from Bruce Garrioch at the Ottawa Citizen,

So, the real question is: Has the NHL’s weighted lottery worked?

It makes for a good debate and there are arguments for both sides, but it hasn’t completely halted teams from throwing in the towel since the opportunity is there to get better odds. The reality is, though, there’s more risk than reward because there’s an 81.5 per cent chance the NHL’s worst team won’t get the top pick Saturday.

The format for the lottery shifted to its current form in 2016 when the NHL switched to conducting three separate draws to determine the top three positions, and that’s given more teams the opportunity to move. Last year, New Jersey went from No. 5 to No. 1, Philadelphia went from No. 13 to No. 2 and Dallas moved from No. 8 to No. 3.

“There are critics who say that there are teams that are legitimately bad and they deserve to get the pick they’ve earned,” a league executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Postmedia earlier this week. “I think it works (to prevent tanking).

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