Elliotte Friedman is reporting that the NHL is considering yet another change to the Lottery system of the Entry Draft. To summarize his report (you should read it yourself though) the league is playing with the idea of using a formula that looks at your last 5 years to determine not just the 1st Overall pick but possibly picks 1-6. The exact methodology hasn’t been fleshed out (or at least it hasn’t been reported) but Friedman works with one possibility.
The thorough Tyler Dellow did the leg work and came up with the odds of winning the Lottery in the system Friedman outlines and, I think, rightly identified the change as an “Oiler Rule…. The short version is that it is harder for the last placed teams to actually choose first and easier for teams who finish higher up in the standings to land the stars of the Draft.
The NHL more than any other league is a tinkerer’s league in the sense that it will change and flip-flop on rules and protocols easier than any other major sport, sometimes for reasons that are a mystery to onlookers or even those who are directly affected by the rule changes. My question is thus, why does the NHL want to change the Draft? Does it not achieve what it was intended to achieve? Is it broken?
In asking that question I was brought to the realization that I don’t know what the Draft is “supposed… to be doing anymore. It’s down to two things, as best as I can tell.
1) Protect Poor Teams From Remaining Poor 2) Distribute Talent Among The League
Now what the Draft does is actually a mix of those two things but they are actually working against each other a bit. Obviously the draft will distribute talent across the NHL but since 1990 Detroit hasn’t had the chance to take a player in the top 5 so how much talent has been distributed their way? That said, Free Agency has been neutered and trades are more difficult to make than ever so the Draft is the only viable and freely available way for poor teams to get better, so I wont shed too many tears for pitiable Detroit.
A new Draft system is the answer to a question that nobody asked. That question is about whether the current mix of protection and talent distribution is adequate. It’s easy for me to say, as an Oilers fan, that the system doesn’t need to be changed. My team drafted 1st Overall for 3 straight years and is poised to pick high again this year, maybe even 1st. Was that “unfair… to the rest of the teams in the NHL?
It wont shock anyone when I say “No… it was not unfair to the rest of the League, but I’m sure I’ll hear about it in the comments. The idea of “Tanking… is very gauche and rightly so, but the Oilers aren’t a mediocre team trying to lose so they can get a high draft pick. The Oilers really are this bad. When the Oiler management team set out to “Rebuild… they didn’t go about it in a way that would see them rebound in a short time. They set out to destroy their club and watch it rise again from the ashes.
Steve Tambellini effectively turned a Franchise that has been part of the NHL since the 70’s into the equivalent of an expansion team. There was nothing left of value and the Draft was the only source of talent. If it hadn’t been for Hall and company we might not be talking about a new Arena downtown, we’d be talking about where Katz will be relocating the Oil.
The Draft, as it currently stands, works. It affords the teams without enough talent to win the chance to get better, to add star players, and to sell tickets. We’ve seen it work with teams that were bad for consecutive years and teams that were bad for just single years. Pittsburgh, Chicago, and even Colorado spent significant time near the bottom of the league and the front of the Draft line. Now those teams occupy space at the top of the league standings. It doesn’t always work, but the chance is there. There are no guarantees, after all.
The NHL even opened up the lottery so that ALL non-playoff clubs could win the 1st Overall pick, which is a move that I’m not a fan of but, as Dellow points out in the linked article above, there’s a case to be made that NHL parity is such that the divide between teams is smaller now than ever. However, I’m not a fan of a new system that could seed the worst team in the league as low as 6th in the Draft. Bad teams NEED higher picks. They need them to survive. I’m not concerned about those teams that finish out of the playoffs but ahead of the bottom 5. Those teams generally have at least one player who can sell tickets. Nashville has Weber, the Canucks have the Sedins, Ottawa has Karlsson. Who does Buffalo have? Who does Calgary have?
But you’re going to say, “But look at Edmonton, if they didn’t have the Lottery they would have worked harder to get better.… To this unasked question I pre-emptively respond in kind. How do you propose the Oilers SHOULD have gotten better, faster? Would there be more pressure on the team to be better? Yeah there would, but it would be the kind of pressure that forces teams to make bad decisions. It’s the kind of pressure that prevents teams from actually getting better and promotes band-aid solutions.
Here’s the laugher to this possible new “Oiler Rule…, if the league bases draft position on the last 5 years of standings then the Oilers would actually end up with a greater chance of winning a lottery pick from higher in the standings than they would today. If the Oilers in 2014-2015 just missed the playoffs then because of their poor history they would actually benefit. And that, in my humble opinion, would be just perfect.
LINEUPS
Just waiting on official word of the starter so until then I’m guessing it’s Scrivens again but you never know. I don’t like the idea of changing out a winning lineup so lets assume its pretty much the same as the last game.
UPDATE: Fasth makes his Home Debut, as does Klefbom. Joensuu is out 4 weeks with a High Ankle Sprain
Hall Gagner Perron Yak RNH Eberle Hendricks Gordon Lander Gazdic Smyth Jones
Ference Schultz Marincin Petry Klefbom Fraser
Fasth
OILERS KEYS TO THE GAME
1) Pack Mentality. A lot has been written or said about the Oilers’ lack of Pack Mentality but the general consensus is that it cant actually get worse and is most likely getting better. The addition of Hendricks has brought out one of the missing key ingredients of good teams. Yak showed it in the last game giving a Hurricane the Flying Bulldog into the turnbuckle. Is it really that important to have? Yes.
2) More From The Blue. Schultz scored and that was exactly what the doctor ordered for this team. The Oilers need more chances from their Defensemen. Marincin and Petry, specifically, need to bring more than what they have in the Offensive zone. Petry has 8 shots in his last 15 games. That isn’t good enough. Petry logs big minutes for the Oilers and is taking fewer and fewer shots as the year wears on.
3) Big Kills. Nashville’s Power Play is top 10 in the NHL and unlike the Oilers their Home and Road splits aren’t drastically different. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a team with Shea Weber can do damage on the PP. He leads his team in PP Points and only Karlsson and Yandle have more on the man-advantage from the blueline.
Puck drops at 7:38PM Mountain Time on Sportsnet. Game On!
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