- Jan 4, 2015
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People have a weird take on the word "luck" around here in terms of the NHL draft lottery.
People seem to conflate the lottery with an “amount of high picks” thing. But actually it’s more about what players your lottery win gives you access to, or prevents you from accessing.
Luck doesn’t involve being good or crappy, it just means having the ping pong balls bounce in such a way that it alters the trajectory of a team.
These are the luckiest bounces ever in NHL draft lottery history:
- [ ] Edmonton in 2015, moved up 2 spots to get Connor McDavid. Enough said.
- [ ] Colorado won in 2013, jumping from 2nd to 1st to get Nate McKinnon. The alternative could have been Barkov, but more likely was Seth Jones.
- [ ] Yes, they finished last to “earn” the slot, but the 2016 Leafs still only had a 1-in-5 chance at Auston Matthews in a year with a huge drop-off to #2
- [ ] New Jersey in 2019 jumped up 3 spots to grab Jack Hughes in a year where the alternatives were not even close
- [ ] The Rangers in 2020, won not one, but two lotteries to effectively move up 15 slots to 1st overall. Yes, they squandered it by picking Alexis Lafreniere, but that’s not luck, that’s entirely on themselves.
- [ ] Carolina hit on a 3% chance in 2018 to jump from 11 to 2. Svechnikov may be step below franchise stud, but when you look at the players picked between 8 and 20 that year, this was definitely lucky. The Islanders will be hoping they’ve just followed in those footsteps, and not in those of Philly in 2017. That’s the year the Flyers went from 13 to 2 and whiffed with Nolan Patrick.
- [ ] But you don’t have to win the lottery to win the draft. In 2017, 3 teams jumped over last-pace Colorado, and the Avs came up smelling like a rose with the best player in the draft at 4, Cale Maker.
- [ ] Vancouver fell a spot in 2018 and had the best player in that draft drop into their laps. Can you imagine Canuck fans today if had stayed at 6, picked Filip Zadina and watched Quinn Hughes slide to the Rangers?
As for unlucky bounces, they are often overrated, just like the guarantee of getting a stud in the top 5 is overstated. The test of time clearly shows how that really varies from year to year. And dropping a spot or two in that range hasn’t really made much of a difference.
- [ ] The worst example of teams getting shafted by the lottery balls, may have actually been in 2017, and it didn’t affect the top teams. The Rangers and the Knights may have been ‘settling’ for Makar, Pettersson or Heiskanen instead of Cody Glass and Lias Andersson if not for the lottery pushing Dallas, Philly and New Jersey past them.
- [ ] Buffalo in 2015, dropped 1 spot to miss out on Connor McDavid. That said, the fact that Jack Eichel was a worthy #1 most other years mitigated that.
- [ ] Maybe I should feel sorry for Phoenix missing out after ‘earning’ Eichel in 2015, but I don’t, not when they took Strome over Marner.
- [ ] Detroit got jumped in 2018, but saw two reaches taken ahead of them in Hayton and Kotkaniemi. They weren’t getting Tkachuk and taking Zadina over Hughes is all on them.
- [ ] And they got jumped twice in 2020, dropping from 1st to 4th. But would they actually want Lafreniere over Raymond today? Or Byfield, or even Stutzle?
- [ ] Vancouver got jumped twice in 2017 and still ended up with Pettersson — prior to this season frequently ranked as that year’s 2nd-best player
- [ ] And I’m not going to feel sorry for the Canucks for getting jumped twice in 2016 either. Matthew Tkachuk and Keller were still on the board and they chose Juolevi.
The more recent drafts are a little harder to call because we don’t have a big enough sample size yet. Did winning the lottery in 2021 or 2022 really matter? Bedard was supposed to be a different story in 2023, and probably will be, but right now is he that much better than Fantilli and Carlsson and Michkov?
Winning — or losing — the lottery frequently doesn’t match the hype.
People seem to conflate the lottery with an “amount of high picks” thing. But actually it’s more about what players your lottery win gives you access to, or prevents you from accessing.
Luck doesn’t involve being good or crappy, it just means having the ping pong balls bounce in such a way that it alters the trajectory of a team.
These are the luckiest bounces ever in NHL draft lottery history:
- [ ] Edmonton in 2015, moved up 2 spots to get Connor McDavid. Enough said.
- [ ] Colorado won in 2013, jumping from 2nd to 1st to get Nate McKinnon. The alternative could have been Barkov, but more likely was Seth Jones.
- [ ] Yes, they finished last to “earn” the slot, but the 2016 Leafs still only had a 1-in-5 chance at Auston Matthews in a year with a huge drop-off to #2
- [ ] New Jersey in 2019 jumped up 3 spots to grab Jack Hughes in a year where the alternatives were not even close
- [ ] The Rangers in 2020, won not one, but two lotteries to effectively move up 15 slots to 1st overall. Yes, they squandered it by picking Alexis Lafreniere, but that’s not luck, that’s entirely on themselves.
- [ ] Carolina hit on a 3% chance in 2018 to jump from 11 to 2. Svechnikov may be step below franchise stud, but when you look at the players picked between 8 and 20 that year, this was definitely lucky. The Islanders will be hoping they’ve just followed in those footsteps, and not in those of Philly in 2017. That’s the year the Flyers went from 13 to 2 and whiffed with Nolan Patrick.
- [ ] But you don’t have to win the lottery to win the draft. In 2017, 3 teams jumped over last-pace Colorado, and the Avs came up smelling like a rose with the best player in the draft at 4, Cale Maker.
- [ ] Vancouver fell a spot in 2018 and had the best player in that draft drop into their laps. Can you imagine Canuck fans today if had stayed at 6, picked Filip Zadina and watched Quinn Hughes slide to the Rangers?
As for unlucky bounces, they are often overrated, just like the guarantee of getting a stud in the top 5 is overstated. The test of time clearly shows how that really varies from year to year. And dropping a spot or two in that range hasn’t really made much of a difference.
- [ ] The worst example of teams getting shafted by the lottery balls, may have actually been in 2017, and it didn’t affect the top teams. The Rangers and the Knights may have been ‘settling’ for Makar, Pettersson or Heiskanen instead of Cody Glass and Lias Andersson if not for the lottery pushing Dallas, Philly and New Jersey past them.
- [ ] Buffalo in 2015, dropped 1 spot to miss out on Connor McDavid. That said, the fact that Jack Eichel was a worthy #1 most other years mitigated that.
- [ ] Maybe I should feel sorry for Phoenix missing out after ‘earning’ Eichel in 2015, but I don’t, not when they took Strome over Marner.
- [ ] Detroit got jumped in 2018, but saw two reaches taken ahead of them in Hayton and Kotkaniemi. They weren’t getting Tkachuk and taking Zadina over Hughes is all on them.
- [ ] And they got jumped twice in 2020, dropping from 1st to 4th. But would they actually want Lafreniere over Raymond today? Or Byfield, or even Stutzle?
- [ ] Vancouver got jumped twice in 2017 and still ended up with Pettersson — prior to this season frequently ranked as that year’s 2nd-best player
- [ ] And I’m not going to feel sorry for the Canucks for getting jumped twice in 2016 either. Matthew Tkachuk and Keller were still on the board and they chose Juolevi.
The more recent drafts are a little harder to call because we don’t have a big enough sample size yet. Did winning the lottery in 2021 or 2022 really matter? Bedard was supposed to be a different story in 2023, and probably will be, but right now is he that much better than Fantilli and Carlsson and Michkov?
Winning — or losing — the lottery frequently doesn’t match the hype.
