In a Toronto television studio tonight, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly will announce the results of a weighted draft lottery that could affect the Avalanche’s attempts to rebound from the abysmal 2008-09 season, a season that led to the Monday firing of Colorado general manager Francois Giguere.
For Colorado and the four other teams with a chance to end up with the top overall choice in the June 26-27 entry draft, the drawing could be called the John Tavares Sweepstakes. Tavares is the major-junior superstar virtually guaranteed to be the first player taken.
Craig Billington, the Avs’ vice president of hockey operations, will represent Colorado at the televised announcement.
All 14 NHL nonplayoff teams will be in the lottery, with one “winning” team selected. That winner gets to move up a maximum of four positions in the first round of the draft, so only five teams — the New York Islanders, Tampa Bay, Colorado, Atlanta and Los Angeles — have a chance at the No. 1 pick.
Colorado has a 14.2 percent chance of winning the lottery and ending up with the No. 1 overall pick, which almost certainly would lead to the Avalanche drafting Tavares, 18, a center with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League.
The Avalanche has a 56 percent chance of remaining in the No. 3 slot, and a 30 percent chance of sliding to No. 4.
Swedish defenseman Victor Hedman, who plays for Modo in the hockey hotbed of Ornskoldsvik, is considered a virtual lock to go second, but Colorado has no chance to end up with that pick.
Behind Tavares and Hedman, the third and fourth choices are expected to come from among centers Matt Duchene of the Brampton Battalion and Evander Kane of the Vancouver Giants, defenseman Jared Cowen of the Spokane Chiefs and left wing Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson of Timra in Sweden.
“It’ll be an exciting time to see where we end up,” Billington said Monday before leaving for Toronto. He joked that he was accepting all donations of good-luck charms, but then turned serious.
“Our focus here is that regardless of the outcome, we’re going to be drafting an elite player,” Billington said.
Depending on where their birthdays fall, the top draft-eligible players are 17 or 18. Only a handful of picks each year, if that many, end up jumping straight to the NHL, and most remain in major junior, college hockey or in Europe for at least one more season. Last year’s top overall choice, Tampa Bay center Steven Stamkos, had 23 goals for the Lightning this season, but at times looked as if he could have benefitted from another year in major junior.
However, Tavares and Hedman are considered notches above, perhaps ready to make major contributions on the NHL level.
The lottery is designed to avoid guaranteeing the team with the league’s worst record gets the top overall pick and therefore discourages “tanking” games. The selection of the one lottery winner involves pingpong balls and 1,001 numerical combinations, with combinations assigned to teams in proportion to the predetermined percentages.
Because the winner can’t move up more than four slots, the Islanders don’t have to win the lottery to end up with the No. 1 pick, and have a 48.1 percent chance of staying on top.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
Playing the odds
The Avalanche has a 14.2 percent chance of ending up with the rights to the top pick for the 2009 entry draft in tonight’s NHL draft lottery. The weighted drawing is to select only one nonplayoff team as the “winner.” If that team is the No. 30 New York Islanders, they stay where they are and pick first in the June draft. Colorado is one of four other teams that can get the top pick. That’s because the lottery winner can move up a maximum of four positions.
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editor’s error, an NHL draft chart that ran
with this story about the benefit of winning the draft lottery was incorrect. The winner of the Tuesday night draft lottery could move
up a maximum of four positions from its initial spot.
