2016 NHL Draft

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

If the NHL simply announced that a team can't draft more than 'x' amount of times in 'y' amount of years, would that stop tanking?

Well, it would stop the Edmonton Oil Tankers from continually tanking every year... but there will still be tankers.

There will still be teams that tank when the season is 'out the window'. The NHL was right to make the top 3 picks a lottery (and I hate it as a Flames' fan), but they just forgot to include the caveat that teams can't pick so many times in the top of the draft.

You are still rewarding poor teams essentially, but making it less attractive to go on a full-on tank because the odds make it less likely it pays off.

Widespread tanking is a myth. Tanking happens, but it's hardly a big deal or prolific.

[Roof-Daddy]

I wish they just would have limited the number of times you could pick top 3 or top 5 in a certain number of years rather than what they did.

[saillias]

This whole "how do we stop tanking" conversation needs to just go away completely.

All the ideas people come up with like an extra tournament of non-playoff teams to determine who gets 1st overall are bat**** crazy and counter-intuitive

[codynw]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

I wish they just would have limited the number of times you could pick top 3 or top 5 in a certain number of years rather than what they did.

Or just relegate the Oilers.

[saillias]

A bad team selling UFAs at the deadline is not some chronic problem. It's just a common sense business decision. I mean anyone complaining about Buffalo last year or Toronto this year. What's the argument? They should not sell and just keep all the UFAs until summer? They should buy at the deadline? They should not try to rid themselves of big, bad contracts?

[Bingo]

I think we're in an interesting time period when it comes to tanking in that we have a new system but we haven't seen an instance play out yet.

I think if 2 of the three top 3 picks go to teams out of the top three it could really change things going forward. What's the point in being as bad as you can be and then end up 6th instead of 3rd

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

These probabilities are right before any of the lotteries are done. But they do shift once someone gets the first pick and then again with the second pick.

For example - if Toronto wins the lottery and gets the 1st pick, for the 2nd lottery the Flames odds of getting the 2nd pick move up above 10% (of course everyone else's go up as well).

Those aren't lottery odds that Frequitude posted.

They are the lottery odds X the likelihood of where teams will finish the season (from sportsclubstats)

Actual lottery odds are in post #941 in this thread

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

All those combinations have been considered in the standings-pick probability table developed and posted by Enoch Root here:
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...&postcount=941

Yes - that is prior to all lotteries. Once one has happened, the probabilities change. If the Leafs finish last and win the lottery, the Flames chances of getting the 2nd pick are higher than if Devils win the initial lottery and pick 1st.

EDIT: To clarify - those are the correct probabilities today.

[Weitz]

This thread always reminds me people don't know the difference between tanking and being just awful.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Weitz

This thread always reminds me people don't know the difference between tanking and being just awful.

That's awesome dude

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Yes - that is prior to all lotteries. Once one has happened, the probabilities change. If the Leafs finish last and win the lottery, the Flames chances of getting the 2nd pick are higher than if Devils win the initial lottery and pick 1st.

EDIT: To clarify - those are the correct probabilities today.

No, you're still missing what it is.

These are not the lottery odds as of round one.

They are the full set of lottery odds for the three rounds (which includes the fact that a team's odds go up in round two if they didn't win round one) MULTIPLIED by the current chances of where each team finishes (according to sportsclubstats).

If you go to that site, you will see that the Flames currently have an XX% chance of finshing 30th, a YY% chance of finishing 29th, a ZZ% chance of finishing 28th, etc.

So the spreadsheet in question takes the lottery odds and redistributes them, based on the likelihood of each team finishing in various positions.

So the chances of the Flames winning the first round of the lottery (according to this spreadsheet) are the chances of them finishing 30th X 20%, PLUS the chances of them finishing 29th X 13.5%, PLUS the chances of them finishing 28th X 11.5%, etc.

Then the 2nd round is recalculated, factoring the results of the first round.

[Frequitude]

Yup, what Enoch said. His table already considers all possible combinations of draft lottery outcomes and the probabilities of them occurring to come up with a distribution for each standings placing heading into the lottery.

For example, the chance of the last place team picking second is equal to:

0.2 x 0 (20% chance they pick first times 0% chance of them picking second since they already got first)
+
[0.2/(1-0.135)] x 0.135 (last's new chance of being picked next time if second last got the first pick times the probability of second last getting the first pick)
+
[0.2/(1-0.115)] x 0.115 (last's new chance of being picked next times if third last got the first pick times the probability of third last getting the first pick)
+
...
...
...
+
[0.2/(1-0.01)] x 0.01 (last's new chance of being picked next time if fourteenth last got the first pick times the probability of fourteenth last getting the first pick)
=17.49% (as shown in his table)

The math gets even crazier for the 3rd pick because you have 3 degrees of freedom.

Enoch's table (which I think came out to the same result as tankathon.com) has all of that math built in for every possible combination. It's very impressive.


I then took that table and overlaid it with sportsclubstats projections to come up with a probability distribution for what pick we'll get as of today. That math was infinitely easier!

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Yes - that is prior to all lotteries. Once one has happened, the probabilities change. If the Leafs finish last and win the lottery, the Flames chances of getting the 2nd pick are higher than if Devils win the initial lottery and pick 1st.

EDIT: To clarify - those are the correct probabilities today.

I think we're all on the same page here. You agree that those are the proper odds today (and Enoch's table are the proper odds prior to the first lottery selection happening). Then as soon as the first lottery selection happens, yes, the odds all change depending on who gets picked.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Bingo

I think we're in an interesting time period when it comes to tanking in that we have a new system but we haven't seen an instance play out yet.

I think if 2 of the three top 3 picks go to teams out of the top three it could really change things going forward. What's the point in being as bad as you can be and then end up 6th instead of 3rd

It's still better to finish as low as possible because it gives you better odds in the lottery, and even if you lose the lottery, you won't fall back as far. If you're 30th and you drop 3 spots, you're still getting a better pick than if you finish 27th and drop 3 spots.

Even if this year's lottery is won by the team with a 6% chance of winning, it will still be better to have a 20% chance of winning next year than a 6% chance.


The only way to eliminate the incentive to finish lower in the standings is to flatten the lottery odds and assign each of the first 14 picks through the lottery. If your place in the standings has no impact on your draft position, then there's no incentive to be as bad as possible. Otherwise, there will always be some incentive to finish lower.

[FlamesAddiction]

The odds now are definitely an improvement. With so much parity these days, it makes no sense to gift wrap top picks to teams that are bad because they are mismanaged. It's actually a terrible thing to do when you look at the big picture.

Personally, I would like to see the draft reduced to just one or two rounds (or stopped altogether), and any player that is not drafted becomes a free agent. But place limits on the number of players under 20 that a team can have at any given time and raise the ELC maximum salary. That combined with the salary cap would still ensure that talent is distributed where it needs to be.

[dissentowner]

I always thought the solution is simple, if you get the first overall pick in the draft you cannot draft any higher than 4th overall for a period of two years. So under my way the Oilers could only draft as high as #4 this draft and next draft. Simple and fair.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The odds now are definitely an improvement. With so much parity these days, it makes no sense to gift wrap top picks to teams that are bad because they are mismanaged. It's actually a terrible thing to do when you look at the big picture.

Personally, I would like to see the draft reduced to just one or two rounds (or stopped altogether), and any player that is not drafted becomes a free agent. But place limits on the number of players under 20 that a team can have at any given time and raise the ELC maximum salary. That combined with the salary cap would still ensure that talent is distributed where it needs to be.

Then the best non-drafted players, and your example would include Gaudreau and Brodie, as well as dozens of other great stars, would mostly end up on the premiere clubs like NY etc.

Leagues need parity. They need balance. A draft goes a long way to keeping the playing field flat.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Then the best non-drafted players, and your example would include Gaudreau and Brodie, as well as dozens of other great stars, would mostly end up on the premiere clubs like NY etc.

Leagues need parity. They need balance. A draft goes a long way to keeping the playing field flat.

If there was a limit of under 20 players a team could have rights to, plus if you raised the ELC maximum, it would be impossible for teams to hoard young talent. They wouldn't have salary room or room on their reserve list to do it.

The draft has also never contributed to parity. In fact, there was a massive lack of parity until the salary cap came into effect. The draft existed long before that and it never did anything to promote parity.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

If there was a limit of under 20 players a team could have rights to, plus if you raised the ELC maximum, it would be impossible for teams to horde young talent. They wouldn't have salary room or room on their reserve list to do it.

The draft has also never contributed to parity. In fact, there was a massive lack of parity until the salary cap came into effect. The draft existed long before that and it never did anything to promote parity.

Well it did, you just aren't using any context.

The cap added to parity, no question.

But the draft was the first line of parity.

Imagine one round of a draft. and then after that, everyone else becomes a free agent... how many of the best free agents do you think sign with Winnipeg or Edmonton or whatever?

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

If there was a limit of under 20 players a team could have rights to, plus if you raised the ELC maximum, it would be impossible for teams to horde young talent. They wouldn't have salary room or room on their reserve list to do it.

The draft has also never contributed to parity. In fact, there was a massive lack of parity until the salary cap came into effect. The draft existed long before that and it never did anything to promote parity.

Teams couldn't hoard high volumes of talent, but the sexy teams (Rangers, LA, Toronto, etc.) would most definitely be able to hoard the highest quality prospects.

Basically, "So <insert young undrafted stud>, want to come play in the sexy big apple or in no good Mulletville".