NHL Standings: Oilers Secure Last Place

(picture courtesy of dallas.theoffside.com)

So the Edmonton Oilers might have been destroyed by the aging Calgary Flames last night, but we will see who is laughing come June 24th.With both the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks winning last night, the flames were mathematically elimnated regardless of their big win on home ice. Meanwhile, Edmonton has locked up last place guaranteeing them either Adam Larsson or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on draft day. I won't get into the whole debate right now, but it's celebration worthy if you're an Edmonton Oiler fan. Although it would have been nice to see the Calgary Flames lose to the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, the night couldn't have played out better for the team. If you told me at the start of the season that Edmonton would get the 1st overall pick while the Flames and Leafs missed the playoffs- I would have taken it.

To make the night even better, the Anaheim Ducks destroyed the San Jose Sharks last night to pull within one point of the Los Angeles Kings. At least that was until the Los Angeles Kings were able to come from behind and beat the Phoenix Coyotes. Right now the standings look like this:

4. Los Angeles 80GP 98P
5. Nashville 80GP 97P
6. Phoenix 80GP 96P
7. Anaheim 80GP 95P
8. Chicago 80GP 95P
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9. Calgary 81GP 93P (eliminated)
10. Dallas 79GP 91P (not eliminated)

Considering Dallas plays Colorado twice and Minnesota once, they could very well pull out 6 points and surpass Nashville, Phoenix, Anaheim or Chicago. I'm not saying its likely, but its certainly possible. Also the last two games for LA are against the ducks. Considering how well they played last night, they could very well hand LA two straight losses. Unfortunately the Kings clinched a playoff spot yesterday but they could still finish 8th in the west. If this is the case, Edmonton's 1st round pick acquired from the Dustin Penner deal would be 15th-16th overall. If we could somehow land Duncan Siemens, Mark McNeill, Mika Zibanejad or Tyler Biggs with LA's pick it would certainly help speed up the rebuild.

Draft Lottery: The Gamblers Fallacy

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)

NHL Standings: Blake Geoffrion???

(picture courtesy of edmontonjournal.com)

Blake Geoffrion might not be a household hockey name but after his performance tonight, fans of the Edmonton Oilers should be cheering his name in the city streets. Even though Nashville Predator's Blake Geoffrion has scored 3 goals in his entire NHL career thus far, he was able to register a hat-trick against the surging Buffalo Sabres tonight. Down 3-1 in the third period, Geoffrion was able to take the game into overtime where they would eventually win 4-3. This is a huge win for the Predators and ties them with the Los Angeles kings.

With Phoenix and Chicago playing eachother tonight things are going to get very interesting. If Chicago wins, they will vault themselves up the rankings to put themselves into a three way tie with Nashville and Los Angeles. If Phoenix wins, they will widen the margin on the kings by 5 points. Win-win.

Also, Calgary and Anaheim are about to go underway. Much like the Phoenix/Chicago game their are 2 guaranteed points on the table. With the flames and the ducks currently tied in the standings at 83 points, the winner of tonights match will only be 1 point behind the kings. So if everything goes well tonight the standings should look like this:

4. Phoenix 74GP 90P
5. Los Angeles 72GP 86P
6. Chicago 72GP 86P
7. Nashville 73GP 86P
8. Anaheim 72GP 85P
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9. Dallas 72GP 85P
10. Calgary 74GP 84P

NHL: Were Not As Good As You Think We Are

(picture courtesy of myhodgepodge.files.wordpress.com)

It's actually kind of funny how once Edmonton goes on a three or four game winning streak how fans start to think that we are no longer going to get one of the top four players of the draft. I'm here to tell you that it is VERY unlikely that this is the case and we even have added room for optimism.

Now these standings may seem a bit backwards, but I assure you that as an Edmonton Oiler fan they are the only standings that matter ;)

1. Edmonton Oilers- 54P
2. Ottawa Senators- 55P
3. Colorado Avalanche- 60P
4. New York Islanders- 62
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5. Florida Panthers- 63P
6. New Jersey Devils- 64P
7. Atlanta Thrashers- 65P
8. St. Louis Blues- 67P
9. Toronot Maple Leafs- 68P
10. Columbus Blue Jackets- 70P
11. Carolina Hurricanes- 71P
12. Anaheim Ducks- 75P
13. Nashville Predators- 76P
14. Minnesota Wild- 77P
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15. Buffalo Sabres- 72P
16. New York Rangers- 74P
17. Los Angeles Kings- 77P

It might seem weird to see both Buffalo and NYR with less points but higher in the standings. This is because both teams play in the eastern conference and are still holding down a playoff spot. The draft, as it is now setup, takes this into consideration. First the bottom 14 teams in the leauge (the 7 worst teams from each conference) are ranked and given draft selections according. The losers of the first round of the playoffs are then awarded their draft position (based on regular season rankings). The same is then true for the second round, the third round and of course the stanley cup final. So essentially if a team like Buffalo somehow beats Boston or Philly in the first round, they actually jump ahead of teams that lose in the first round.

Any way you break it down, it makes a big difference if Los Angeles makes the playoffs or not. Not only do they have a chance to take the pick that is currently at 17th overall to become the 30st overall pick, but if they miss the playoffs they jump behind teams like the Rangers and Sabres. It is still highly possibly that LA finishes somewhere between 12th-14th in the upcoming draft. If you ask me, this pick alone is pretty much fair value for a guy like Dustin Penner.

As far as the Edmonton Oilers pick goes, they still have 15 games left on the season. However unlikely that is a potential 30 points that they could finish with 84 points. Given that the magic number for the playoffs looks to be 96-97 points... its virtually impossible to make the playoffs. Although this should come as no surprise, it still remains to be seen how likely it is that they wind up outside the top 4 selections.

Obviously Edmonton has a rough schedule ahead of them and have to continously face the top teams of both conferences, lets look at the magic number for one of Sean Couturier, Gabriel Landeskog, Sean Couturier, or Adam Larsson. The New York Islanders currently have 62 points. If you keep them at the same point production of 0.925 points/game that would come to 75.8 points. That means that Edmonton would have to finish with 76 points to surpass the Panthers if they maintain their current streak. To put things into perspective that means that Edmonton would have to collect 22 points in their final stretch. Essentially the Oilers would have to go 11-4-0 in order to finish outside the lottery sweepstakes.