The NHL’s Entry Draft Lottery plan makes no sense

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:

1. If the Rangers beat Carolina and Toronto beats Columbus, the Rangers have no lottery pick.
2. 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.
3. If the Rangers lose to Carolina and Toronto beats Columbus, the Blueshirts get their own lottery pick.
4. 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?