If you’ve found that you’re paying more attention to the NHL central scouting bureau rankings than to what your team is doing on the ice to wind up the season, chances are that your team is bound for the NHL Draft lottery. Here at PHT we understand that it can be difficult to understand just how, exactly that works out and it turned out that Aaron Portzline of Puck Rakers was right there to help everyone wrap their head around the goofball rules and math that go into the ping pong balls, from a Columbus perspective.
If you’ve got it in mind that this plays out exactly like the NBA Draft lottery - think again:
Here are the percentages chances for the five-worst clubs to win the No. 1 overall pick:
No. 1: 48.2 percent
No. 2: 18.8 percent
No. 3: 14.2 percent
No. 4: 10.7 percent
No. 5: 8.1 percent
If a club outside of the top 5 wins, they move up four spots from where they finished, everybody above that spot stays in line and everybody below where they land shifts down one spot.
Sorry Leafs fans, this too will leave you wildly unsatisfied.