Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric
The flames management might just be saying they have a clear top 6 because they don't want to seem desperate to move up. If they tell everyone there's a ledge at 5 teams will try to get more out of them in order to move up.
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I think you may be on to something. The Flames made that statement before the lottery, but they did so knowing that the chances of them drafting fifth was pretty remote (9.1%) and they would most likely draft 6th (35.5%) with less than 30% chance they would pick 7th or 8th (it wouldn't matter if they were in the top 3 as the shelf there is pretty well accepted league wide). And as has been stated earlier, the Flames are very good at not leaking information. So why would they say there is a drop off after the top 6?
Eric explained why they wouldn't say there is a drop off after 5, but why wouldn't they say after 7 instead in case they got the 7th pick? I think that they might have gambled on not getting the 7th in order to make the 6th more valuable, using the same reasoning that Eric gave for the 5th being more valuable if there was a shelf at 5.
Of course, they really could believe that there is a big difference between 6 and 7.