The Reward For Sucking?

1) The NHL will conduct its Draft Lottery today, Tuesday, April 14th. The lottery will take place in-studio with NHL deputy-commissioner Bill Daly revealing the results live on-air. This will be the 2nd time the draft lottery has been aired live on television since the 'Crosby Draft' of 2005, and for only the third time in 13 years. The lottery will also be simulcast live on the TSN.ca, NHL Network, NHL.com.

2) The bottom 14 (non-playoff) teams in the NHL will be eligible for the lottery, where odds are weighted by least amount of regular season points. The winning lottery team can move up no more than four spots in the draft and no team can move back more than one.

3) Here's the breakdown:

• The five lowest-finishing teams that have a crack at the No. 1 pick: The 30th place team has a 25% chance of winning the drawing, followed by 18.8% for the 29th place team, 14.2% for 28th, 10.7% for 27th and 8.1% for 26th.


• The other nine non-play-off teams also have a diminishing chance of winning the lottery, but if they win they just move up four positions in the draft. For example, the 25th place team has a 6.2% chance of winning and would shift to the No. 2 spot in the draft. And, if a 25th to 17th place team wins the lottery, the first overall pick remains with the 30th place team. That's why, when all the math is done, finishing last provides a team with a 48.2% chance of picking first.

4) Here's are a few odd facts:

• In 13 draft lotteries since its inception in 1995, the team finishing 30th has been rewarded with the first pick just four times.


• The team finishing in third-last has been promoted to the first pick four times, even though the odds of that happening are just 14.2%.


• The second to worst finisher has NEVER won the draft lottery! Not only has the second-worst team never won the draft lottery in 12 attempts, but on four occasions it is has been pushed back one drafting spot when the third-worst team won the lottery. If we were betting folks we'd say that this will be the year the second suckiest team wins the lottery.
  

5) Of course we will renew our objection to the whole lottery process. Our position, though radical and controversial, would eliminate all possible doubt, and no longer reward failure/incompetence. That is do what was done in the 'Crosby sweepstakes' (2005 draft). Have ALL teams' draft order determined equally by a lottery. It would be a great/exciting show, like then, to have every team a chance at the 1st pick, and it eliminates once and for all any chance that teams would be disincentivized from playing their best/best players at all times!

6) It forces GM's/teams to improve by making good decisions, not by tanking a season or two to rebuild and getting good picks. It eliminates ANY notion that teams aren't playing their best each and every night. Also, and as importantly, it stops once and for all the idiotic notion of reward for failure. While we're a it stop the 'loser point' in games. You lose, you get zero points for your effort!