Dumb Draft Lottery Game

[King_Canuckian]

As I'm sitting here reading about Team Canada and the World Hockey Championships, I somehow thought of Mario Lemieux and how the Penguins tanked to have the right to draft him.

 

And then I thought of a nice little time-wasting game...

 

Using the NHL simulator, (http://nhllotterysimulator.com/) use the original draft order to substitute a team into the current placement of teams and see what interesting differences might have occurred had a lottery existed back then.  For the purposes of this game, we will have to assume that all other drafts remain as they were, teams in the playoffs back then could still win a lottery pick, and all trades occurred as they did.

 

So for instance, let's take Lemieux's draft year - 1984.  Just now I picked Arizona (7th), Calgary (5th) and Edmonton (2nd).  In 1984, the teams in those positions would have been Detroit, Montreal, and New Jersey.

 

Imagine Lemieux playing on the same team as Yzerman.  Yes, Detroit became dominant anyways, but it would have gone a lot faster with those two anchoring the top two lines.  Can you imagine trying to defend Lemieux, and then Yzerman, or a power play with both of them?  Next was Montreal, and the following pick was Kirk Muller, who won a cup with Montreal anyways.  3rd pick was Ed Olczyk who was pretty serviceable for many years, and many teams.  Maybe NJ would have taken Al Iafrate instead and his booming slapshot.  Or perhaps it would have been the tanking Penguins who ended up with Iafrate.

 

Interested in reading some thoughts of others regarding this little game.

[King_Canuckian]

Interesting 2nd round... I was picking 1999 (the Sedin year), and I ended up picking Vancouver (3rd), Calgary (5th) and Columbus (4th).

 

So the picks would be Vancouver, then Islanders, then Rangers, while Atlanta fell to 4th, and Vancouver gets another pick at 5.

 

I guess this is where the game falls apart!  Burke is all about getting the Sedins, but can't seem to find any trading partners to get #2 and #3 like the actual history.  But he drafts Henrik anyways being the center.  Do the Rangers go with Daniel, or maybe Brendl like they originally did, or maybe they like Stefan's game.  Perhaps they were concerned Daniel might stay in Sweden if he didn't play with his brother, but I say they draft him anyways.  They had originally taken a left winger, and they were still in the "screw Vancouver" mode for 1994, and for taking Messier.  Islanders... they got a center in Connolly, so I say they went for Stefan, and also ruined him, since they were still in their own dark ages.  4th with Atlanta... since they didn't get the center they coveted, they go for Connolly, and Vancouver takes Brendl, and don't completely ruin him.

 

Just looked, and Brendl is active in Europe... who knew?