from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

Take away the crowd of Canadian teams desperately scavenging for talent and the big-name teenagers, and the NHL draft lottery turns into something akin to waiting for your number to be called at the butcher.

Necessary for the sake of orderliness, but hardly worth televising.

The New Jersey Devils would differ, of course, after ending up with the No. 1 pick on Saturday night. But with Martin Brodeur long retired, there’s not much left worth watching in Newark and probably won’t be for a long time. If you’ve been around this game a while, you’ll remember the Devils were the most ignored team in hockey until Wayne Gretzky called them Mickey Mouse.

Well, they’re back there again.

Meanwhile, the results of the 2017 lottery, let’s face it, could have simply been reported in a news release by the NHL. It sure didn’t pack the punch of the 2015 or ’16 event, with no player close to Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews, let alone Jack (The Real GM) Eichel or Patrik Laine, available this June. As well, while the lottery last year delivered five of the top six picks to Canadian teams, this year only two Canadian teams ended up with selections in the top 15.

Take out the CanCon and this event packs the same punch as NHL trade deadline day before noon.

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