Never in the history of the NHL have the Playoffs been on and been the second most important hockey happening of the day.
Today, we find out who get's Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel.
For the Sabres, they worked hard to suck this bad; they feel like they deserve it.
For the Coyotes, the prospect of having the eventual best player in the NHL comes with all sorts of baggage. No big deal, just saving the franchise in a Mario Lemieux like fashion, making the team profitable, filling the building, cementing what we've always believed: that all it will take is a star player, a competitive, winning team to take the fan-base and local interest to the next level.
With Connor McDavid, the Coyotes might get more column inches in the local paper than the high-school basketball team. Oh one can dream.
There is a 13.5% chance that dream comes true.
But even if it doesn't work out for the Coyotes, their is a 20% chance that they'll get Jack Eichel.
That means that there is a 66.5% chance that they pick third.
I mean, think about that for a second. Everyone (well, mostly alarmists with nothing else to talk about, but they sure are loud) is complaining about tanking, but the NHL actually has pretty good anti-tanking measures. The worst team in hockey has an 80% chance of picking second, and the second worst team has an almost 70% chance of picking third. It really doesn't pay-off all that much to be bad on purpose.
So who do the Coyotes take at third? I like the idea of having an elite top pairing combo of Hanifin and OEL to build around, but I've seen Hanifin rated as low as 12th. I like the idea of Dylan Strome, but how much of his powers come from facing secondary units because McDavid is on his team?
To be honest, I don't watch very much junior hockey so I only know what I read. I would like either player, but I am sure that no matter who get's picked third it'll be a good pick - I just don't have the information needed to have a valid opinion on this topic. Strome or Hanifin, both would be awesome, but simultaneously disappointing.
Fact is, 33.5 is the number of the day. 33.5% are the odds that the Coyotes get one of the two most exciting young players to enter the NHL in years.
We'll know for sure by 8pm.