The National Hockey League’s last overall team will have better odds of winning the draft lottery next month and selecting consensus No. 1 prospect Rasmus Dahlin in June.
According to TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun, the team with the worst point total this season will have an 18.5 per cent chance of winning the annual draw, which will take place on Saturday, April 28.
Last year, the worst team in the final standings – the Colorado Avalanche – had a 17.9 per cent chance to win the lottery and secure the first overall pick. The draw ended up favouring the New Jersey Devils, who took top spot with an 8.5 per cent chance as the league’s fifth-worst team and selected Nico Hischier with the No. 1 overall selection.
The second-worst team will have a 13.5 per cent chance to land the No. 1 pick, up from 12.1 per cent last year. The third-worst team will have an 11.5 per cent shot at the first overall selection up from 10.3 in 2017 when the the Arizona Coyotes shared that percentage with the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
Continued with ranking-by-ranking #1 overall pick odds…
I would still rather tank after the trade deadline and end up with a potential top 5 pick. Drafting 10-15 every year won’t get the job done. My limit on that theory is only 1, maybe 2 seasons worth of “tanking”. After that you have to try and make the playoffs again.
This isn’t tanking. This is Kenny’s attempt to get 2% better and get back in the mix. Tanking would be trading Green at last year’s draft, and then opening up a spot for guys like Ouellet, Hicketts, Hronek, Russo to battle over. Tanking would be to not sign guys like David Booth and Luke Witkowski and instead have Bert or Svech or Turgeon here much earlier. Tanking would be rolling 4 lines and not riding the veterans for 20 minutes a night.
That’s tanking. This is simply what happens when you have the oldest, slowest, and most expensive roster combined with a totally inept coaching staff.
* tank after the trade deadline.
As you can probably sense, interest in the redwings wanes when they are bad and business booms when they are a playoff team. That’s why ownership pushes for the team to be competitive. I dont like it, I won’t be buying tickets or merchandise, but it’s what ownership wants.
Great points, Randy.
“So you want to tank: TSN says 31st place team will have an 18.5% chance of earning #1 pick”
Beats a 0% or 1% Chance.
Totally agree with FS.
At the end of the day, here we are. Intentional or unintentional, were in the tank zone. I’ll take it. A legitimate chance to land a top 5 talent in a good draft. It may be a small step forward and maybe just maybe, we land 1 of the key pieces we need to move forward.
I still don’t trust KH—signing Green will be a mistake, plus I can foresee some 30 year old mid-performer signing a long term $5-6M contract!
BTW, the KH/JB 2% is now (imho) 10%.