NEW NHL Draft Lottery Debute tonight

The new system for the NHL draft lottery to determine which team will receive the number one over all pick, debuted tonight.  The lottery included all of the 14 teams not headed to the Stanley Cup playoffs; the system does not guarantee the team with the worst record the number one pick instead it gives odds to each of the 14 teams based on the points they have at the close of the regular season.   As the regular season advances each teams chance diminishes as they earn more points. This ensures that no one team can throws the season in order to secure the first pick. Prior to this new system, only the 5 worst ranked teams were in the lottery and winning permitted the team to move up only four spots.  This new system parallel’s the NBA.  

Here are the teams, points and their odds at winning the lottery:

Team	Points	Odds
Florida Panthers	36	25.0
Colorado Avalanche	39	18.8
Tampa Bay Lightning	40	14.2
Nashville Predators	41	10.7
Carolina Hurricanes	41	8.1
Calgary Flames	42	6.2
Edmonton Oilers	45	4.7
Buffalo Sabres	48	3.6
New Jersey Devils	48	2.7
Dallas Stars	48	2.1
Philadelphia Flyers	49	1.5
Phoenix Coyotes	51	1.1
Winnipeg Jets	51	0.8
Columbus Blue Jackets	55	0.5

Tonight the lottery was selected and here is the order of the 14 picks:

1. Colorado Avalanche

2. Florida Panthers

3. Tampa Bay Lightning

4. Nashville Predators

5. Carolina Hurricanes

6. Calgary Flames

7. Edmonton Oilers

8. Buffalo Sabres

9. New Jersey Devils

10. Dallas Stars

11. Philadelphia Flyers

12. Phoenix Coyotes

13. Winnipeg Jets

14. Columbus Blue Jackets

Pick 15-30 will be determined by the out come of the Stanley Cup playoffs, that starting tomorrow. All seven rounds of the draft will take place on June 30^th at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.  During the NHL Entry Draft, teams will select the rights to amateur hockey players who meet league eligibility(North American players 18–20 years old and Europeans of all ages entering league for the first time, all others enter league as unrestricted free agents) .  Some teams have already exchanged picks via trade earlier this season and carried over from last season – this list is very long.

Players to watch during the NHL Entry Draft are: Seth Jones defenseman of the Portland Winterhawks, according the NHL scouting is the number 1 ranked North American skater followed by Halifax Mooseheads' forwards Nathan MacKinnon and my personal favorite Jonathan Drouin. The top ranked international players are: Aleksander Barkov of the Finnish Elite,  Valeri Nichushkin out of Russia and Elias Lindholm of the Swedish Elite League.