All to often, I hear Edmonton fans worried about the team retaining the first overall selection. Although the last place team has a 48.2% chance of retaining the first round pick, the past three drafts have seen no movement on the lottery front. In fact, in the past five years only one team has won the draft lottery and moved up into first place. This if course was the infamous 2007 NHL draft or the "Patrick Kane" draft. After all the tanking that Philadelphia did, they wound up with James VanRiemsdyk (who just came off his first Hat trick against New Jersey yesterday). I don't think they are complaining now though seeing as they are the favourites to win the Stanley cup.
The reason I bring this up, is because fans think that their is no way that Edmonton retains this years pick based on previous drafts. For those of you who don't know what a Gamblers Fallacy is, it can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy. Basically it just states that "the fallacy is the belief that the universe somehow carries a memory of past results which tend to favor or disfavor future outcomes." Regardless of what has happened in the past, these are currently the odds of retaining the first overall pick:
30. Edmonton Oilers- 75GP 57P (48.2%)
29. Colorado Avalanche- 74GP 64P (18.8%)
28. Ottawa Senators- 76GP 69P (14.2%)
27. Florida Panthers-76GP 69P (10.7%)
26. New York Islanders- 76GP 70P (8.1%)
With the season winding down, we should find out who the winner of the draft lottery two days after the regular season ends (which would be April 12th) although nothing has been confirmed by the NHL. However if you are a firm believer or conspiracy theories and think that the deck is stacked, lets take a quick look at who is likely to "win" the lottery this year. As we already know, last year was the first time in franchise history that Edmonton selected first overall. But what about the other teams? Believe it or not, but all teams in the bottom five have already drafted first overall in their franchise history.
As far as the Colorado Avalanche go, besides the Matt Duchene pick (3rd overall), the highest draft pick they have had in franchise history was 12th overall back in 1998. They used this pick to select Alex Tanguay. That is of course because the Colorado Avalanche were the Quebec Nordiques until 1994. If we factor in the Nordiques draft history, we could include Eric Lindros (1st overall), Owen Nolan (1st overall), and Mats Sundin (1st overall). If we factor in the Nordiques then they have had a total of three first overall picks.
The New York Islanders have had the most action inside the top 5 selecting Nino Niederreiter (5th overall), Raffi Torres (5th overall), Tim Connolly (5th overall), Roberto Luongo (4th overall), Eric Brewer (5th overall), J.P. Dumont (3rd overall), Wade Redden (2nd overall), Darius Kasparaitis (5th overall), Scott Lachance (4th overall), Dave Chyzowski (2nd overall), and Pat LaFontaine (3rd overall). This does not even include the two first overall picks (John Tavares and Rick Dipietro). I don't think the Islanders deserve another first overall pick with all the picks they wasted.
Ottawa on the other hand has had the most first overall selections with four selections. Bryan Berard, Alexandre Daigle, Chris Phillips, and Jason Spezza were all selected by the Ottawa Senators. However, outside the first round selections the Senators haven't had a whole lot of picks inside the top 5. The only times they were included they took Alexei Yashin (2nd overall) and Radek Bonk (3rd overall).
Finally, the Florida Panthers have only selected first overall once when they selected Ed Jovanovski back in 1994. Still, the panthers have selected Erik Gudbranson (3rd overall), Rostislav Olesz (7th overall), Nathan Horton (3rd overall), Jay Bouwmeester (3rd overall), Stephen Weiss (4th overall) and Rob Niedermayer (5th overall). Although they would be deserving of selecting first overall, they have already traded their first oveall selection TWICE. It's interesting that of all the drafts they decided to stay with Jovanovski but passed on Eric Staal and Rick Nash.
As far as conspiracy theories go, I don't think their is a team more deserving then the Edmonton Oilers. Still, maybe Bettman tries to bring more fans into Florida by handing them the first overall selection.
(picture courtesy of lowonoil.com, thestar.com, and life.com)
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