Lightning or the Los Angeles Kings and the only race your teams are in are the race for the bottom of the cellar, the race to get that next superstar that will put your team back into contention. There will be no hoisting Lord Stanley this year and you can put that parade route on hold. As we know, with the advent of the NHL entry draft lottery, finishing last however, does not ensure that you will get that 1st overall pick. Take last year for instance where the Chicago Blackhawks had only an 8.1% chance of getting number 1 but they managed to get the right concoction of numbers to pull off the feat. We all know the rest of the story, they drafted Patrick Kane, the young American forward who is the front runner for the Calder Memorial Trophy, given out to the top rookie. So, to understand how these formulas work and calculate what your team's chances are, we have to delve deeper. All 14 teams who miss the play-offs are entered into the lottery in order from worst to first but the teams selected in the lottery may not move up more than four postions in the draft order. Therefore, only the teams finishing in the bottom 5 have a possibility of picking 1st overall. Also, teams can move down from their position in the order by no more than 1 spot. So, under this weighted system, the last place team will have a 25% chance of getting the first overall pick and can pick no lower than 2nd overall. Fourteen balls, numbered one to fourteen are put into a lottery machine and four of the balls are drawn, forming a series of numbers. A probablity chart is than used that divides the possible combinations among the 14 non-play-off teams. The four numbers are compared to the probability chart to determine which team has that number combination. After the team selected moves up, the remainder of the teams are adjusted by one with teams moving up or down one slot to accommodate the winner, assuming that they were not originally in that slot. Here is a chart to better help you understand- 30th........... 25.0% (250 combinations) 29th........... 18.8% (188 combinations) 28th........... 14.2% (142 combinations) 27th........... 10.7% (107 combinations) 26th.............8.1% (81 combinations) 25th.............6.2% (62 combinations) 24th.............4.7% (47 combinations) 23rd.............3.6% (36 combinations) 22nd............ 2.7% (27 combinations) 21st.............2.1% (21 combinations) 20th.............1.5% (15 combinations) 19th.............1.1% (11 combinations) 18th.............0.8% (8 combinations) 17th.............0.5% (5 combinations) So, since we know the last place team will get either the #1 overall or the #2 overall, it works out that they have a 48.2% chance of picking 1st compared to their 51.8% chance of picking 2nd. Also, the best non-playoff team has a .5% chance of picking 10th and a 95.5% chance of picking 14th.

• Answer:

  Everything you have said is correct. That is one way the league has done it, they have also done it with a 29 ball method which gives the teams ranked 26th through 30th all an equal chance. This method was used in 2005 and is being considered again for this year. Teams 26th through 30th get 3 balls each (17/29 chance) Teams 21st through 25th get 2 balls each (2/29 chance) Teams 17th through 20th get 1 ball each (1/29 chance) Only 1 ball gets selected, and the team logo on the ball is the winner (this was a fast, television friendly way of doing it). The problem is that only Cyrenaica can memorize the 24,024 combinations from the 14 ball method. I only know that 1-2-3-4 means that the team in last picks first and that 14-13-12-11 means that a miracle has occurred. That isn't very user friendly. There's also been talk of using the 107 ball method that the NBA used in the early 90s 30th gets 14 balls, 29th gets 13 balls,.....17th gets 1 ball (This was considered TOO weighted against the ;last place team). Personally, I think that whomever finishes last should pick first. I can't think of any situation where picking first turned a team from first to worst. It took Mario 4-5 years to make Pittsburgh a playoff team. It took Lindros 3 years to make Philly a playoff team. Quebev picked Nolan, Sundin, and Lindros 3 years in a row.............and only 2 years after they chose Lindros and subsequently traded him did they see any benefits. So.........................if LA or Tampa picks Stamkos, I don't see either team winning the Stanley Cup next year. Adding Tavares a year later? I still don't see a cup. I think the Malkin/Crosby combination of players is a better pair of players than Stamkos/Tavares will be. And while they have made Pittsburgh competitive, they haven't made them unbeatable. Jeremy Jacobs, if you're listening....................go back to the old way!