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 13th – 17 Days to the Lottery
The Good:
From a Flames perspective they draft 6th and not 7th, so that’s a start, with only Montreal jumping from the back of the pack to grab a top three pick and not two teams doing the trick. The glorious part of the day however is that both Edmonton and Vancouver are shut out and move out of the top three in their selections in June. Edmonton will draft 4th, Vancouver 5th and Calgary 6th. Given the drafting competencies of both franchises that gap is nothing!
The Bad:
Another day, and another shut out for the Flames when it comes to winning one of the three lotteries. Out of the top three, out of the top 5, but at least this time at 6, they have a little more meat on the bone when it comes to options with said pick (assuming of course they’ve always had their eyes on that consensus top 7 and weren’t going off the board).
Simulation Rating:
This feels like a win to me. Not a jump up and down and hug everyone in your house kind of win, but compared to Vancouver and Edmonton landing Matthews as we saw in the first two iterations of this process, a win nonetheless. So on the backs of rivals being shut out and the Flames only moving back one spot I give this a 6.
The Picks:
1. Columbus – Matthews (making that Johansson for Jones trade look astute)
2. Toronto – Laine
3. Montreal – Puljujärvi
4. Edmonton – Dubois (nobody chases hype like the Oilers, so Dubois’ stock is up and they’re buying!)
5. Vancouver – Chychrun (Benning hinted at a defenseman, it’s their lucky day)
6. Calgary – Tkachuk
7. Winnipeg- Nylander
Flames Pick:
With the Oilers taking Dubois the Flames get their choice between Tkachuk and Nylander, but go the bruising route and take Keith’s off spring. He’s had an amazing OHL playoffs, and the club’s Eastern scouts believe he’s the real deal on not riding Marner’s coat tails. Given the finish to his season he has a somewhat likely chance of making the Flames out of camp in June. Should be interesting!
Simulation Summary (3 Iterations)
Flames Pick Average 6.7
Poll Average 3.9/10
Day 1 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 3.8/10
Day 2 – Flames Pick 7th, Poll result 2.1/10
