Quote:
Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen
Tampa Bay and Ottawa joined the same years. Tampa got 1st and Ottawa got 2nd. Tampa followed Buffalo, New York and Washington in getting the 1st overall as an expansion team that occurred in the 70s.
San Jose joined the league a year earlier and got 2nd overall (giving Quebec 1st overall Eric Lindros) but it wasn't as clean of an expansion because of the North Stars thing and San Jose and the league made a compromise to join the league a year earlier.
Florida and Anaheim joined in 1993 but were awarded the 4th and 5th picks in the draft. The other expansions teams in Ottawa, San Jose and Tampa picked the top 3.
Nashville was originally awarded the 2nd pick in 1998 behind Tampa Bay who finished last. However, Florida's pick won the lottery (San Jose had previously acquired it). So they dropped down to #3 before moving up to #2 in a trade. Also Tampa traded up to regain their number 1. 1998 was complicated.
Atlanta was given the 2nd pick in 1999 when they joined. Tampa, once again, finished last and was able to keep their pick. They decided to trade it to Vancouver when the rumour was spread the Sedins wouldn't play together. Atlanta and Vancouver then traded for number 1.
In 2000 Minnesota and Columbus joined the league and were given 2nd and 3rd overall picks while Atlanta got to keep their 1st overall. However, the Islanders would win the lottery pushing down those 3 teams and taking DiPietro 1st overall.
It's messy, seems like a bit of a precedent to give the 1st overall to a new team as long as they aren't taking it away from a recent expansion team.
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I think that is what I'm remembering. They wouldn't give San Jose the 1st overall pick because an expansion team didn't work hard enough to get the 1st overall pick in a year where there was an exceptional player, like Lindros, available. They could have avoided the entire Lindros hates Quebec and double trade fiasco by just allowing San Jose to have the # 1 pick.
I think a good way would be to not allow them to participate in the draft until they have played one season. But how are they going to build? Well, I'm not going to figure out the details but they can loosen up some rules in the expansion draft to allow the team to get a more or better players. Don't let them pluck the superstars or top prospects from existing teams, but give them a better crack at players to help build the team around.
Probably not a plausible idea, but it is fair for teams who are already crappy and need the draft pick... and then the flipside to that is teams shouldn't be looking to be crappy to get a high draft pick...