Draft Lottery Tonight

...and for the first time in six years it doesn't involve the Isles! 

Quick: what's 14 x 13 x 12 x 11? It's 24,024.

What's that have to do with the Draft Lottery? Well, everything.

The lottery is conducted with the selection of four balls from a pool of 14. Once a ball is chosen, it is not replaced (so each ball can be selected only once). As if turns out, there are 24,024 possible "permutations" that can be chosen. However, when you change it to combinations (ie 1-2-3-4 is the same result as 4-3-2-1 or 2-3-4-1.... or 21 other permutations), there are only (24,024 divided by 24 = ) 1,001 possible results.

One of those 1,001 is thrown out (I don't believe that the NHL has ever identified which one it is) and the others are assigned to each of the teams.

Here are the odds of winning the lottery:

1 - Florida - 25.0%
2 - Colorado - 18.8%
3 - Tampa Bay - 14.2%
4 - Nashville - 10.7%
5 - Carolina - 8.1%
6 - Calgary - 6.2%
7 - Edmonton - 4.7%
8 - Buffalo - 3.6%
9 - New Jersey - 2.7%
10 - Dallas - 2.1%
11 - Philadelphia - 1.5%
12 - Phoenix - 1.1%
13 - Winnipeg - 0.8%
14 - Columbus - 0.5%

Remember, the biggest difference with past years is that the winning team will pick 1st overall no matter where they finished.  In the past, only the bottom 5 teams had a chance at the first overall pick.

The lottery will be held tonight and televised beginning at 8:00 on NBC Sports Network and TSN.

 

Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick