Is the draft lottery working?

[Eisen]

Yes it does. Stars went through this when Tom Hicks went bankrupt. The team for years was going nowhere. Allways somewhat closely missing the playoffs with an older core and never actually really bad. The GM wasn't allowed to tear the team down for year even though it needed to be done.

Another team in my opinion is Arizona / was Arizona. ( not sure if they're still that kind of team ) . Allways somewhat competetive but never really good.

That sucks, but if you are in it for the money as an owner, you probably shouldn't be an owner. Sports can be expensive.
For Arizona it's strange. It seems they have their highest attendance just before qualifying for the playoffs three times in a row. The second they reached the play offs, the attendance plummeted by 3000. And then it goes up again when they started missing. Anyways, they roughly stay in the 14000 +/-1500 bracket (excluding the years they actually qualified). That seems relatively stable to me.

 

[KingsFan7824]

I look at the Kings hiring one of the worst possible coaches to blatantly tank the season and just don't think that deserved a top 3 pick more than say the Devils or hell even Minny or the Oiler or the Hawks or some of those other teams who weren't quite as bad but still bad.

No, the Kings were fully expecting to contend for at least a playoff spot, and then it all went downhill in mid-September. The Kings didn't tank because of Desjardins. They were done well before that, when the players weren't interested in playing professional hockey from the moment they stepped on the ice in training camp.

Which is stupid. I want to cheer for my team to make the playoffs and win in the playoffs or to lose and get rewarded for it. I have zero interest in cheering for my team to finish 10th worst instead of 5th worst. I would rather cheer for them to finish last and be rewarded with an elite player in the top 2. That is something to get excited about, finishing 10th worst is not. Oh sweet we finished 10th worst and have a 1.5% chance to win the lotto.... Fun season guys.

Nothing is stopping you from still cheering for losses. Other than the frustration that comes with doing that, when you have coaches and players (usually) trying to compete, even in meaningless games. However, nobody in the league wants to see more Mike Weber type quotes from 2015.

 

[Prince Pasta]

if you finish in last place, you really should only fall as low as 3, ridiculous that you can fall out of the top three. Shouldn't be able to climb more than 5 spots.

 

[FourRings]

So teams that win the lottery in a bad year should be punished for it? That's complete nonsense.

Just drop the lottery altogether. It's a solution in search of a problem.

It's not nonsense at all. Perennial ineptitude should not be rewarded. There are plenty of talented players available between picks 2-8 every single year.

 

[Perratrooper]

The current draft model is the Eugene Melnyk, everyone hates it and the league would be better if it were gone.

 

[serp]

That sucks, but if you are in it for the money as an owner, you probably shouldn't be an owner. Sports can be expensive.
For Arizona it's strange. It seems they have their highest attendance just before qualifying for the playoffs three times in a row. The second they reached the play offs, the attendance plummeted by 3000. And then it goes up again when they started missing. Anyways, they roughly stay in the 14000 +/-1500 bracket (excluding the years they actually qualified). That seems relatively stable to me.

Hicks owned like 3 or 4 franchises at the same time . Pretty sure the people that to this day dislike him most are Liverpool fans.

 

[Tonneau]

It's not nonsense at all. Perennial ineptitude should not be rewarded.

Drafting high is not a reward.

 

[Oilers 322]

As an Oilers fan, they should just bring back the old lottery system with a rule that states winning the lottery will make you lottery ineligible for the next three years. I don't like the current system because it's common to see bad teams drop 2-3 spots and the difference between drafting 1st and 4th is huge.

Here is what would've happened to the Oilers between 2010-2015 if we had the above change:
2010: Oilers finished last in the league, which means there is ~50% chance they pick first (25% from winning the lottery, and another ~25% from a team outside of top 5 winning the lottery). They win the lottery which means they are ineligible for the lottery until 2014.
2011: Oilers finished last in the league again. They can still pick first overall, but the probability decreases from 50% to 25% since they can will retain their spot only if a team outside the top 5 wins the lottery. Due to immense luck, the Oilers pick first again because New Jersey wins the lottery.
2012: Oilers finished third last in the league and are ineligible for the lottery, which means they cannot move up and pick first overall.
2013: Oilers finished seventh last in the league and are ineligible for the lottery, which means they cannot move up.
2014: Oilers are eligible for the lottery again but does not win.
2015: Oilers win the lottery and draft McDavid. As a result, they are not eligible for the lottery from 2016 to 2018.

A simple rule like that would've changed two things:
1) Decrease the chance of Oilers picking first overall in 2011 from 50% to 25%.
2) Oilers cannot pick first overall in 2012.

I prefer this change over one where the league completely bars a team from picking 1st overall X number of times over X number of years because not all first overalls are equal. The above rule will drastically reduce the chance of a team picking 1st overall multiple times over a three-year period and it can only happen if the team finishes last in the league after winning the lottery.

 

[Muikea Bulju]

I don't think a team should be able to win the lottery twice within a 5 year period. I'm not just saying that because NJ won, just my honest opinion.

They should make it a broader thing

-The sum of the highest 5 (own team) picks in a 10-year-span should be at least 25
-1st overall pick only every 7 years or so
-Maximum of 2 top3 picks in 4 years
-No top2 picks if the team has won a cup in the last 10 years

Etc, you can make up endless amounts of restrictions to it.

 

[TheOtherOne]

To clarify, as a Red Wings fan I've seen my team drop 2 spots, then drop 1 spot, then drop 2 spots again. I should hate the lottery.

I actually really like what it's doing. Look at my team's trajectory. We have several young, inexperienced players trending upwards. We don't have a top 3 pick to lead us. If our guys make the playoffs and compete despite that, great. If they don't, they'll trend bubble for a few years and one of those years they'll end up beating the odds and getting a top 3 pick. If they have a bad year and take a step backwards, they'll increase those odds.

To me there's no sense in worrying about the "bubble team hell" we often talk about around here. You can keep your team too competitive and too proud and too well-run to ever drop into those worst spots, and still be confident that in the long run you'll get that lottery pick. There's no need to blow up an entire season with whatever implications come with that. Just trend better in whatever way you can and either you'll make the playoffs or you'll miss long enough to win the lottery.

 

[FourRings]

They should make it a broader thing

-The sum of the highest 5 (own team) picks in a 10-year-span should be at least 25
-1st overall pick only every 7 years or so
-Maximum of 2 top3 picks in 4 years
-No top2 picks if the team has won a cup in the last 10 years

Etc, you can make up endless amounts of restrictions to it.

I see where you're coming from, but I'm not a fan of putting that many restrictions on the process. First overall selection, to me, is just that much more valuable than any other pick because the majority of first overall picks are sure-fire franchise players.

 

[1865]

The draft is a waste of time, and I say that as a fan of a team who's been screwed by it and benefited from it.

I've not thought this idea through fully, but something along the lines of if you pick top 5 then you have to pick lower the next year.

 

[playasRus]

No. The Senators and Kings are going to continue to decline and will get far worse over the next several years unless lady luck gives them a kiss come lottery day

I mean, if you' finish dead last back to back years (assuming you dind't trade away your 1st) you've got a 35%? chance of getting a 1OA at least once. And if you're Ottawa/Kings/Detroit bad, you'll probably finish around bottom 5 in back to back years so you've got similar odds of winning 1OA. Getting Jack Eichel/Patrick Laine isn't always the worst for a rebuild.

I think back to back 2nd last gets something like 25% chance at one 1OA. For comparisons, back to back 5th last would have a 16% chance of 1OA and 45% chance picking in top 3 at least once.

Ironically my team has fell out of top 3 twice in a row despite finishing last and second last which had the odds of 30% happening.

 

[SuperScript29]

I think a good idea is if a team won it the year before, the odds of winning it again should decrease significantly even if they're last place.

 

[Curufinwe]

The current draft model is the Eugene Melnyk, everyone hates it and the league would be better if it were gone.

You =/ everyone.

 

[topshelf15]

Have it so that the lottery is only available to the worst 8 teams,and have a 2nd lottery for the next 8 teams...And no team can win in successive years

 

[Curufinwe]

The draft was there to make worse teams better and thus ensure a measure of parity. A lottery doesn't ensure that at all. To me, it's a farce.

The league has more parity than ever.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Yes, Matthews would have been their best player ever, and a home town boy. But, Arizona will never be anywhere close to the hockey market in Toronto. Do you think his jersey sales would be anywhere remotely close to what they are now if he played in Arizona? That's the financial incentive to put him in Toronto.

Nowhere will be the hockey market Toronto is. Maybe Montreal(although they weren't between the first and second lockouts when free agency exploded). If be like Toronto is the only criteria, why are there any teams in most cities? They should be gone, or at the very least all in the GTA.

The Leafs are making money and selling jerseys regardless of who is on the ice for them. Pretty much whether they win or lose too. If there's one franchise that needs exactly zero help financially, in any way, it's the one in Toronto.

For the Leafs to be able to steal a good ol' American boy from down in desert country, it's a shame. Growing up in Arizona, probably always had a childhood dream of playing there. Family seeing him. It's very important. Good American boy, playing the game the right way!

 

[NJ DevLolz]

Yes, yes it is

 

[SML2]

Having every team that missed have a chance is not fair. There is no GD reason why the 15th position should ever walk away with #1. It's a statistical long shot that cripples legitimately bad franchises for years if it comes through.

 

[1865]

Having every team that missed have a chance is not fair. There is no GD reason why the 15th position should ever walk away with #1. It's a statistical long shot that cripples legitimately bad franchises for years if it comes through.

It does incentivise teams to actually have a go though.

 

[FourRings]

Drafting high is not a reward.

For some franchises drafting high is the goal. Which is exactly why the lottery exists.

 

[pabst blue ribbon]

The worst teams in the league should get access to the top picks, it's pretty ridiculous that teams ranked 19th/20th/21st have picked in the top 3 for the past 3 years. By the way, "tanking" was never a problem

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Nowhere will be the hockey market Toronto is. Maybe Montreal(although they weren't between the first and second lockouts when free agency exploded). If be like Toronto is the only criteria, why are there any teams in most cities? They should be gone, or at the very least all in the GTA.

The Leafs are making money and selling jerseys regardless of who is on the ice for them. Pretty much whether they win or lose too. If there's one franchise that needs exactly zero help financially, in any way, it's the one in Toronto.

For the Leafs to be able to steal a good ol' American boy from down in desert country, it's a shame. Growing up in Arizona, probably always had a childhood dream of playing there. Family seeing him. It's very important. Good American boy, playing the game the right way!

Yes, there are some great, sentimental reasons to want to see him play in Arizona. But, financially, the incentive is to put him in a market where he can actually sell merchandise. Once both Coyotes fans have bought his jersey, how much more is the league going to profit? Would we see a bunch of Canadians now sporting Coyotes' jerseys? No. So, it makes a lot more sense to put him in a place with millions of potential jersey sales, instead of a place with only a handful.

 

[Muikea Bulju]

I see where you're coming from, but I'm not a fan of putting that many restrictions on the process. First overall selection, to me, is just that much more valuable than any other pick because the majority of first overall picks are sure-fire franchise players.

Top2 pick restriction would be even more important, because multiple drafts have had 2 cornerstones / 1a+1b, but not a single one has had 3 in many, many years:

2004: Ovie + Geno
2008: Stamkos + Doughty
2010: Tyler vs Taylor
2011: RNH+Landeskog
2013: MacKinnon+Barkov
2015: Mcdavid+Eichel
2016: Laine+Matthews
2019: Hughes+Kakko

So if you want just 1 rule, maybe it should be:

-a maximum of 1 top2 pick in 7 years

(On average teams should have a top2 once every 15-16 years, so that rule would still be pretty easy on the perennial losers)