Just wondering what everyone elses thoughts are on the Draft lottery. The past few ones have been very boring and predictable.

I think the newer rules have neutered the lottery a lot and don't fix the problems people have with the lottery.

Is it rigged? I doubt it. Sucks that Chicago won but it's not unfathomable that they did.

The way I could see it solved is with a random algorithm program. Where it goes in and picks at random. And if someone goes well what if NHL makes it pick this specific team. U can see it in the code and detect shenanigans easier.

Would fix some of the issues

Let's just say that Chicago winning was Gary Bettman's preferred outcome.

People like to add that no movement happened until #3 but keep in mind in 2021 the same thing happened only difference is that it was only a one spot move, a two spot move is less likely but not by that much

Now if it was a plus 3 or higher move, I would’ve been suspicious

True.

I get that there's no 100% proof that it's not rigged, but I think there's a lot of evidence to show that it's not. And honestly, no matter who wins the lottery, every year there's going to be people saying it's rigged. Remember that something being random doesn't mean it will have a totally different outcome every time. Vancouver and Detroit don't usually get lucky in the draft lottery, but considering how many teams there are, the odds of 1 or 2 teams repeatedly getting unlucky in the lottery for 7-8 years are not that low. If Vancouver kept getting lucky and New Jersey kept getting unlucky, we'd hear the same argument from so many people saying, "Of course Vancouver wins the lottery again. They always win the lottery, and New Jersey always moves down in the draft lottery ... clearly it's rigged."

In other words, 'random' doesn't necessarily mean a different winner every year.

Humans (which I hope everybody here is) are very good at finding patterns, even when none exist.

Whether the random numbers come from ping-pong balls or from a computer program, that doesn't change that people are going to be able to see patterns in the randomness.

If it wasn't big-market franchises winning the draft lottery more than "usual", what's to say that it wouldn't be Canadian teams winning more than "usual", or small-market franchises, or West Coast teams, or Southern teams, or teams that have a connection to Taylor Hall, and the list goes on and on.

Quick sidenote: Computer (algorithmically) generated random numbers are not 100% random, and true randomness is best given through physical interactions like those of a ping-pong ball.

It’s not rigged.
They have team reps, reporters in room as it occurs.
They have accounting firm audit the process.

Conspiracy theories are fun, but there has been zero evidence that draft lottery is fixed.

Oh, those team reps and reporters in the hostage room video session had the codebook for looking up the lottery result in their hands?

Zero evidence. Yeah, because an action that requires transparency is always made as convoluted as possible, and hushed off into a secret place well ahead of the reveal instead of putting a live TV show to make money money money. Yeah, that's totally not suspicious at all. I mean, he had that day's newspapers!!!!

Bruh...

Yes. 1000 possible number combos printed in five page packet, given to everyone in room and posted on NHL.com website.

Muh huh. I did not see those team reps holding anything at all. And what time exactly did they post that on the website?

They posted in on May 5th

Great. They covered a base. Let's not pretend this wasn't unnecessarily convoluted and bizarrely presented, or that notions that the NHL would play favorites under Bettman are crazy. I'm not inherently a "where there's smoke... " guy, but when it's belching out like Mt. St. Helen's I'm just gonna go ahead and call the fire department.

What evidence? There isn’t even smoke.

Every year people don't understand how probabilities work. Broken record

This only came up because people don't understand the process and that what they are watching is a presentation of the results and not a live determination of the draft order.

Step 1: Bettman and a representative from the contracted neutral firm are in a room with a lottery machine early in the evening. Each team has their own representative on hand to witness the lottery process.
Step 2: The draft is conducted by drawing lottery balls according to procedure and it is recorded in addition to the live witnesses. It is here that the results are determined and finalized.
Step 3: The NHL holds a "live presentation" of the results. (The results are determined already. This is just the official announcement.)
Step 4: Networks hold their own concurrent presentation with the NHL feed, adding their own commentary in between reveals.

Where the Columbus pick was announced before the card was revealed, has nothing to do with the lottery process. The order of the cards is already known. They could just tell you right at the start of the broadcast who had the number 1 pick. The "draft show" is only fanfare dragged out for suspense and viewership.
The actual lottery draw is boring and confusing for a general audience. A lot of procedure and only 2 actual draws, which take maybe 2 minutes each apart from checking and (re)setting the balls and Bettman reading the rules and procedures beforehand.
For transparency, the boring recorded drawing is posted on NHL.com after the presentation has been made.

There was an article on The Athletic too. The only interesting tidbit out of it....Daly refuses to be told the results before he flips the cards.

Ya gotta be kidding.

*St. Louis blues rival wins the lottery *

“itS rIgGeD”

Not kidding at all. Show us something that says otherwise.

And how? How would they rig it? Unless Earnst & Young, other teams, reporters, ESPN, and the commissioners office are all in on it, I don’t see how they could pull it off.

There were 14 balls. They came up in this order

5
13
4
9
9
8
10
6

So that nukes the heavy ball theory. A heavy ball would have produced 5-5-5-5-5-5-5-5.

Riiiiiight, because only Blues fans are saying this! You caught me!

Oh... wait... that's not even remotely true.

And honestly, I'm not even thinking of the rivalry. I'm thinking of a scumbag owned and operated organization gets to take away from small market teams.