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Originally Posted by browntrout
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I actually think they should completely abolish the lottery. Have a draft committee oversee the entire process, and decide the drafting order for the league. So many teams have paid their dues, tried to be competitive to honor the true spirit of the game and have been rewarded with crap selections (Calgary, Vancouver, Minnesota, etc).
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I have been on this train since the salary cap came in. The draft lottery system is no longer needed for parity, and is in fact anti-parity. It rewards failure and entices franchises to put out an inferior product in order to hoard young talent.
I think the way to determine draft order and lottery odds should take into consideration a few different factors and not be just based on standings. Standings should be part of it, but also the points spread between teams in a given year. In not every season is the bottom team proportionately worse than than other bottom teams, at least not enough to over compensate for the difference by automatically giving them a phenomenal prospect over the next teams. Some times lower teams in the standings are also obviously on the verge of turning it around and getting another top pick is just overkill. Meanwhile franchises that always try to have the best product on the ice but can't get over the hump, are forced to stay mediocre or just luck out drafting a franchise player in a later round.
I think some formula should be derived to determine draft order that takes into consideration standings, point distribution in the standings, and previous draft positions (traded picks would count as belonging to the team that originally had the pick).
Going strictly by standings to determine odds and positions is just lazy