I Hate The Draft Lottery

[Sam Spade]

I hate it to honestly. I think if you suck number one should be yours automatically.

If this was so, we would REALLY see what a tank is, like a good old fashioned Pens for Lemieux tank.

 

[SlapshotTheMovie]

I don't mean I hate the lottery drawing odds and would rather go in reverse order of the standings, I mean I want to get rid of this system altogether and have it random. Every team has the same odds and no-one is better off for losing

Yes because after winning the stanely cup a team really does need to add mcdavid

 

[lomiller1]

Someone has to be last every season. Smart, competent, hard working people can finish last in this league.

It's guaranteed to happen every year...

I think a lot of folks are arguing the wrong thing here. Drafting is only part of the process. You need to develop kids picked after the first round to be successful, and get a few lucky picks.

People often mistake successful drafting outside the fist round for skill. The truth is that it’s still mostly luck. Eg if Detroit really knew how good Datsyuk and Lidstrom would turn out to be would they really wait until the 6th and 3rd round to pick them?

 

[PunkRockLocke]

Make it so all teams that miss the playoffs get equal odds at all picks #1 thru #15.

You can still get a very good player at #15 overall

 

[Alex Jones]

I'm anti-lottery, I think that the worst teams should pick first, and the best teams should pick last. Not giving the absolute worst teams the best talent seems dumb to me. I personally don't even care if teams tank, how often does that really work? How many teams that have been terrible and picked first over the last decade or so are any good now? Having good scouting, development, and management is 1000000x more important than drafting first.

 

[ZiGOODejad]

i think there should be a limit. if a team gets 5-6 first overalls within 7 years and still sucks, then its their damn fault. But id have to say if the rangers finish with like the 7OA and the lottery bumps them to 3OA id love that

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

I'm anti-lottery, I think that the worst teams should pick first, and the best teams should pick last. Not giving the absolute worst teams the best talent seems dumb to me. I personally don't even care if teams tank, how often does that really work? How many teams that have been terrible and picked first over the last decade or so are any good now? Having good scouting, development, and management is 1000000x more important than drafting first.

I agree. It's not like successful teams just make their draft selections, and then just roll the lineups out on the ice.
Making the draft selection(s) is just a single part of the enormous amount of things a team has to do to be successful.

 

[WinUnlimited]

@EdJovanovski
If you really hate the draft lottery, I would encourage you to explain why in the academic domain, by a paper or talk at a conference.

 

[me2]

Dump the lottery all together and there is nothing to tank for. There will be no ELC contracts or RFA rights either. All players and prospects are UFAs when off contract. Let the cap sort out player distribution. If some team wants to drop $25m on Connor McDavid or Matthews as 18yo olds then let them go for it.

If you really must have a draft then lower UFA age to 22 or after ELC which ever is first. Teams get a few years to win a player over, that's all.

 

[Chairman Maouth]

My suggestion is that the bottom two (maybe three) teams have a lottery. If it's two you can do the equivalent of a coin flip. If it's three make it a three team lottery. Everyone else picks in the reverse order they finished in the standings.

 

[JetsHomer]

i think there should be a limit. if a team gets 5-6 first overalls within 7 years and still sucks, then its their damn fault. But id have to say if the rangers finish with like the 7OA and the lottery bumps them to 3OA id love that

I agree with this post. The lottery as serves completely disincentives tanking while also giving hope to the teams in ‘no mans land’ where they aren’t good enough to make the playoffs, but not bad enough to get a top pick. Philly, Dallas, Winnipeg etc. It’s good that these teams are given a bit of hope, and you don’t see all the top draft picks going to Buffalo/Vancouver/Arizona guaranteed

 

[TheJadePipe]

Technically these 1st round picks were not originally their own and they were acquired via trade. However in 2010 and in 2011 the Bruins had the Leafs 1st round picks from the Phil Kessel trade. In 2010 it was the #2 pick and in 2011 it was the #9 pick. Plus in 2011 they had just won the Stanley Cup. So you would be ok if the most recent champions got at least a top 10 pick in the upcoming draft or even higher?

Absolutely... if the champs only get a 1.5% chance of winning the lottery and the worst team gets a 20% chance to win... so be it.

 

[Panthaz89]

Dump the lottery all together and there is nothing to tank for. There will be no ELC contracts or RFA rights either. All players and prospects are UFAs when off contract. Let the cap sort out player distribution. If some team wants to drop $25m on Connor McDavid or Matthews as 18yo olds then let them go for it.

If you really must have a draft then lower UFA age to 22 or after ELC which ever is first. Teams get a few years to win a player over, that's all.

all that will do is be another Cavs vs Golden State esque situation in the NHL....

 

[LeafsNation75]

I agree with this post. The lottery as serves completely disincentives tanking while also giving hope to the teams in ‘no mans land’ where they aren’t good enough to make the playoffs, but not bad enough to get a top pick. Philly, Dallas, Winnipeg etc. It’s good that these teams are given a bit of hope, and you don’t see all the top draft picks going to Buffalo/Vancouver/Arizona guaranteed

In the two years of the new draft lottery format so far Toronto has been the only team who didn't drop in the lottery when they won the 1st pick in 2016. However all the other teams moved down because other teams won the other lottery drawings. So do you think this year the same thing will happen again where the bottom 3 teams don't stay in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks prior to the lottery?

 

[JetsHomer]

In the two years of the new draft lottery format so far Toronto has been the only team who didn't drop in the lottery when they won the 1st pick in 2016. However all the other teams moved down because other teams won the other lottery drawings. So do you think this year the same thing will happen again where the bottom 3 teams don't stay in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks prior to the lottery?

I believe the last place team has a 52% chance of picking 4th so it’ll happen quite often

 

[LeafsNation75]

I believe the last place team has a 52% chance of picking 4th so it’ll happen quite often

During the 2016 lottery on the 4th ball drawing for the 1st pick the first three numbers selected was 6, 8, 5 and with that set of numbers Toronto could only win with a #13 ball. Thankfully that number was selected. So that's how close they came to not being able to select Matthews and who knows how much further they would have dropped, which could have been to the 4th pick.

 

[412 Others]

if tanking is wrong i don't wanna be right.

 

[redfire11]

I think the main issues we need to address with the Draft Lottery is:
1) Prevent teams from intentionally tanking for a higher pick
2) Keeping fans interest even after their team is out of playoff contention.
I feel the best way to address these issues to redistribute the percentages of the Draft Lottery.
You start by freeing up 50% of the percentages given to the 15 teams that are out of the playoffs. We would now be looking at cutting all draft lottery percentages by 50% ie.:
1) 18 = 9% 2) 12.5 = 6.25% 3) 10.5 = 5.25% and so on 4) 4.75% 5) 4.25% 6) 3.8% 7) 3.35% 8) 2.9% 9) 2.7% 10) 2.25% 11) 1.65% 12) 1.35% 13) 1.1% 14) .9% 15) .5%
This now leaves us at a total of 50% distributed and 50% yet to be determined.
The last 20 games of the season would determine the distribution of the remaining 50% of the Lottery Draft percentages.
Wins are 2 points with Otl’s 1 point like normal. So this gives you a number (we will call it y) that is based on the total amount of points achieved by the 15 non playoff teams in their last 20 games.
(x(times 50% which is the % up for grabs) over 100) times (n(which is the number of points a team gets in it’s last 20 games) over y) . So x/100 times n/y
Here an easy mathematical example on how this would work. So lets say the worst teams 1 to 10 each won 5 games of their last 20 is 10 x 10 = 100 points and teams 11 to 15 each won 15 games of their last 20 = 5 x 30 = 150 points totalling 250 points so y = 250.
So lets work this out for the worst team in the league x/100 times 10/250 so x = 4 times 50% which is 2. Now 15th team which won 15 of their last 20 is x/100 times 30/250 = x = 12 x 50% is 6. So going into the draft lottery the worst place team is 9% + 2% = 11% and the 15th place team is .5% + 6% = 6.5%.
This would ensure that teams would be penalized for tanking in their last 20 games and would make the end of the season exciting, as each game would have relevance.
Hope I didn’t bore you too much.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

With the same tax rate of 40%, if your income is $100k/year, you'll pay $40k, and if it's $100M/year, you'll pay $40M. Is it fair?

No, it should be no more than 20%.

 

[TheRexman]

Just give the Oilers the 1st overall every year. Pretty much guaranteed to screw that player up.
The rest of us will have a lottery for the 2nd overall.

 

[MattMartin]

The draft lottery is crap too because then the NHL can start putting guys where they want them, and don't think for a second that they won't. It's all about the dollar bill.

The first two years of the lottery, two huge Canadian markets get their saviors. I'm shocked.

*Cough* Crosby Malkin *Cough*

 

[MattMartin]

How about a franchise player that the cap doesn't count for? Also must be a drafted player.

 

[nturn06]

if tanking is wrong i don't wanna be right.

There is no more exciting hockey than a team leading by 1, pulling the goalie and "forgetting" to send the players on the ice....

 

[BlueBaron]

How about a franchise player that the cap doesn't count for? Also must be a drafted player.

Larry Bird rule helps non budget teams, basically it is Cap circumvention. As a Leaf fan I'm all for it but in reality that will never happen while Gary is in charge.

 

[VainGretzky]

Ain't no Oiler fan clicking on this one.....

To curb the Oilers they changed the rules which helped the Oilers better then anyone and it might happen again McDavid and Dahlin how sweet it would be