The first 14 picks of the Entry Draft are determined by the NHL’s annual Draft Draw, a weighted lottery system that is used to determine the order of selection. The 14 teams that do not qualify for the playoffs, or clubs that acquired those clubs’ first-round draft picks, participate in the draw. The Club selected in the drawing may not move up more than four positions in the draft order, so only the five Clubs with the fewest regular-season points have the opportunity to select first overall. No Club can move down more than one position as a result of the Draft Drawing. So if the Leafs finish 24th, they pick as high as 3rd and as low as 8th.
The reason its called a lottery draft is that they actually use a lottery machine. Fourteen balls, numbered 1 to 14, were placed in a lottery machine. The machine expells four balls, forming a series of numbers. The four-digit series resulting from the expulsion of the balls are matched against a probability chart that divides the possible combinations among the 14 participating clubs.
The last place team receives 25 per cent of the 1,001 combinations possible in this system, while the second-last team receives 18.8 per cent of them. The third-last team has a 14.2% chance and fourth-worst has a 10.7% chance to "win" the lottery. The remaining teams have the following chances: 8.1%, 6.2%, 4.7%, 3.6%, 2.7%, 2.1%, 1.5%, 1.1%, 0.8% and 0.5%.
So, for instance, if the Leafs again finish in 14th spot they will have just a 0.5-per-cent chance to win the silly thing, and even if they do, they can only move up a max of four spots, to 10th. So you want to finish in the bottom 4 spots to have at least a 10% chance of getting the first pick.
12 years ago
