Flames' Burke not a fan of draft lottery system
The NHL draft lottery is on Saturday night where the 14 teams that failed to make the playoffs all have a chance to win the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.
The NHL has made some changes to the lottery process over the past two years, starting with the inclusion of all non-playoff teams in 2015, to the change this year that introduces three different lotteries (for each of the top-three picks) which could result in a team moving back three spots.
As exciting as it is for these teams to land a potential franchise-changing player, none of them really want to be sitting there because it means their team was pretty bad during the regular season.
He shared all of his concerns in a sit-down interview with the Flames’ website on Friday. Here is the complete video of his interview.
When it comes to his concerns, he started off by discussing the potential problems that introducing all non-playoff teams to the lottery presents.
“If you believe in the inverse order of drafting, if you believe the worst team should be rewarded with the best player, then this might not be the fairest system,” Burke said, via the Flames’ website. “Unfortunately we have had to go to a lottery because of the conduct of certain teams. Is this the most equitable way to do it?
“You could have in this system the teams with the three highest point totals of the non-playoff teams pick 1-2-3. No one ever wanted that, no one ever imagined that. Statistically it’s pretty unlikely it’s going to happen that way, but that’s one issue, including all the playoff teams.”
From there, he turned his attention to teams being able to pick at the top of the draft year after year. The Edmonton Oilers, for example, have picked No. 1 overall in four of the past six drafts and have the second best odds of winning the top pick this year. Burke would prefer to see a system that would make it if you pick first overall, or even second overall, you can not pick in that spot again for a predetermined period of time.
“I also think that if you are a team that picks first overall you should not be allowed to pick first overall again for some specified period, say three years, five years, whatever,” Burke said. “Even the top-two teams, if you pick in the top-two. You could pick four or five, you would still get a good player, but you can’t get rewarded for continued failure or continued luck. Say you’re the fourteenth team and you win the lottery. OK so the fourteenth place team, the last team that missed, they pick first year, they should not be eligible to pick first again for three years or whatever the time period might be.”
He followed that up by specifying that he was not trying to single out the Oilers, and referenced other teams over the years that have had similar runs of top picks, including the Chicago Blackhawks, Florida Panthers, and Buffalo Sabres (the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals could also be included in that discussion).
“This isn’t an indictment of any one team and it’s not an indictment of the system, it’s just to say OK, if 30 reasonable people got into a room and said ‘how do we best award amateur talent in the draft without having abuses,’ I am not sure this is the system we would come up with. That is all I’m saying.”
One suggestion that has been made over the years is “The Gold Plan” that awards the top pick to the team that collects the most points in the standings after they have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention during the season.
The draft lottery has been in place in the NHL since the 1995 draft, and it really has not been a major issue until the past few years because of a statistical anamoly that has seen the Oilers keep winning the lottery over and over again.
Even when finishing with the worst record you still have a significantly greater chance of not picking first overall. The Oilers, unable to win anything on the ice for a decade, have been lucky enough to keep winning off of it every spring. And it is really nothing more than that.
