Winners and Losers of the 2020 NHL Draft Lottery - Phase One

Picture this, Bill Daly steps to the podium, he’s handed the stack of cards placed in order of the draft lottery outcome. He raises the first card, blank on the back facing the camera, he flips it over revealing the Buffalo Sabres. They did not win the lottery.

Jack Eichel, watching from home, breaks a stick and starts doing burpees. Kevyn Adams, milling about the empty Sabres facilities, looking for someone to share his disappointment with, eventually calls up the Pegulas.

“Can we hire some scouting staff? We’re picking outside the top-5, I’ll need some help!”

“Where exactly do we pick?”

“Well… we don’t know yet.”

Yes, the NHL is unveiling their draft order, but they haven’t given us any indication of the pick numbers, rather they are offering us suspense. How many play-in slots moved up into the top three? Stay tuned to find out.

Daly flips another card, New Jersey. Another, Anaheim. So far, no changes… that we know of.

Ottawa’s card is flipped next, their own pick. Is it their own pick, or is it the pick they got from the Sharks? No one tells us, why spoil the suspense?

Another card, this time Detroit. We’re five teams into a seven-team lottery, does this mean the Red Wings slipped to #3? Uncertain.

Another pick, Ottawa Senators again. Okay, this has to be a lottery pick. It’s the only way the Sens could move up ahead of Detroit. But is this #2 or #3 pick?

Eugene Melnyk calls up Mark Borowiecki asking him to start typing up a press release about how the Senators are proud to win the #1 and #3 selections in the 2020 NHL Draft. Borowiecki starts explaining no, the lottery isn’t over, but then asks,

“Wait, shouldn’t somebody else in the organization be doing this?”

Melnyk hangs up certain that the five-year run of unparalleled success has begun.

Daly flips another card, Los Angeles Kings. Holy shit, the Kings have won the lottery, instantly injecting a superstar onto a team with the remnants of a championship core, and perhaps the league’s best prospect pool.

The Sens are picking #2 and #4. Not the best outcome, but also not the worst.

The Red Wings will pick #3. There were worse outcomes. At least now they’ll get either Moritz Seider’s countryman Tim Stutzle or potential franchise centerman Quinton Byfield. It’s a can’t lose position.

Steve Yzerman, stone faced, refuses to celebrate. He winces his eyes. Zooms in on his screen. What’s that on the podium? A sudden gasp.

Daly pauses. A quick smirk crosses his face. A glint in his eye as he peaks down.

No.

There’s another fucking card!

He reaches down and grasps the card. The suspense crescendos. The gambit is complete. Daly finally speaks, revealing,

“The first pick in the draft will go to,” he flips over the card, revealing the NHL logo. “A team from the play-in round.”

*

That could have been last night’s drama. Instead, Daly spoiled the fun within seconds of appearing on screen. There was still drama and suspense, not knowing exactly where the placeholder team would land, but last night’s reveal could have been so much more. You’d think that a league with sudden death overtime would have some flair for the dramatic, but alas, they did not.

Today’s post will breakdown the winners and losers from last night’s draft lottery starting with…

Loser – Drama and Suspense

As I laid out above, the NHL’s reveal could have been diabolically explosive, instead it was a mere good. It was like going to ride an epic rollercoaster, but then winding up on the Zipper instead.

Winner – Chaos and Parity

I have dubbed the 2020 NHL season Schroedinger’s Season. Is it alive or is it dead? Who can say for sure? But until we know, the NHL has landed on a system where 24 teams had a shot at the playoffs and 22 teams had a shot in the lottery. We cut the lottery teams by six after last night’s Phase 1 draw, but 16 teams remain in play for the #1 pick thanks to a placeholder team winning Phase 1’s draw. Is there anything on brand more than this for a league that brought you the Loser Point and a standings page where 90% of the league is over .500?

Loser – The Do or Die Nature of the Playoffs

This is a mild criticism but the fact that any fans of a team still in the playoff race would root against their club in the play-in round is blasphemy. If you assume each round is roughly a coinflip then this season sees each play-in team with roughly a 3% chance of victory. For some teams like Montreal the odds are lower, but you get the point. You’re willing to trade that for a 12.5% shot at Alexis Lafreniere?

Not even Connor McDavid can guarantee you an annual trip to the playoffs, so what future window is Lafreniere opening for you better than the one you are currently looking at?

As an Oilers fan, the lottery shot will be small consolation for losing the play-in series to Chicago. I want to win. NOW. The foundational pieces of a championship are in place. The time is nigh. Could Lafreniere push things over the top? Perhaps, but there are no guarantees that you even get him, let alone that he actually accomplishes that pushing. Meanwhile, you’ve wasted another prime McDavid season. No thanks. Just win.

Winner – Conspiracy Theorists

I’m not sure exactly where the intersection between hockey fans and conspiracy theorists lies but “Rigged” trended on Twitter after last night’s lottery draw so the overlap is there.

Conspiracy theorists now have weeks to hypothesize and speculate about which team will win Phase 2 of the lottery, and how this was all some grand scheme by the NHL to set things up. Never mind that the NHL originally proposed to tweak this year’s lottery to have only one winner, where a team could only move up four slots like they used to do it in the 90’s. Such a lottery would have locked Detroit into a top-2 slot and kept both of the Senators’ picks in the top-4. If they were actually going to rig the lottery, you’d have seen Detroit in the top slot. Unless, you know, this was all just a red herring.

Loser – Detroit Red Wings

Is anyone surprised to see the 2019-20 Red Wings lost to something called “Team E”?

Winner – The Seattle Placeholders

are we the placeholder team?

asking for a friend. 😉 #NHLDraft

— Seattle Placeholders (@NHLSeattle_) June 27, 2020

Loser – Buffalo Sabres

They cleaned out the front office last week and now they have to assemble a plan to draft #8 overall? This could go poorly.

The last time they changed general managers before a draft they also held the #8 pick and used that on Casey Mittelstadt. The jury remains out on that pick but given the success some later first rounders like Kailer Yamamoto, Nick Suzuki, Martin Necas, and Robert Thomas, the early returns aren’t positive.

Nailing this pick won’t instantly turn the tide for Buffalo, but they also can’t afford to whiff on it.

Winner – Mock Drafters

Having the placeholder land at #1 in a year where there is near unanimous consensus on the #1 guy couldn’t have worked out perfectly. We don’t know where Alexis Lafreniere will land but we do know he’s going #1. And we also know what the next seven picks will be, which is plenty for mock drafters to speculate about over the next few months. Remember the 2020 NHL draft may not be until October or November. I hope you like mock drafts, because mock draft season is now going all summer!

Loser – Arizona Coyotes

Look at the shade Steve Yzerman is tossing at the Coyotes’ allegedly illegal scouting practices:

Underrated moment in the Yzerman press conference was when he was talking about how no teams have the testing they normally would have gotten at the combine.

"Every team but one, actually."

— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) June 27, 2020

The Coyotes are technically still in the mix for the #1 pick as one of the play-in teams. And they do have noted lottery winner Taylor Hall on the roster, but they lost all their karma points with whatever prospect tampering they took part in.

Winner – Alexis Lafreniere

Most #1 picks don’t win the Cup because it’s damn near impossible to do it alone in hockey, and that’s especially highlighted when these guys get drafted to the worst team in the league. This year? Lafreniere is going to a top-24 team. He could conceivably wind up on the Penguins for goodness sake. It could wind up a lot like Tyler Seguin getting dropped onto an immediate contender in Boston, except Lafreniere is further along and better ready to contribute. He is on track to go to the best team a #1 pick has landed on in the cap era:

In the cap era no 1st OA pick has gone to a team with a higher points-percentage than the 2012 Oilers -0.451. We're guaranteed to break that this year.
Alexis Lafreniere could be the best setup #1 pick since Brian Lawton in '83.
Here's a list of teams Lafreniere could join: pic.twitter.com/79FI3ljcZF

— Steve Laidlaw (@SteveLaidlaw) June 27, 2020

Ask Taylor Hall, Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel or Aaron Ekblad what it’s like to land on a bottom-feeder. Sure, there’s money, and fame and other perks. But when your burning desire is to win? It stinks. Lafreniere could be setup to win right away. Seeing how many years we have gone without superstars like Hall, McDavid, Eichel, etc. in the playoffs on the brightest stage, it can only be good if Lafreniere immediately lands with a playoff squad.

Loser - Steve Laidlaw

I spent a 30 degree Friday evening in the peak of June watching a glorified bingo game, and it was the best thing I did all week. I hope this pandemic ends soon.