The NHL’s Entry Draft Lottery plan makes no sense
The New York Rangers have a better picture of their prospects for the NHL Entry Draft lottery
When Gary Bettman and the NHL laid out their long term plans for returning to NHL hockey, they finally cleared up one of the major questions facing the league, how they will conduct the 2020 NHL Entry Draft Lottery.
The result is a convoluted process that will take one or two phases and will happen on one set date and another undetermined date in the future. . They didn’t answer the key questions about when the actual draft will be held and how the order picks will be determined.
The New York Rangers own two first round draft picks and there is now some clarity on how those picks will end up where they are. The simple answer is that the Rangers could end up with either one or no lottery picks.
The whole process is incredibly confusing with as many as two separate lottery drawings from two different pools of teams and there seems to be few logical reasons to do it this way.
The format
Pre-pandemic, the draft lottery was a straightforward process. The 15 teams that didn’t make the postseason were in the lottery with the worst teams having the best odds. There’s no reason that the league couldn’t do it the same way despite the delay in getting the season re-started.
Instead, the draft lottery will have two phases. Phase One will take place on June 26, the original date of the Entry Draft. The seven non-postseason teams will be in it along with “placeholders” for the eight teams that will be eliminated in the play-in or “qualifying round.”
Instead of a series of drawings eliminating teams and leaving three teams with the top three picks, there will be three drawings, one each for the first, second and third pick. Why three drawings? No answer to that question.
Here’s where it gets complicated and just plain weird.
If the bottom seven teams get the top three picks (in the three drawings) there will be no Phase Two. The top three picks will go to the winners and the remaining top 15 picks will go to the remaining bottom four teams and the losers of the qualifying round in reverse order by points percentage.
If any of the top three picks go to a qualifying round loser, there will be another series of drawings, but the seven non-postseason teams won’t participate.
That means that if a team loses in the qualifying round they will have the same odds at getting the lottery pick as the other losing teams.
Here’s a scenario. In Phase One, none of the worst seven teams get any of the three lottery picks. That means a Phase Two with three drawings, only for the eight teams that lost in the qualifying round. Each of those eight teams would have an even chance of getting the lottery pick, a 12.5% shot.
So, drawing one would be for the top overall pick. The second draw would be among the remaining seven qualifying round losers and would be for the second pick (14.3%). The third drawing would be for third lottery pick and would be among six teams (16.7%).
In this case, if the Rangers lose to Carolina in the qualifying round, they would have a 12.5% shot at Alexis Lafreniere, the consensus top pick. If they lost in that drawing, they would have a 14.3% chance at the second overall pick and if they lost in that drawing, a 16.7% shot at the third overall pick.
Considering that the Rangers have the 12th worst points percentage among the teams that wouldn’t have qualified for the postseason, their odds of a top three pick would have been between 2% and 2.4%.
What it means is that if none of the worst seven teams get any of the top three picks, as unlikely as that may seem, teams in the qualifying round would know that a loss would give them an equal chance of getting one of the top three players in the draft.
You can read the full lottery draft process description by clicking here.
Why do it this way?
There a few reasons why the NHL is doing it this way.
- They get to hold the lottery on June 26, building some fever about hockey while play is suspended.
- It will prevent a team from tanking in the qualifying round. How nuts would it be if the Rangers had won the lottery with the 2% chance and knew that the only way they could get Alexis Lafreniere is if they lose to Carolina?
- They have the possibility of a second lottery, a chance to build more fever and awareness about hockey.
- A better chance of a top three pick for a qualifying round loser is a way of appeasing a team that my feel cheated if they lose to a team that wouldn’t have been in the playoffs when play was suspended.
- It eliminates the chance that a team could get a top three pick and then go on a long run into the playoffs, even winning the Cup.
- A second phase would have no impact on the teams that didn’t make the qualifying round. Their order in the draft would be determined after Phase One.
Remaining issues
There are a few issues remaining that the NHL did not address. These are legitimate issues that the league will have to come to grips with sooner than later.
- The league indicated that the earliest the NHL can resume action is mid to late July. That means the second phase of the lottery will take place in between the qualifying round and the first round of the playoffs. The second phase of the lottery will be an afterthought in markets with playoff teams.
- While the league is planning on resuming play, what if they don’t? What happens to the draft lottery at that point? If they cannot have a Phase Two do they just revert to regular season points percentage to determine the picks?
- What about the actual Entry Draft? The order of selection (after the lottery) is based on the order of finish for non-playoff teams and by how far a team goes in the playoffs. If the season extends to late September does that mean the Entry Draft will he held at that time?
None of these decisions are easy. By doing it this way, the league eliminated some issues while ignoring others. One question that has been hanging over the league is “What about the Entry Draft?” They didn’t answer that one.
All of this uncertainty is of no help to the NCAA, Canadian Junior Leagues along with the leagues in Europe. All of those leagues have cancelled their seasons and are planning on a resumption in the fall as normal. Their ability to plan for their seasons would be hampered by the NHL’s indecision.
The simplest solution would have been to delay the Lottery until after the qualifying round. They could have conducted one drawing the traditional way with the 15 non-Stanley Cup playoff teams eligible. It would have created some buzz in the market where there is no hockey and kept interest in the markets that lost in the qualifying round.
What about the Rangers?
To illustrate how crazy this is, let’s look at the Blueshirts. The Rangers own their own first round pick along with the worse of Carolina’s two picks (their own and Toronto’s). Here are the options:
- If the Rangers beat Carolina and Toronto beats Columbus, the Rangers have no lottery pick.
- If the Rangers beat Carolina and Columbus beats Toronto, the Rangers get Toronto’s lottery pick. The only issue is if Toronto wins the lottery or moves into the top ten. Then, the Rangers would get Carolina’s pick as the Toronto pick is conditional.
- If the Rangers lose to Carolina and Toronto beats Columbus, the Blueshirts get their own lottery pick.
- If the Rangers lose to Carolina and Columbus beats Toronto, the Rangers get their own lottery pick.
Here’s the craziness. If none of the bottom seven teams win the lottery and the Rangers and Toronto win in the qualifying round, that means Columbus and Carolina will have an even 12.5% chance of getting the top lottery pick, despite the fact that they both had better regular season records than the Rangers. In fact, it means that the Islanders, Florida or Vancouver could all win the draft lottery despite having a better record than the Blueshirts.
We have one correction from a earlier version of this post (thanks to TommyG for pointing it out). We omitted the fact that the Toronto pick owned by Carolina is conditional and Toronto keeps it if it is a top ten pick. A dream scenario would be for both Carolina and Toronto to lose in the qualifying round and then win the lottery. If that happens, the Rangers would get the Hurricanes’ pick no matter what and it would be a top three pick. It’s the one way the Blueshirts could get a top three lottery pick even if they beat the Hurricanes.
Okay, confused enough?
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