Is the draft lottery working?

[Dr Black]

No!! It's not working!

Every year, we have had some team that barely misses the playoffs moves up to the top 3.
2019 Chicago moves up 9 points
2018 Carolina moves up 9 points
2017 Philadelphia moves up 10 points, Dallas moves up 4 points
2016 Winnipeg moves up 4 points

Having 3 teams move up 9, 9 and 10 points 3 years in a row is unacceptable. Especially when you have teams like Vancouver get knocked down 1 or 2 points EVERY time. In 2016, this cost Vancouver greatly, getting knocked down 2 points to 5th and picking an absolute dud in Joulevi who has done nothing for this team in 3 years. All this after a horrible, dreadful season.

This year, being 9th from the bottom, you would think Vancouver would at least stay where they are, right? But no, they get bumped down again from 9 to 10. With the exception of Rantanen, and maybe Brodin, the 10th overall pick has been a collection of mediocre players and busts. In fact, you have to go back 30 years to the '80s to find back to back star players at 10th overall, Selanne 1988 and Holik 1989.

 

[Svechhammer]

No!! It's not working!

Every year, we have had some team that barely misses the playoffs moves up to the top 3.
2019 Chicago moves up 9 points
2018 Carolina moves up 9 points
2017 Philadelphia moves up 10 points, Dallas moves up 4 points
2016 Winnipeg moves up 4 points

Having 3 teams move up 9, 9 and 10 points 3 years in a row is unacceptable. Especially when you have teams like Vancouver get knocked down 1 or 2 points EVERY time. In 2016, this cost Vancouver greatly, getting knocked down 2 points to 5th and picking an absolute dud in Joulevi who has done nothing for this team in 3 years. All this after a horrible, dreadful season.

This year, being 9th from the bottom, you would think Vancouver would at least stay where they are, right? But no, they get bumped down again from 9 to 10. With the exception of Rantanen, and maybe Brodin, the 10th overall pick has been a collection of mediocre players and busts. In fact, you have to go back 30 years to the '80s to find back to back star players at 10th overall, Selanne 1988 and Holik 1989.

The draft lottery was set up to prevent tanking. It was set up to prevent the Oilers from still being the Oilers, essentially.

And in that regard, its working. Having teams moving up like that completely devalues being at the bottom of the standings, and rewards, at random, a team that was not good but not terrible. Its doing a darn good job of devaluing the incentive to tank.

 

[Numba9]

IMO the issue with the draft lottery is that the odds don't change year to year. With any sort of lottery, the results will eventually match up with the odds. But usually you will have outlying results where someone will be incredibly lucky or unlucky. The problem with the draft lottery is it happens infrequently so you run the possibility of having teams that are very unlucky and that might last for many years or even decades. Maybe a way to mitigate this is to have the odds change for teams year to year. If a team wins the lottery their odds go down the next year, if a team doesn't win the lottery their odds go up the next year. Seem more fair then the current lottery system.

 

[TheOtherOne]

No!! It's not working!

Every year, we have had some team that barely misses the playoffs moves up to the top 3.
2019 Chicago moves up 9 points
2018 Carolina moves up 9 points
2017 Philadelphia moves up 10 points, Dallas moves up 4 points
2016 Winnipeg moves up 4 points

Having 3 teams move up 9, 9 and 10 points 3 years in a row is unacceptable. Especially when you have teams like Vancouver get knocked down 1 or 2 points EVERY time. In 2016, this cost Vancouver greatly, getting knocked down 2 points to 5th and picking an absolute dud in Joulevi who has done nothing for this team in 3 years. All this after a horrible, dreadful season.

This year, being 9th from the bottom, you would think Vancouver would at least stay where they are, right? But no, they get bumped down again from 9 to 10. With the exception of Rantanen, and maybe Brodin, the 10th overall pick has been a collection of mediocre players and busts. In fact, you have to go back 30 years to the '80s to find back to back star players at 10th overall, Selanne 1988 and Holik 1989.

Maybe Vancouver should get better at drafting.

 

[Leafidelity]

Really? I'd hope you can remember 4 years ago. Remember 3 years ago when you were trash too?

I remember being in the draft lottery many many times. Most rebuilding teams are. Its easy to tank, it's the climbing back out that's hard.

 

[WHISTLERNATE]

Maybe Vancouver should get better at drafting.

I think most reasonable Canucks fans are pretty happy with our drafting over the past few years.

I fully expect Joulevi to turn some heads next year. He was drafted knowing it would take him a few years to get to the league. He would have been up by xmas this year had he not gotten hurt.

 

[Elysian]

Worked great for Dallas.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

The goal was to introduce more variance. It has achieved its goal.

 

[Rangers79]

The Canucks haven't made the playoffs for 4 years. Maybe complain less about draft luck and more about how the team is rebuilding. Or have patience.

 

[Highmarker]

I honestly believe that the Oilers would have iced better teams at least in the past 5 years if they would have never won a lottery(or a 1STOA) Management would have had to work harder at drafting and development

It's very possible they may have got a better player than Nuge in 2011 although Edmonton is still happy with him and the Yakupov draft we all know how that worked out.

 

[Dr Black]

Maybe Vancouver should get better at drafting.

Better at drafting? Are you kidding me? Vancouver did an excellent job in 2017 and 2018, drafting Elias Pettersson 5th overall and Quinn Hughes 7th overall, IN SPITE OF, not because of Bettman's draft lottery.

But Vancouver could not overcome this disadvantage in 2016. In 2019, they get bumped back, AGAIN! This time to 10th. A position that's never worked out well for the Canucks. Or the majority other teams at that slot.

 

[DFC]

Hasn't worked very well for this guy:

 

[Dr Black]

I think most reasonable Canucks fans are pretty happy with our drafting over the past few years.

I fully expect Joulevi to turn some heads next year. He was drafted knowing it would take him a few years to get to the league. He would have been up by xmas this year had he not gotten hurt.

I hope you are right about Joulevi. I want to be proven wrong here. I want to be eating my words in another year or two.

But to this point in time, this pick has been a failure. A pick who's slot was directly determined by Bettman's new draft lottery system.

 

[Toews2Bickell]

Its not working because the same dogshit teams show up every year and get f***ed by the odds? Thats how the math is set up... for teams to get hosed. The teams that are dogshit most years continue to get hosed because they keep showing up in the lottery. No surprise. Draft better.

 

[dogbazinho]

Its not working because it doesn't put the best player on the worst team. Worst team shouldn't be based on 1 year but the last 3 averaged. Teams that are consistently bad should get a better player than a team that misses the playoff 1 year even if that team has the worst record. This will get rid of the 1 year tank and there would be no need for RNG.

 

[Panthaz89]

Yes, because a team like the Senators without their 1st round pick was trying to bottom out. Entirely comparable.

just saying it gets overstated that the Sabres traded away a couple players at the deadline and its a massive tank when they finished with more points than the previous year yet the Coyotes can drop 20+ points down from the previous year and traded away Dubnyk who was playing incredibly well for them early in that season and had a winning record yet everyone gives the Sabres the slack for tanking when the team had no hope for the playoffs a loooong time before the deadline.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Better at drafting? Are you kidding me? Vancouver did an excellent job in 2017 and 2018, drafting Elias Pettersson 5th overall and Quinn Hughes 7th overall, IN SPITE OF, not because of Bettman's draft lottery.

But Vancouver could not overcome this disadvantage in 2016. In 2019, they get bumped back, AGAIN! This time to 10th. A position that's never worked out well for the Canucks. Or the majority other teams at that slot.

Hey you're the one who just ranted about how your team won't stop sucking even with all the top 10 picks you've been gifted.

 

[who_me?]

Hasn't worked very well for this guy:

To think that both Hughes and Kakko dodged the Oilers bullet, and they are guaranteed to live a millionaire's lifestyle for the rest of their career in the NY Metro area, while McDavid has 8 more years of no playoffs to look forward to in the barren tundra known as Edmonton.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Its not working because it doesn't put the best player on the worst team. Worst team shouldn't be based on 1 year but the last 3 averaged. Teams that are consistently bad should get a better player than a team that misses the playoff 1 year even if that team has the worst record. This will get rid of the 1 year tank and there would be no need for RNG.

Interesting. I'm pretty open to this idea. First time I've heard it. Did you come up with a unique solution?

 

[dogbazinho]

He should have gone to the NCAA, gotten an education and dictated where he wanted to play (change is coming)

 

[Stuzchuk]

Yes, it's working. It deters tanking. Any team that misses the playoffs can win it but you aren't guaranteed a top 2 pick just because you finished last.

If you draft well...you can get good players anywhere in the draft. Islanders got Barzal, Boston got McAvoy and Pastrnak, Detroit got Larkin...all great players, all after the top 10 picks in the draft.

I was watching a documentary on this... it's not good drafting but good development. At that stage, there's not enough difference in the ability of scouts to skip... say 11 times on a great player

 

[dogbazinho]

Interesting. I'm pretty open to this idea. First time I've heard it. Did you come up with a unique solution?

Just from watching the Canes miss the playoffs for 9 years and watch multiple teams tank and get better picks and return to the playoffs. Picking 5-12 repeatedly is a death sentence. My suggestion is purely selfish but really teams like NYR shouldn't get a better pick than the Yotes for example. Yotes are clearly the worst team and deserve a franchise player. 1 year can be an anomaly. Consistently bad teams need better personnel and extending the duration of the sample is probably more accurate. Reset if the team makes the playoffs if you want.

 

[ColbyChaos]

Hell no it’s not working. The Kings were completely ****ed last night!

Thy actually got ****ed from November 4th onward

 

[GreatBear]

In my opinion the lottery needs to be looked at as part of the totality of the league's approach to competitiveness. It is the goal of the league to try to have teams play competitive hockey throughout the season, which in turn keeps up fan interest. Ideally, from the league's perspective, all 31 teams would be fighting for a playoff spot until very late in the season.

Further, the draft lottery is limited to the draft position of teams in the first round. The draft position in all subsequent rounds is not affected by the lottery, which tells me that the league understands that there is a huge premium in landing one of the first three picks of the draft.

By setting the draft order in reverse order of finish the goal was to strengthen the weaker teams over time. However, everyone understands that the quality of even the top players in the draft will vary from year to year, that drafting is an inexact process of trying to forecast the development of 17/18 year olds into their 20's, and that the quality of the scouting staffs of each team will affect the draft selections by each team. The lottery can do nothing to deal with these variables.
The lottery can also do nothing about any other moves that the team makes, in terms of signing coaches and other staff, cap management, trades, and the signing of free agents. While those are unrelated to the draft, they are directly related to team success and thus draft position.

There is no doubt that drafting a McDavid is potentially a team altering event, although as spectacular as he is, McDavid has not been enough to fully turn around the fortunes of the Oilers. Thus I understand the emotion of wanting the highest possible draft pick, and the frustration when a team that has finished last suddenly finds itself picking fourth. But there is more to team success than just this one factor, and there are good players available to help overall team success outside of the first three picks.

If I were to change the lottery I would do the following:
1) I would reduce the odds of the teams outside the top 10 moving into the top three. Perhaps there could be a rule change that just as a team could not move down more than three places that a team could not move up more than three places. This would preclude a team from moving up 10 places, since that team was probably very close to a playoff position and does not need the help of a top ranked draft prospect.
2) I would add a rule that a team that finishes in the top three places in one year cannot be in the top three in the next draft. This would preclude teams from
regularly being rewarded for bottom finishes. Instead it would force such teams to try to improve by other methods, which probably have more of an impact on team success than the draft. These teams would still get a good player in the draft, they just may not get two generational players in a row.

 

[Mark Stones Spleen]

I hated the old system. I'm of the belief that high end prospects shouldn't necessarily go to a team that's had one bad year. For me, a Sidney Crosby or McDavid are once in a decade, if that. They put butts in seats and everyone wants them. Teams with long-term success of making the playoffs deserve them just as much as Pittsburgh or Edmonton.

A team like Detroit, who drafted and developed really well during their 20+ year streak, should have access to these players as much as anyone else.

The current system at least pools all non-playoff teams, I'd be fine if they even included all teams in general.