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Arizona Coyotes Lottery Choice May Be Decided By Buffalo Games

By William Grigsby

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Two vital home and home games against the Buffalo Sabres could decide where the Arizona Coyotes pick in the NHL Entry Draft

It’s a three way battle to see which team will get the best chance at selecting either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel. Edmonton, Arizona and Buffalo are positioned in the last three positions respectively of the NHL standings, and stand the best chances of turning their franchises around when selections are made.

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All three teams have 10 games remaining on their schedules, except for Arizona who lost tonight 3-1 to the Canucks. Edmonton has four home games remaining, and six road games. Arizona has three home games, and six left on the road. Buffalo has the best schedule to end their season, with six at home and four on the road.

When you examine the schedule further, you see that the Arizona Coyotes play the Buffalo Sabres at home on March 26th, and then travel to Buffalo for another game on March 30th. Consider these games as four point games, and if one team sweeps the other, that may significantly determine who finishes last in the standings — with the valuable result being a shot at drafting McDavid.

The rules for the 2015 NHL Entry Draft have changed this year. Here’s a recap per Brian Costello of The Sporting News:

In August 2014, the league announced changes to the draft lottery to be phased in over two years. The changes for 2015 are small adjustments to the odds of winning – they’re more evenly balanced now and the last-place team has a 20 percent chance of winning rather than 25 percent under the old format.

The real change doesn’t happen until 2016 when the lottery will be used to determine the top three selections in the draft.
By not making these sweeping changes right away for 2015, the NHL inadvertently will encourage the league’s worst teams to tank it in an effort to secure 30th place. That’s because for the 2015 draft, there are two generational prospects available. Connor McDavid has been called the stud of the 2015 draft for close to three years now. He’s been incredible this season. And in the past year, Jack Eichel has emerged as a close second option to McDavid. They’re head and shoulders better than the rest of a deep draft class.

So, just because the Arizona Coyotes may finish last in the standings does not guarantee they will get the first pick. The odds are: 20% for the 30th placed team, 13.5% for the 29th placed team, and 11.5% for the 28th placed team. You can see that the NHL is attempting to make the lottery more equitable by changing the odds from last years’ numbers which were: 25%, 18.8%, and 14.2%.

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    • Brian Costello of the Sporting News states this may cause teams to want to tank.

    “So why will a team want to tank hard this year? Under the 2015 format, the team finishing 30th has a 20 percent chance of winning the right to select first (McDavid) and an 80 percent chance of getting second pick (Eichel), because a team can only fall one slot. In other words, the last-place team has a 100 percent chance of drafting a generational player.”

    That should make it perfectly clear that when the Arizona Coyotes and the Buffalo Sabres play these two pivotal games some may term it the McDavid Cup. Right now the Arizona Coyotes seem to be “peaking” (in a mediocre kind of way..) at the right time to get the player every NHL team covets.

    I can’t even tell you what magnitude having a player of McDavid’s skills would mean to the Desert Dogs. It would be transformational, exceptionally awesome, sensationally super… well you get my point —  to land a young man of his talents and it would put Phoenix on the map in the NHL. This when there were so many doubts that this team would even be playing here with all the turmoil, trials (as in REAL trials) and tribulations that have transpired over the last four years or so.

    I can’t wait to see the outcome, so let the lottery balls fly through the air, like a Tobias Rieder breakaway, and we shall see which team has the luck of the draw. You know which team I’m cheering for, and if you’re an Arizona Coyotes fan this summer could be very exciting. And the NHL Entry Draft falls on my birthday, so I can’t think of a better gift than to see Connor McDavid in a Arizona Coyotes uniform… yeah that would do nicely, thank you very much!

    Next: Arizona Coyotes With Connor McDavid In The Lineup

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