The New York Rangers ended the 2018-19 season with the sixth worst record in the NHL. Now the drama will shift to Tuesday night in Toronto when the lottery will decide which teams get the top three picks in the Entry Draft.
The New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins in overtime, giving them two more points to finish with 78 on the season. For a team that entered the last day of action in the NHL with a shot at the 5th worst record, it sure looked like they were going to finish seventh.
The Rangers needed Edmonton to get a win against Calgary to remain in sixth and the Oilers obliged, with a 3-1 win to stay one point better than New York.
If the Rangers had lost, a fifth place finish was guaranteed as Detroit and Buffalo were playing each other so one of them would have finished with same point total as the Blueshirts, but both teams owned the ROW tiebreaker. It was not to be as soon as the Rangers went to overtime.
If Edmonton had lost, the uproar from the fanbase would have been loud. Losing the fifth place finish has undoubtedly caused a lot of irritation. It figures that this Ranger team would take three of a possible four points in their last two games.
So, the Rangers dodged a lottery bullet and ended up in sixth place. All in all, it worked out as well as one could hope. The Rangers finished the season on a high note, they threw a scare in the Pittsburgh Penguins, and they added a chapter to the winning culture textbook they are trying to write.
With the sixth place finish, the team has a 23.3% shot at getting a top three pick. The odds are greatest that they will slip one slot and pick seventh and there is a slim chance that they can drop as low as ninth.
The lottery odds
Here are the lottery odds for the sixth place finish:
In the category of non-tanking teams, New Jersey won in a shootout 4-3 over the Panthers when they could have dropped to second worst record with a loss. The Sabres won their last two games to finish fifth overall after a March swoon. And then there was the Rangers….
The final standings (Worst is first)
Here’s how the 15 lottery eligible teams ended up.
Teams W-L-OTL PTS ROW
1. Ottawa 29-47-6 64 29
2. Los Angeles 31-41-9 71 28
3. New Jersey 31-41-10 72 28
4. Detroit 32-40-10 74 29
5. Buffalo 33-39-10 76 28
6. Rangers 32-36-14 78 26
7. Edmonton 35-38-9 79 32
9. Anaheim 35-37-10 80 31
8. Vancouver 35-36-11 81 29
10. Philadelphia 37-37-8 82 34
11. Minnesota 37-36-9 83 36
12. Chicago 36-34-12 84 33
13. Florida 36-32-14 86 33
14. Arizona 39-35-8 86 35
15. Montreal 44-30-8 96 41
This will be the lowest pick the Rangers have earned (from standings and not through a trade) since 1998 when they selected Manny Malhotra seventh overall.
If you want to have some fun, go to tankathon.com. They have a sim lottery feature and you can see where the Rangers will finish in a simulated lottery. I did it ten times and the Rangers ended up with these picks: First pick twice, third pick three times, sixth pick once, seventh pick twice, eighth pick once, ninth pick once. I’d take those odds.