Absolutely zero chance at that, maybe if Macklin Celebrini fails to score another point in the NCAA this year.
Valid point unless they are Ovie level wingers
That was also my point
In fact, that's the most probable outcome. We were fortunate to stick at 4th last year.
There you go with them negative waves, man.
McDavid - Celebrini as 1/2C and the oilers still will disappoint lol
Realistic waves which the NHL needs and deserves, you mean?
It is kinda crazy that the only western teams to draft 1OA other than Chicago and Edmonton (Darlings) EVER are St Louis once, Colorado once (not counting previous team), Kings once in the 70s, folded teams 5x and I think the Jackets were in the west at the time, but that's it. Of course, the lottery only started 30 or so years ago, so thats 5 different western teams in 30 years.
Since the 2009 to present the eastern conference was awarded 15 times 1st overall pick and western conference 3 times. If this is not RIGGED LOTTERY than what is!
Since the 2005-06 season, the worst team in the NHL has come from the Eastern Conference twelve times, and the Western Conference six times. With the draft lottery, that's well within the range of statistical likelihood.
Wasn't trying to make it an East-West thing, just that I found that interesting. The Senators for example are an Eastern team that's also gotten absolutely screwed the last decade, but they did have their picks in the 90s. But the point was more traffic overall is in the east, which is also where the money teams are. You don't find it odd a team like the Rangers come outright and say they are tanking despite just coming off years of playoffs, never even finish bottom 5, but win the lottery twice? Yet a team like Arizona or Anaheim who perpetually struggled for a decade never won once? Or how teams like Toronto or Montreal finish last just one year and of course win #1, along with most other years when secondary markets finish last but get jumped by bigger markets? Or how Chicago forced its two stars out then wins the lottery for the guy to replace them?
The draft lottery was done in partnership with Ernst and Young. No shot EY is risking their reputation as a big 4 firm over the NHL draft lottery haha it's fun to act like it's rigged but so long as the NHL uses a 3rd party like EY I'm going to say its safe to assume it's not
Why wouldn't 3rd party want to Rigged it. It's more under the table money for them if they take it for their organization. And the thing is. "NO ONE can prove that they cheated". Buttman and the NHL owners will look the other way. It is win-win for the NHL and EY. Losers are most of the NHL Western Conference teams and their fans. It's rigged! Look, I'm going to say it out loud 1st. Chicago is going to win the lottery again this year because the NHL wants a big city to have its big stars. Bedard and Celebrini on the same line is going to sell more tix and put more butts in the seats. This NHL business is all about MONEY not Fans!
Ernst & Young has annual revenues in excess of $45 billion. The NHL has annual revenues of approximately $6 billion.
Is the NHL paying EY multiple billions of dollars to rig it? Because EY generates more revenue every year than the entire league is worth today. Again, it makes literally no sense given the damage it would do to both EY and the NHL should something come out.
Wait why would it deter tanking?
Yeah, EY doing this as an advisory engagement is likely not even getting $1M for that work. Only way that they'd get probably even half of that is due to risk. But from an engagement time budget perspective, even getting $250k for this work would still probably yield something like $500 an hour (which is still insane given $250 an hour is considered amazing on the audit side of the firm I work for). And even then, I can't see how the NHL lottery is a 500 hour engagement year over year as it's as simple as throwing team names into whatever their data analytics tool of choice is and randomizing.
