NHL Draft Moving Up to June 5&6th?

[Brawndo]

The NHL appears determined despite Many Teams objection to move the NHL Draft to June 5&6th. 
 

There would be a lottery based on winning percentage, with the caveat it will revert to the old rules where only the first pick is in the that only one in the lottery and a team can advance four slots only, 

Meaning the Sabres can only move to the 3rd overall slot at best, but only fall to the 8th pick at worse.
 

A final decision is expected next week 

 

 

[Brawndo]

 

[freester]

I hope they do this. The NFL draft was great and this will give us something to get excited about. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, freester said:

I hope they do this. The NFL draft was great and this will give us something to get excited about. 

Yep!  And if we are guaranteed to draft no later then 8th, I doubt we'll trade the pick.

[dudacek]

Entertain me.

[Thorner]

Can only move to 3rd? Trade the pick. 

3 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Yep!  And if we are guaranteed to draft no later then 8th, I doubt we'll trade the pick.

We were in line to draft 7th. The chances of more than one team from behind us winning a lottery position (and thus bumping us beyond 8th) was reasonably low to begin with (14.1%) I don't think a guarantee of not falling to 9th instead of 8th, when it was unlikely to begin with anyways, should or would be a determining factor in moving the pick, if we’re talking pre-lottery. 

They Sabres lose out here BIG time in my estimation. Only one draw, can only go up to 3rd. We had a 13.3% chance of drafting 1st or 2nd in the old system, and we are losing that in and exchange for a removal of that 14.1% chance of falling 2 or 3 spots. Sure that's a slightly higher %, but, the reward is so much greater than the risk. 

And I assume we are also now less likely to win that 3rd spot than we were before, with there only being one draw. But less likely to fall to 8th, yes. 

http://www.tankathon.com/nhl/pick_odds

Edited May 2, 2020 by Thorny

[Thorner]

Should also be noted it'll be a duller draft than normal if moved - No trades of NHL players until the season is over. Which it wouldn't be in June, hypothetically. I guess THAT would mean we wouldn't be trading the pick. Damn, the draft moving up really limits some options.

- - - 

So at least 3 of the top 4 picks will go to the Atlantic, Detroit with 1, Ottawa with 2. 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Thorny

[Curt]

Interesting.  I have no problem with them having the draft in June.

I don’t totally understand the reasoning for the draft lottery change though.  It would mean that only Detroit, Ottawa, LA, and Anaheim have a shot at #1.

Unless they are going with that weird 24 team playoff thing.  Actually, that’s probably what it is.  24 teams are going to be in the playoffs, so they only want the very bottom teams in the lottery.

[dudacek]

We can still trade our pick to Tampa for a player to be named later, right?

[Randall Flagg]

3 hours ago, dudacek said:

We can still trade our pick to Tampa for a player to be named later, right?

Or just draft the skater they tell us to and then trade them later 

[Eleven]

What is the point of this?

[Taro T]

16 hours ago, Brawndo said:

The NHL appears determined despite Many Teams objection to move the NHL Draft to June 5&6th. 
 

There would be a lottery based on winning percentage, with the caveat it will revert to the old rules where only the first pick is in the that only one in the lottery and a team can advance four slots only, 

Meaning the Sabres can only move to the 3rd overall slot at best, but only fall to the 8th pick at worse.
 

A final decision is expected next week 

 

 

I get why they want to keep the draft in June, but that really will be bizarre - having the draft before the playoffs.  Still expect they have a playoff tournament of some fashion.

[Curt]

2 hours ago, Eleven said:

What is the point of this?

So that they can get the draft scheduled and over.  Otherwise they may be scrambling to organize and complete it before the 2020-21 season, if they were to complete playoffs in September or something.

Better to just do it ASAP I guess.

[Randall Flagg]

I hate this a lot the more I think about it.

Kill our lotto chances so that we can't use our picks to trade for players that we might improve our team with next year because those teams still want to use those players this summer? Garbage 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Randall Flagg

[shrader]

5 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I hate this a lot the more I think about it.

Kill our lotto chances so that we can't use our picks to trade for players that we might improve our team with next year because those teams still want to use those players this summer? Garbage 

I’m not going to dig up the numbers but they typically have a pretty good chance of losing ground after the lottery. This may actually lessen that. 

[Randall Flagg]

14 minutes ago, shrader said:

I’m not going to dig up the numbers but they typically have a pretty good chance of losing ground after the lottery. This may actually lessen that. 

Losing all chances at picks 1-3 is far more irritating to me than having a greater chance from falling to 8 or 9 from 6. Those picks and players are historically interchangeable compared to that range and the top 3

Edited May 2, 2020 by Randall Flagg

[shrader]

16 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

Losing all chances at picks 1-3 is far more irritating to me than having a greater chance from falling to 8 or 9 from 6. Those picks and players are historically interchangeable compared to that range and the top 3

I can’t focus on the single digit possibility. Oh wait, this is probably a topic for the covid thread 

[Eleven]

3 hours ago, Curt said:

So that they can get the draft scheduled and over.  Otherwise they may be scrambling to organize and complete it before the 2020-21 season, if they were to complete playoffs in September or something.

Better to just do it ASAP I guess.

Why not on the scheduled dates?  What advantage is there to moving it up?

[Curt]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

Why not on the scheduled dates?  What advantage is there to moving it up?

Maybe they think they might be having playoff games in late June and don’t want the draft to be during the playoffs.

[Brawndo]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

Why not on the scheduled dates?  What advantage is there to moving it up?

Trying to take advantage of the absence of live sports and hoping to get the spotlight for two days 

[Eleven]

15 minutes ago, Curt said:

Maybe they think they might be having playoff games in late June and don’t want the draft to be during the playoffs.

 

9 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Trying to take advantage of the absence of live sports and hoping to get the spotlight for two days 

My hunch is that the playoff plan doesn't fly and so they can have the same spotlight at the normal time.

My hunches are not always correct.

[Curt]

3 minutes ago, Eleven said:

My hunch is that the playoff plan doesn't fly and so they can have the same spotlight at the normal time.

My hunches are not always correct.

Yeah, I don’t know if it will actually happen, but it’s probably their thought process.

[spndnchz]

Rebate the money you’ve held for 10 months and I might care again. Otherwise eat a poop stick. 

[Thorner]

22 hours ago, Randall Flagg said:

I hate this a lot the more I think about it.

Kill our lotto chances so that we can't use our picks to trade for players that we might improve our team with next year because those teams still want to use those players this summer? Garbage 

Yup, it’s bad. The draft is one of a GM’s best opportunities to upgrade and now that’s basically non-existent. I don’t think it is realistic to think a GM who took ages to move a depth d-man is going to be able to select a player and trade that prime, valuable asset for a current asset in any kind of timely fashion, if at all. 

This IS outside of Botterill’s control, but those that want him gone should prepare for the fact this basically bumps our already lax time frame back another year. If the coming season was *supposed* to be Botterill’s judging point, that’ll now be 21-22. Too many built in excuses at this point. 

I personally expect a lot of 1 year filler contracts. 

22 hours ago, shrader said:

I’m not going to dig up the numbers but they typically have a pretty good chance of losing ground after the lottery. This may actually lessen that. 

I already posted this, but they are “trading” a loss of the ~13% chance they had to draft 1 or 2, for the elimination of the ~14% chance of drafting 9 or 10. 

So, it’s a poor trade off. Slightly higher % on the back end, but the reward is much greater then the risk in the previous system: up 5/6 spots, potentially, down 2-3 spots, potentially. 

I would take the slightly higher chance at falling those spots considering the almost equally likely but greater potential jump we could take.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Thorny

[LGR4GM]

Well crap. Now I need to take a day and try and put together a list. I thought I had 2 full months still.