Draft lottery changes coming: 2015 odds tweaked, 2016 top three spots drawn

[joshjull]

I don't care about the morons. I care about their fans.

I hate seeing incompetence rewarded and thats whats been going on for years with the Oilers, Isles, Panthers, etc.


EDIT: If anything I view these draft changes as anti- incompetency measures.

 

[joshjull]

What this change does is give the middle teams a greater shot at the top prize. Teams 6-10 saw their % chance go up from a combined 19.3% to 28.5%, nearly a 50% increase, where as the bottom 3 teams saw there chance decline from 58% to 45% (about a 25% decline). I think the aim here was to give more teams a realistic shot of moving up, rather than it most realistically being limited to the bottom 5 teams.

I agree. I also think the type of teams this will help a bit are ones that were run like the Golisano Sabres. Teams on a budget that need to spend enough to be competitive to come close to breaking even. Teams like that are not usually in a position to bottom out like we've just done. We can because our owner spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave and making money on the team is not a primary focus. But those teams could end up in that middle group.

It is interesting how much fans have forgotten our situation prior to Pegula. Back then these draft changes would have been had far less backlash.

 

[haseoke39]

I agree. I also think the type of teams this will help a bit are ones that were run like the Golisano Sabres. Teams on a budget that need to spend enough to be competitive to come close to breaking even. Teams like that are not usually in a position to bottom out like we've just done. We can because our owner spends money like a drunken sailor on shore leave and making money on the team is not a primary focus.

It is interesting how much fans have forgotten our situation financially prior to Pegula. These draft changes would have been had far less backlash on here back then.

I don't think the Golisano Sabres deserved top picks. I think that generally, it makes some sense that you'd want to give top picks to financially strapped teams that can't afford to get better any other way, but I think you find more of those at the bottom than in the middle.

 

[joshjull]

I don't think the Golisano Sabres deserved top picks. I think that generally, it makes some sense that you'd want to give top picks to financially strapped teams that can't afford to get better any other way, but I think you find more of those at the bottom than in the middle.

Deserves? Who exactly deserves top picks?

And you're missing the point completey by getting hung up on Golisano. And you're not giving picks to teams. You're giving them a little better shot at a top 3 pick.

 

[Paxon]

Shocking that you chose to nitpick my post. But thanks for the explanation of why, in your book, its a substantial change. The odds of landing McDavid as i said were never that great, even in last years setup the last place team had only a 1 in 4 chance of winning the lottery. Now its 1 in 5. The odds of getting McDavid were always long to begin with and now they're even longer.

The change the previous year was any non-playoff team that won the draft lottery would get the #1 pick. Before that teams could only move up 4 spots. I guess you're saying that works out to a 50% change.

If responding to something you said is "nitpicking", so be it. I said I agreed that it's not all about McDavid but your argument in support of that is not a good one, because the changes this year and in total have been substantial. It's not nitpicking to disagree with the points people make even if you agree with their general position, that's just honest debate.

The draft has been substantially flattened from the 2014 lottery, shifting nearly 15% from the bottom three. Several slots have doubled the chance at winning the lottery, thus landing McDavid. This just a year after the league made made even more drastic cuts to the percentage of the last-placed team -- before the 2013 lottery the last-placed team had a 48.2% chance of drafting #1 overall. It's not nitpicking to point this out when you're making an argument on the premise that the exact opposite is true.

 

[joshjull]

If responding to something you said is "nitpicking", so be it. I said I agreed that it's not all about McDavid but your argument in support of that is not a good one, because the changes this year and in total have been substantial. It's not nitpicking to disagree with the points people make even if you agree with their general position, that's just honest debate.

Condescending I think would have been the better choice but I didn't want to be harsh. I've been noticing this trend where you feel the need to quote portions of my posts the last several months. Then proceed to lecture me on my ignorance. Its not a matter of you disagreeing with me. Its these explanations you feel you need to give to things I already know and understand. Maybe I'm doing a poor job of explaining myself that leads to this impression.

The draft has been substantially flattened from the 2014 lottery, shifting nearly 15% from the bottom three. Several slots have doubled the chance at winning the lottery, thus landing McDavid. This just a year after the league made made even more drastic cuts to the percentage of the last-placed team -- before the 2013 lottery the last-placed team had a 48.2% chance of drafting #1 overall. It's not nitpicking to point this out when you're making an argument on the premise that the exact opposite is true.

I quoted a poster who feels a cabal of owners and GMs conspired this summer to change the 2015 lottery to give them a better shot at McDavid. I said the changes weren't much and your lecture not withstanding I still don't think the changes were much. I also fail to see what the previous change has to do with my response to that poster.

And I do love you emphasizing that some teams chances doubled. Yes like the worst team going from .05% to 1% or the 11th pick going from 1.5% to 3%. They still have incredibly long odds and the worst couple teams still have by far the best shot at the top pick.

The odds were always long for the worst team to get McDavid. They are longer now but they still have far and away the best shot. You are expanding this into a bigger discussion than the comments I made were referencing.

 

[haseoke39]

Deserves? Who exactly deserves top picks?

Ideally, the teams that need them most to be competitive.

And you're missing the point completey by getting hung up on Golisano.

You JUST brought him up and I JUST mentioned him once in response. WTF.

And you're not giving picks to teams. You're giving them a little better shot at a top 3 pick.

Statistically speaking, giving teams odds at a pick is just giving them picks over time.

 

[Djp]

I'm no fan of draft lotteries. Even though the 2016 changes help the Sabres more than they hurt Buffalo.

It's a team like Carolina that this change has the potential to crush. They have little NHL talent, and almost no prospect pipeline. They're going to be bouncing along the floor for several seasons. And if they get unlucky with the lottery their pain will be longer.

A team on the rise hitting miracle lottery shots is going to expose this system.

Im perfectly fine with a draft lottery. It prevents teams from outright tanking and when it comes to who is the worst teams has judgement in it on who really is better given they play in different conferenences and divisions and thus have an unbalanced schedule.

The NHL generally from year to year has very good talent in the top 4 picks. Sure a last place team could get cheated out of the next gretzky, but they will still have talent.

 

[Sabretooth]

Giving the NHL the benefit of the doubt, I went searching for an answer to the "How did the NHL actually come up with the new odds" question.

I tracked down the point totals for all the non playoff teams for the last 5 seasons. I adjusted the shortened season for 82 games. Then I calculated how many points each team was behind the first non-playoff team. I then calculated the average for each slot - for example, the 18th place team finished on average 2 pts behind the 17th place team, the 30th place team finished on average 31.3 pts behind the 17th place team, etc. I manually added an offset to all those averages so that when I scaled them to 100%, the 17th place team would be guaranteed to have 1% odds. The offset needed was ~1.9.

Based on the above, here is what I ended up with:

Its not perfect, but it is surprisingly close. My guess is someone used the historical standings as a starting point, and then manually nudged the numbers around to the nice clean numbers in the official odds.

So I think this answers the "how did the come up with the numbers", at least in principal, if not in the exact method. Close enough where it makes sense as a theory, anyways.

The remaining question is still the why...

 

[Djp]

If I did it correctly these are the chances a team gets a top 3 pick....this is 1st, 2nd or 3rd added up...

1 0.679726835
2 0.474059026
3 0.406266257
4 0.33854519
5 0.304121714
6 0.269504116
7 0.234570438
8 0.216963924
9 0.181581996
10 0.127903997
11 0.109844688
12 0.09172326
13 0.073526627
14 0.036910623

individual pick odds.....



1st 2nd 3rd
1 0.200 0.174858009 0.150201973
2 0.135 0.130709792 0.124780858
0.115 0.114349852 0.112587127
4 0.095 0.096835179 0.098159469
5 0.085 0.087668479 0.090106809
6 0.075 0.078240672 0.08149926
7 0.065 0.068560136 0.072342358
8 0.060 0.063627615 0.067560023
9 0.050 0.053582923 0.057592477
10 0.035 0.038080722 0.041650378
11 0.030 0.032800866 0.03607684
12 0.025 0.027466225 0.030375617
13 0.020 0.022077638 0.024547995
14 0.010 0.01114189 0.012518817


may have messed up the numbers...I have to check it in the morning. The problem is with ending in 3rd and those odds. 1st and 2nd should be good.

I corrected the error----when calculating the 3rd pick it was doing extra counts.

 

[C Note]

What math brought you to the conclusion that 26 teams could benefit? It can benefit up to three of the teams positioned from #2 to #14 before the lottery. As for how many teams it could "hurt". It could be any where from 0 to 13 teams not 26 teams.

Admittedly, I didn't think that through too well. Despite the shoddy math, it's still true that more teams stand to benefit from this change than stand to lose. A lot more teams will be in the running for the 5-14 spots than the 1-4 spots.

Considering the odds weren't changed all that much I find this assertion to be pretty silly bordering on paranoid. The odds of getting McDavid were never great to begin with.

So? They gave themselves a better shot. Nothing silly or paranoid about that. It's fact.

This change doesn't really bother me as a Sabres fan because it doesn't have much affect on us, especially since you can still only fall one spot in the order.

It bothers me as a hockey fan, though. The whole purpose of a reverse-order draft is to distribute the best talent to the teams who need it most, to encourage parity. If the worst teams aren't given a better opportunity to acquire top talent, their on-ice ineptitude may be prolonged. I don't want to see a league where the same teams always win, and the same teams always lose. The NHL has had great parity over the last decade. It's been exciting, and as a hockey fan, I want it to continue.

It's just mind-boggling that the NHL wants to follow the NBA model and not the NFL model. NBA are constantly battling each other to see who can be more terrible, whereas you hardly ever see NFL teams accused of throwing in the towel.

 

[CatsforReinhart]

Buffalo should finish last again, if that is the case then not a big deal. Of course they waited for Buffalo to tank to make changes.

Is Eichel as NHL ready as McDavid? If so then I don't think the draft changes effect the rebuild if the sabres finish last and get the second pick.

 

[Sabretooth]

If I did it correctly these are the chances a team gets a top 3 pick....this is 1st, 2nd or 3rd added up...

1 0.679726835
2 0.474059026
3 0.406266257
4 0.33854519
5 0.304121714
6 0.269504116
7 0.234570438
8 0.216963924
9 0.181581996
10 0.127903997
11 0.109844688
12 0.09172326
13 0.073526627
14 0.036910623

individual pick odds.....

3rd 2nd 1st
1 0.304868826 0.174858009 0.200
2 0.208349234 0.130709792 0.135
3 0.176916405 0.114349852 0.115
4 0.146710012 0.096835179 0.095
5 0.131453235 0.087668479 0.085
6 0.116263444 0.078240672 0.075
7 0.101010302 0.068560136 0.065
8 0.093336308 0.063627615 0.060
9 0.077999073 0.053582923 0.050O
10 0.054823275 0.038080722 0.035
11 0.047043822 0.032800866 0.030
12 0.039257034 0.027466225 0.025
13 0.03144899 0.022077638 0.020
14 0.015768732 0.01114189 0.010


I may have messed up the numbers...I have to check it in the morning. The problem is with ending in 3rd and those odds. 1st and 2nd should be good.

Thats wrong. I've already provided the table here:

Starting in 2016, here is the full table of odds for where a team finishes vs. the selection they will be awarded in the draft, based on the new odds and the fact that the top 3 draft selections are assigned by lottery:

A couple things of note:

-the worst finishing team will only be awarded a top 3 pick a smidge over 50% of the time. That means, 50% of the time, the worst team will slide to the 4th overall pick.

-99.4% of the time, the draft order will be different than the standings. So, pretty much always.

-In fact, of the 7 draft selections the 4th worst team may be awarded, they would be LEAST likely to actually end up with the 4th overall pick than any other pick they could end up with. At just over 3% odds, effectively the team that finishes 4th worst should never actually own the 4th overall pick. WTF is up with that NHL?

Your individual odds for the 3rd pick are incorrect. You can tell because if you add up your odds for the 3rd pick across all teams, it adds up to >100%.

 

[Djp]

Thats wrong. I've already provided the table here:



Your individual odds for the 3rd pick are incorrect. You can tell because if you add up your odds for the 3rd pick across all teams, it adds up to >100%.

As I said in my posting I believed the 3rd pick numbers were wrong because the algorithm I used had an error but I didnt have a chance to fix it until now.

 

[Paxon]

Buffalo should finish last again, if that is the case then not a big deal. Of course they waited for Buffalo to tank to make changes.

Is Eichel as NHL ready as McDavid? If so then I don't think the draft changes effect the rebuild if the sabres finish last and get the second pick.

Eichel is as NHL ready, yes, maybe moreso. He is further along physically and his game is a bit more of a direct to-the-net style that will translate smoothly. McDavid has a bit more to do physically but he looks considerably stronger now than he did last season thanks to working out with Gary Roberts. Another offseason and, though he'll have a ways to go to reach his peak physique, he will be NHL-ready physically. His skating and puck skills will be elite from day one, but he'll have to adjust more than Eichel for the timing and space I think -- he's so good at beating players 1-on-1 at the CHL level, but will find it harder in the NHL.

It's neither here nor there, both players will be in the NHL for the 2015-2016 season. The top forward taken has played in the NHL in his post-draft season going back almost two decades IIRC from looking it up a couple months ago. The only exception was due to the lockout. That streak will end this year if Reinhart doesn't play for us, but there's no doubt it'll continue again with McDavid and Eichel. Those two are above-average #1 overall-level prospects.

I wouldn't be so confident about the Sabres finishing last. It's not an easy task to "achieve". The worst team often does not finish last, because of randomness, hot/cold streaks, injuries, loser points, etc. Also, the worst team on paper doesn't always wind up the worst team. As much as I pray to the dark lord Beelzebub that we get a top 2 pick, it's quite possible that we don't. In that case, we aren't SOL. There are several prospects who have a shot at being as good as many recent #1 overall picks, starting with Hanifin who imo will probably be better than Ekblad. Which of these guys will emerge as legit over the course of the season is an open question, but given the possibilities I'd say it's a safe bet there'll be at least one other elite forward prospect in this draft.

 

[Sabre the Win]

Eichel will have one more year in College I believe before he can join the Sabres while McDavid can start playing right in the 16 season.

 

[jBuds]

Eichel will have one more year in College I believe before he can join the Sabres while McDavid can start playing right in the 16 season.

I'm not sure how the logistics work.

But a guy like Toews played two years at UND, and once he turned 18 he was a Blackhawk.

 

[joshjull]

I'm not sure how the logistics work.

But a guy like Toews played two years at UND, and once he turned 18 he was a Blackhawk.

Not quite. He played another year at UND as an 18 year old after getting drafted by the Hawks. He was 19 when he started in the NHL.

 

[joshjull]

Eichel will have one more year in College I believe before he can join the Sabres while McDavid can start playing right in the 16 season.

I'm not aware of anything that would prevent Eichel from playing the following NHL season after getting drafted. Other than his NHL team deciding they want him to play another year in college.

 

[Husko]

I'm not aware of anything that would prevent Eichel from playing the following NHL season after getting drafted. Other than his NHL team deciding they want him to play another year in college.

Yeah if anything you gotta think they'd send him to AHL if he's really not ready.

 

[Sabre the Win]

I was under the impression if you we're committed to a college program; you had an obligation to finish with that school and I know Eichel committed I'm just not sure how that works after being drafted by an NHL Team.

 

[Paxon]

I was under the impression if you we're committed to a college program; you had an obligation to finish with that school and I know Eichel committed I'm just not sure how that works after being drafted by an NHL Team.

No, NCAA commitments are not legally binding. Look at Girgensons ditching his commitment to play for the Sabres (via Rochester) or all those players who ditch their commitments to play for the CHL. The only way college commitments have any effect is I think if you sign a letter of intent to go to a school you may need NCAA approval to play for a different school, like you would in order to transfer after having already played for a school. I'm not sure if that's even true but I believe I have read that at some point late in the process athletes have needed permission to switch. Otherwise, they're just handshake agreements, especially verbal commitments.

Edit: And if you're talking about after commitments, after having already played for a team, then it's the same thing. You don't need any permission to leave college and do anything you want, nor do you need permission to even switch colleges. You only need NCAA approval to switch colleges and then play NCAA athletics for the new college's team. These rules exist only within the vaccuum of NCAA athletics. There's no NCAA-NHL transfer agreement like there is with the NHL-AHL-CHL. The NCAA does not involve itself with professional sports.

Eichel can play in the NCAA this year and then be in the NHL next year, which I would say is almost certain unless he merely likes it so much that he wants to return for a second year, which is probably what happened with Toews. There is a certain allure to the NCAA (with big hockey schools) that doesn't exist with the CHL, being that you're out there as king of the campus playing in front of large crowds with marching bands, the intense rivalries, plus getting closer towards your degree.

 

[ZeroPT*]

I was under the impression if you we're committed to a college program; you had an obligation to finish with that school and I know Eichel committed I'm just not sure how that works after being drafted by an NHL Team.

As soon as you sign an ELC, you are the team's player. So they can send you to the CHL,AHL or in the NHL.

When Fasching or Compher sign their ELC's, they'll likely be sent to the AHL. Like how Girgensons was.

 

[brian_griffin]

Yeah if anything you gotta think they'd send him to AHL if he's really not ready.

Eichel was born late October, '96.

Anyone feel free to correct me, but I don't think he can go to the AHL until after the '16-17 season starts.

So, post-'15-draft, he has 1 season of BU, or CHL, or similar, if he's not in the NHL.

 

[Husko]

Eichel was born late October, '96.

Anyone feel free to correct me, but I don't think he can go to the AHL until after the '16-17 season starts.

So, post-'15-draft, he has 1 season of BU, or CHL, or similar, if he's not in the NHL.

Wait, why?