Red Wings to Pick Sixth After Draft Lottery

¯_(ツ)_/¯

— DetroitHockey.Net (@detroithockey96) April 10, 2019

What else do you want me to say?

The Red Wings, following their late-season surge, finished the season with the fourth-worst record in the NHL.  Per Tankathon, they were most likely to end up picking sixth overall.  That’s exactly where they ended up.  You can’t argue with math.

In fact, you can look at the fact that the Chicago Blackhawks moved up from 12th to third as proof that the NHL’s draft lottery is a crapshoot.  It’s hard to argue against that as that’s the whole point of the lottery.

I was on Team Tank from the start of the season and I still think it would have been better for the Wings to lose down the stretch than win.  Had the Wings lost two more games over the season it would have been them, not the New Jersey Devils, in the #3 slot that ended up winning the draft lottery and the right to select Jack Hughes.  If they’d dropped even further into the #2 slot, they might not have won the lottery, but they’d be picking fifth overall instead of sixth.  I find it hard to believe those few end of season wins outweigh that.

But it doesn’t matter at this point.  The Wings didn’t tank and they also didn’t get lucky.  They’re picking exactly where the math says they should.