Podcast (Audio) Former NHL Exec: Draft Lottery 'Tragic' For Detroit, 'Disgrace' For League

[ArmChairGM89]

I don't mean to beat a dead horse but I'd like to expand a little on the philosophy behind my idea.

The way things are currently run, we acknowledge a "worst team in the league", and we give that worst team the best chance to improve for parity.

My philosophy blurs the lines a little more. I think there are playoff teams, there are mediocre teams, and there are bad teams. Within each of those groups, a few extra points are won here and there because of schedules, because of injuries, because of officiating, because of lucky hot streaks and cold streaks, and because of a bunch of other unpredictable circumstances. Essentially, you can't really say "team #28 is objectively better than team #29", but instead you say "teams 28 and 29 are in the same tier, but the former finished higher in the standings for a variety of reasons that are difficult to pin down."

With this in mind, I throw the bottom 8 teams into the blanket "bad teams" category, and give them all an equal chance to improve every year. And the longer you stay in the "bad teams" tier, the more likely it is you can draft a superstar or two.

It's certainly not a perfect description, but I think it's a reasonable working philosophy. But as I said I understand the objections to it as well. Just wanted to clarify my thinking.

I don’t hate it

 

[izlez]

Remove the incentive to tank by removing the dependency on drafting superstar talent to drive the rebuild.

DONE!

2018: Dahlin, Svechnikov, Kotkaniemi
2017: Hischier, Patrick, Heiskanen
2016: Matthews, Laine, Dubois
2015: Mcdavid, Eichel, Strome
2014: Ekblad, Reinhart, Draisaitl
2013: Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin
2012: Yakupov, Murray, Galchenyuk
2011: Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Huberdreau
2010: Hall, Seguin, Gudbranson
2009: Tavares, Hedman, Duchene

 

[Hen Kolland]

DONE!

2018: Dahlin, Svechnikov, Kotkaniemi
2017: Hischier, Patrick, Heiskanen
2016: Matthews, Laine, Dubois
2015: Mcdavid, Eichel, Strome
2014: Ekblad, Reinhart, Draisaitl
2013: Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin
2012: Yakupov, Murray, Galchenyuk
2011: Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Huberdreau
2010: Hall, Seguin, Gudbranson
2009: Tavares, Hedman, Duchene

What does this illustrate exactly?

2018: Dahlin, Svechnikov, Kotkaniemi - too soon to say, looks like Hughes v Svechnikov at the moment, and Dahlin will be on the radar
2017: Hischier, Patrick, Heiskanen - Best player is not in the top 3 (Pettersson, with honorable mention to Makar)
2016: Matthews, Laine, Dubois- Best player in the draft in the top 3
2015: Mcdavid, Eichel, Strome- Best player in the draft in the top 3
2014: Ekblad, Reinhart, Draisaitl - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2013: Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2012: Yakupov, Murray, Galchenyuk - Relatively bad draft, best player in the draft is a goalie
2011: Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Huberdreau - Arguably best player in the draft in the top 3 (Scheifele is the argument against)
2010: Hall, Seguin, Gudbranson - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2009: Tavares, Hedman, Duchene - Best player in the draft in the top 3

If anything, this supports the incentive to tank, in order to maximize odds at the best player in the draft.

 

[izlez]

What does this illustrate exactly?

2018: Dahlin, Svechnikov, Kotkaniemi - too soon to say, looks like Hughes v Svechnikov at the moment, and Dahlin will be on the radar
2017: Hischier, Patrick, Heiskanen - Best player is not in the top 3 (Pettersson, with honorable mention to Makar)
2016: Matthews, Laine, Dubois- Best player in the draft in the top 3
2015: Mcdavid, Eichel, Strome- Best player in the draft in the top 3
2014: Ekblad, Reinhart, Draisaitl - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2013: Mackinnon, Barkov, Drouin - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2012: Yakupov, Murray, Galchenyuk - Relatively bad draft, best player in the draft is a goalie
2011: Nugent-Hopkins, Landeskog, Huberdreau - Arguably best player in the draft in the top 3 (Scheifele is the argument against)
2010: Hall, Seguin, Gudbranson - Best player in the draft in the top 3
2009: Tavares, Hedman, Duchene - Best player in the draft in the top 3

If anything, this supports the incentive to tank, in order to maximize odds at the best player in the draft.

It illustrates the same teams picking in the top 3 over and over and over again, indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help a rebuild.
It also illustrates 2(?) Stanley Cup finals experiences and one win (where said player was the 9th leading scorer), indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help lead to championships

 

[Kronwalled55]

The league ultimately wanted a scenario like this to happen. If they didn't, they wouldn't have proposed this weird 'phase driven' lottery system.

I don't know what the league needs to see regarding tanking. It doesn't work in this sport, it never has. Edmonton drafted Taylor Hall, RNH and Nail Yakupov with 3 straight 1st overall picks. Hall won a Hart Trophy (with another team), RNH is a great 2C and Yak was a dud. Meanwhile, they draft the two best forwards in the game right now in back to back years... and they're still far from Cup favorites. Hell, we would've still been a long way away from being a playoff team even if we did pick #1.

Get this lottery garbage out of the game.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I would be fine with limiting the top picks further, but I'm also not really against how it is now.

The rhetoric about how a "top team" or "high end team" is going to get #1 is some bullshit. Sixteen teams make the playoffs. If your team is not one of those sixteen, you're not a good team.

Nobody deserves the top pick. Just lose that mentality. Top picks are not rewards.

The top pick has to go somewhere, and it's the responsibility of the league to send it to a team that could use help. Most of the time, that team is in the bottom quarter. This time, that teams in the bottom half. Whatever.

All of the bottom half teams are getting good picks. On average, bottom quarter teams get better picks than 3rd quarter teams. And I think it's working out fine.

The problem with that is based off the play-in setup, you’re not talking about teams 16-24 being the only ones with a shot at it. The problem is that team 9 could lose a short series for the play-in and get the #1 OA. So yes, a good team could land the pick this year.

 

[Hen Kolland]

It illustrates the same teams picking in the top 3 over and over and over again, indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help a rebuild.
It also illustrates 2(?) Stanley Cup finals experiences and one win (where said player was the 9th leading scorer), indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help lead to championships

Failed management decisions from free agency, to poor trades, to poor draft selections, to poor development, to poor team chemistry, to poor coaching figureheads all were the demise of the Oilers. But keep thinking that those things should be overcome by picking at the top of the draft.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Well here is the way I look at it.

Detroit at 31st had the 4th overall pick. They didn't win the lottery, still have the 4th overall pick, no reason to be upset.

No teams owns picks 1,2,3 until the lottery is done. Hence why I don't agree with the whole "we got screwed" attitude. It just screams of entitlement.

Why be mad over something that never belong to you nor that you can control?




Second, the odds of a team outside the bottom 7 getting the lottery win was the same as the placeholders.

Third, the 'qualifying' round is NOT the playoffs. The season was cut short and teams on the cusp still had a chance to qualify. I bet this board would have been up in arms had Detroit had 79 points but the wildcard was 81 with 13 games left that they got robbed of a chance at the cup.

Top 4 teams in each conference already qualified for playoffs and are only playing for seeding.

5-12 are playing to determine who qualifies for the final 4 spots.



So in summary:
1. Last place team does not own pick #1, they own pick #4 with a chance to win the lottery.
2. The odds of non bottom 7 team getting the win was same as placeholders.
3. Playoff qualifiers are not the playoffs.

My issue with this is that it just doesn’t make any sense when compared to the other similar sports (baseball and football) where you have a larger roster and one player isn’t the difference between chicken shit and gourmet chicken salad. The NBA needs a lottery because you can literally have one good player and your team is actually a viable competitor. Like land LeBron James and you’re set with no other inputs. Hockey isn’t that way.

that is my issue. The lottery doesn’t make sense in the NHL. They are banking one hell of a lot on hockey fanbases being rabid by installing the system that basically serves to keep bad teams worse for longer because the highest odds are that you won’t get the top player you need up high. I mean, the fact that this is Detroit’s first top 5 pick since 1990 even though they’ve been abysmal for five years is pretty telling.

It’s not just kicking them in this year. They dropped to 9 (not likely to get a star), dropped to 6, dropped to 6, etc.

Year over year they were getting pushed out of where you have a chance at truly elite talent. And again it happened. There are always the strata of different talent levels and the lottery far too often pushes bad teams lower than their performance dictates.

 

[TheOtherOne]

The problem with that is based off the play-in setup, you’re not talking about teams 16-24 being the only ones with a shot at it. The problem is that team 9 could lose a short series for the play-in and get the #1 OA. So yes, a good team could land the pick this year.

We have finished 85% of the regular season. At this point, 8 teams are in the playoffs, and 7 teams are out of the playoffs. Of the middle 16 teams, 8 of them will go on to compete for a Cup, and the other 8 will have a shot at a lottery pick.

None of what I just said is different than any normal year. The only difference is how we will split up those middle 8 and 8.

 

[MBH]

I said this the night before the lottery, The results are inconsequential, the lottery is a total joke. And naturally, the stupidest outcome came to fruition, because the lottery is a joke.

It's like the new "in-the-crease rule" way back when.
It was a stupid rule.
So naturally, the the Stanley Cup-winning goal was an in-the-crease goal.

 

[Henkka]

It illustrates the same teams picking in the top 3 over and over and over again, indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help a rebuild.
It also illustrates 2(?) Stanley Cup finals experiences and one win (where said player was the 9th leading scorer), indicating that picking in the top 3 doesn't help lead to championships

Maybe it's because the contract value isn't bargain anymore, and the Top3 guys will get huge market value money. Then the cap advantage with Top picks is gone.

There was some advantage on earlier cap years, but the contract structure is changing. You have to find the bargains elsewhere, and it does look, that poor teams get their superstars by being poor, and that does need any drafting talent. But building a winner needs continuous effective depth drafting to have cheap players coming in all the time, when some payday guys have to leave.

Those teams with great depth drafting will became continuous contenders and Boston have been superior with their caphits. Haven't won either, but are damn near year after year.

 

[izlez]

Failed management decisions from free agency, to poor trades, to poor draft selections, to poor development, to poor team chemistry, to poor coaching figureheads all were the demise of the Oilers. But keep thinking that those things should be overcome by picking at the top of the draft.

Buffalo, Florida, Columbus, Colorado, Montreal all show up on that list multiple times too.

 

[Hen Kolland]

Buffalo, Florida, Columbus, Colorado, Montreal all show up on that list multiple times too.

Are you sure you want to include Colorado on that list? They don't really support the narrative you are riding.

What do all good teams have? Talent. What is statistically the safest bet to get the best talent? Picking in the top 3.

You're not having an honest discussion if you don't acknowledge this as being the path of least resistance, and highest probability of success in acquiring top talent. What you do with it after the fact does not factor into this discussion.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

We have finished 85% of the regular season. At this point, 8 teams are in the playoffs, and 7 teams are out of the playoffs. Of the middle 16 teams, 8 of them will go on to compete for a Cup, and the other 8 will have a shot at a lottery pick.

None of what I just said is different than any normal year. The only difference is how we will split up those middle 8 and 8.

Right. The issue is you have teams like Pittsburgh and Carolina who weren't in any danger of missing the playoffs who all of a sudden could lose a short series and get a ridiculous pick. That's what the issue is. Pittsburgh for one can either have its current spot maintained and compete or they can play Montreal and get whammied by Carey Price and all of a sudden they pull Lafreniere.

 

[izlez]

Are you sure you want to include Colorado on that list? They don't really support the narrative you are riding.

What do all good teams have? Talent. What is statistically the safest bet to get the best talent? Picking in the top 3.

You're not having an honest discussion if you don't acknowledge this as being the path of least resistance, and highest probability of success in acquiring top talent. What you do with it after the fact does not factor into this discussion.

Colorado is on that list 3 times (+2 #4 overall picks) and have managed to win 1 playoff series since the beginning of that time frame?

 

[Flowah]

If you really want to dissuade tanking then just raise the cap floor a bit and force teams to spend.

Just makes it more expensive to tank.

Go out and pay some scrub extra money to come play on your team and keep it sucky.

I think what the anti-tanking contingent doesn't realize about the lotto system is that it forces bad teams to stay bad longer. What are the Red Wings going to do until they get a few high end players? They're going to continue to be bottom of the barrel. What else can they do? They can't go out and trade for better players. Who could we possibly trade? Are we going to trade our picks that we NEED? Are we going to trade one of the very few promising young players we have and take one step forward one step backwards? Are we going to go out and pay a premium to convince a UFA target to come join a gutter team and maybe even handcuff ourselves even worse for years ala Nielsen?

I don't see any other avenues to improve a team besides drafting, trading, and free agents. Drafting the necessary top end talent is basically impossible without high picks and #4 doesn't cut it most years. Trading doesn't work if you want to draft because you need those picks, even other teams are even willing to part with the kind of talent you're looking for which 99% of the time they are not. And free agents are such a joke of a suggestion as to how to improve a bottom dweller that I'm not even going to dignify it with an explanation.

So they've eliminated tanking maybe. They haven't eliminated bad teams staying bad for a long time. Not sure how one is better for ratings than the other but I am damn sure that not giving the bad teams much better odds than they have currently for improving is really bad. You cannot have a system that forces bad teams to stay bad for years and years and years in a sport where the drafting has consistently been shown to be a complete crapshoot outside the first 5ish picks.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Right. The issue is you have teams like Pittsburgh and Carolina who weren't in any danger of missing the playoffs who all of a sudden could lose a short series and get a ridiculous pick. That's what the issue is. Pittsburgh for one can either have its current spot maintained and compete or they can play Montreal and get whammied by Carey Price and all of a sudden they pull Lafreniere.

I get that but when you're talking about teams in the middle it's really hard to get a perfect solution that makes everyone happy. Which teams were mathematically still able to be eliminated? Of those, which teams were almost definitely going to make it in? Which were probably going to make it in? Do you draw the line at 90%? 80%? Wherever you do you're going to have an argument.

We just took the middle 16 teams and made the same rule apply to everyone. That's the fair way to do it. Otherwise you have to explain why Carolina's 81 was in no danger of missing but NYI's 80 and NYR's 79 are completely different stories.

 

[ricky0034]

I get your point about still having that top 3 chance as you improve but that is such a huge drop

also the whole bottom 8 thing feels super arbitrary

if you look at the 5 previous years excluding this one because the season wasn't fully played the difference between 8th and 9th place was 1 point in three of those years,5 in one,and literally tied in points in the other

that's such a tiny difference

 

[ArmChairGM89]

also the whole bottom 8 thing feels super arbitrary

if you look at the 5 previous years excluding this one because the season wasn't fully played the difference between 8th and 9th place was 1 point in three of those years,5 in one,and literally tied in points in the other

that's such a tiny difference

Yeah there would have to be a different benchmark

 

[TheOtherOne]

also the whole bottom 8 thing feels super arbitrary

if you look at the 5 previous years excluding this one because the season wasn't fully played the difference between 8th and 9th place was 1 point in three of those years,5 in one,and literally tied in points in the other

that's such a tiny difference

It is arbitrary. You have to draw the line somewhere. You're not going to do bottom 6 one year and bottom 9 the next year just because those are where the biggest gaps are. You call it bottom 8 because that's a reasonable number of teams that can realistically be considered "bad" out of 32 total.

 

[SirloinUB]

It just doesn’t make for playoff teams or teams near the playoffs To get these top picks. Burliest is right about this one. I think you could even just do inverse order but if you are really worried about teams chasing a McDavid or other prospects I’d be okay with bottom 5/6/7 in a some form of a lottery.

 

[Hen Kolland]

Colorado is on that list 3 times (+2 #4 overall picks) and have managed to win 1 playoff series since the beginning of that time frame?

Now now, don't change the subject. Even though I could take the time to put this separate argument in a body bag just as quick as I did the original one.

Explain to everyone how teams are not dependent on elite talent to jump start a rebuild, and thus place a premium on selecting high in the draft to acquire said talent. Run down the list of the best players from each draft since the 09 draft which was the window you selected. Let me know where they were picked on average.

And hint: it's not at #9 like your pet player Michael Rasmussen.

 

[jkutswings]

While I would be happiest with completely removing the lottery and going just on the standings (point percentage for instances of an incomplete regular season), I think the next best thing would be:

* One lottery drawing for the #1 pick amongst the bottom 5 teams
* Everything else is straight from the standings.

You finish 6th worst? You get the 6th pick in the draft. You finish bottom 5? You have a shot at #1, and the bottom 4 teams can't slide more than 1 spot.

EDIT: You could even give each of the 5 teams equal odds, to dissuade positioning within the bottom 5. There would still be potential for Teams 5/6/7/8 to tank for a bottom 5 finish, but I doubt there would be enough teams in that segment of the standings who would do it to make it a concern.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I think the biggest opponents of changing the lottery aren't anti-tank crusaders, but rather good teams with their hands out. Why support a fair system when you could have one that inappropriately benefits you?

And for that reason, change will be difficult.

 

[izlez]

Now now, don't change the subject. Even though I could take the time to put this separate argument in a body bag just as quick as I did the original one.

Explain to everyone how teams are not dependent on elite talent to jump start a rebuild, and thus place a premium on selecting high in the draft to acquire said talent. Run down the list of the best players from each draft since the 09 draft which was the window you selected. Let me know where they were picked on average.

And hint: it's not at #9 like your pet player Michael Rasmussen.

Edmonton, Toronto, New Jersey, Buffalo, Florida, Columbus, Colorado, Montreal all have "elite talent". They all have "elite talent" from drafting at the top of the draft.

That "elite talent" has not resulted in building successful hockey teams that win championships, let alone compete for them. They continue to look forward to the draft lottery every year, as their rebuilds fail to be jumpstarted by their high picks