On Saturday night the HNIC crew thought it best to run the lottery simulation 100 times and report the results. They were in and around the actual odds as expected, which proves my coming point. Don’t run the thing 100 times, run it once and get your head around what that would mean.
Every day between now and April 30th Calgarypuck will run the simulator once and then look at what that would mean. We will assess the result on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being the worst (see Edmonton) and 10 (Flames land Matthews) being the best.
April 21st- 9 Days to the Lottery
The Good:
Up to this time I’ve done a tremendous job of keeping the Oilers out of the number one hole in the draft lottery as they have only picked 1st one time until this morning. So that isn’t necessarily good in today’s instance, but perhaps good overall. This run does keep the Canucks, who have had a huge amount of success through 12 iterations (5 appearances in the top three), and the Leafs out of it.
The Bad:
Calgary picks 7th for the third straight day and the 5th time in 12 simulations, not good. Add in the Oilers adding Matthews to McDavid and a host of other first overall forwards and the whole hockey world would have a pretty rough April 30th. Not good at all.
Simulation Rating:
The Flames pick 7th (bad), and the Oilers pick 1st (brutal), so you know you’re looking at the bottom of the scale. The Canucks and Leafs are out of the way however which is good. The Flames getting neither of Tkachuk or Dubois is bad again. I’m going with a 2.
The Picks:
1. Edmonton – Matthews
2. Ottawa – Laine
3. Buffalo – Puljujärvi
4. Toronto – Dubois (that Babcock quote convinced me)
5. Vancouver – Chychrun (Defenseman their target)
6. Columbus – Tkachuk
7. Calgary – McLeod
Flames Pick:
The Flames go somewhat off the board and take McLeod with their pick, 7th overall. I just don’t see the Flames taking Nylander here given his lack of jam. The Flames aren’t exactly soft, but they could use more size and gumption and Nylander Jr just doesn’t bring that to the table. With McLeod they get all world speed and a never say die player that will fit the culture to a T.
Simulation Summary (5 Iterations)
Flames Pick Average 5.3
Poll Average 4.9/10
Day 1 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 3.8/10
Day 2 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 2.1/10
Day 3 – Flames Pick 6th, Poll result 5.2/10
Day 4 – Flames Pick 6th, Poll result 3.0/10
Day 5 – Flames Pick 6th, Poll result 4.0/10
Day 6 – Flames Pick 2nd, Poll result 9.0/10
Day 7 – Flames Pick 3rd, Poll result 8.6/10
Day 8 – Flames Pick 1st, Poll result 9.6/10
Day 9 – Flames Pick 6th, Poll result 2.5/10
Day 10 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 3.2/10
Day 11 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 2.7/10
